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‘Manufactured’ Smear Campaign Attempts to Intimidate Church ‘Fasting From Whiteness’— It Didn’t Work

By Frederick Clarkson

…nce of certain Ideas & Principles upon which this nation is built—Liberty, Freedom of Conscience, Equality.” Turning Point’s video suggests that the church’s program promotes “disunity” and “segregation.” But here too, there’s no evidence to support the claim, and plenty that refutes it. As Edgerton told the Chicago Sun Times, “You don’t fast from things that are despicable. … You don’t fast from things that are ugly,” he said. “You fast from thos…

No “Cancel Culture” on the Right: How Conservative Christians Protect the Powerful

By Chrissy Stroop

…legitimately weaponized and used to harm less powerful people? Sure. I’m a freelance writer and a trans woman with no trust fund to my name, and this is something I unfortunately know from personal experience. But it’s a leap to conclude from the inappropriate weaponization of “cancel culture” that all opinions deserve access to all platforms. Nor is this a reason to stick our heads in the sand, ostrich-like, and ignore the very real ways in which…

Searching in Vain for a “Pure” Elie Wiesel

By Martin Kavka

…th leftist intellectuals who reject it. Perhaps another generation will be free enough to criticize Israel; I cannot. [Italics added.] Was this a betrayal of his other broadly humanist commitments? Absolutely. There is no reason why critics should not continue to take Wiesel to task for what he said about Palestinians, or why they should not point out how especially unprepared Wiesel was for the recent growth of Israeli racism. But if we have anyt…

House Votes to Repeal DADT

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ans Affairs reported in 2000 that “55 percent of women experienced sexual harassment in the military. And a 2005 study estimates that more than half of women in the reserves and National Guard suffered sexual assault or harassment during their service.” From the numbers, it would seem that the majority of harassers in the military are straight men. Could this be the real fear of the religious right, that the inclusion of gay and lesbian soldiers w…

‘Do You Want Columbia to be Cursed by God?’ — Alarming Exchanges in Congress and Beyond Highlight the Desperate Need for Religious Literacy

By Chance Bonar

…itism, Islamophobia, (anti-)Zionism, and Israel (not to mention democracy, free speech, and open dialogue). These debates would be more fruitful if informed by the way scholars of religion approach their subject matter. As a starting point I’ve found Harvard Divinity School’s Religious Literacy Project and its four principles (which also happen to be guiding principles of RD) to be helpful in the classroom: Devotional religious expression is disti…

Searching for Moral High Ground While Houston Drowns: A Perspective on the Lakewood Church Controversy

By Joshua L. Lazard

…istianity function so closely with some of the core American ideals around free-market capitalism, wealth and consumerism. Prosperity gospel, for instance, only makes logical sense in a system of free-market capitalism. Those core American ideals have come under assault in very public ways when measured against the yardstick of liberation theology and faith-based social justice initiatives. By Tuesday afternoon, August 29, news sources were report…

Far-Right Evangelicals And The Campaign Against Obama

By Frank Schaeffer

…ht are the ultimate camp followers. They’re latching onto government for a free ride while decrying it. They want to overthrow the present order from the inside in the name of God. The result is that there are two kinds of far-right evangelicals: the ones who make a public show of their animosity toward the president, accusing him of not being an American citizen, for example. They even say Obama has a secret plan to kill old people within his hea…

Olympic Ritual and Religion, Hosted by a Religion-less State

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…the god worshiped at the altar of his revival was supposed to be. He had a number of suggestions, among them the spirit of internationalism and common (not cosmopolitan—he was insistent on this point) humanity… and even peace which, as he wryly noted, “has become a sort of religion among us.” He suggested still more coyly, in a famous essay composed in 1929 (and entitled simply “Olympia”), that there was a kind of paganism at the heart of his revi…

Obama Inaugural Address Challenges Tea Party History

By Julie Ingersoll

…the Republic included “as he died to make men holy let us die to make men free,” when the more common version these days calls on us to “live to make men free.” Yet even with regard to the way military force has been central to what it means to be American, the president presented a new narrative, asserting that “peace and lasting security do not mean we are in a state of perpetual war.” One of the most important ways in which the tea party and…

The Harvard Gym Controversy is Not About Religion

By Shabana Mir

…lightful swimming party. Some of my non-Muslim women friends envied us the freedom of swimming with women alone. One told me how she disliked baring unnecessary lengths of flesh for the pool—whether for modesty or for self-consciousness or because she hated having to shave. The swimsuit, for instance, is after all an inherently eroticized, sexualized garment. There’s a reason why Sports Illustrated has a swimsuit issue. It’s also why men love to l…