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Sam Harris and the New Islamophobes, Deconstructed

By Hamdan Azhar

…(“the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists”) has never denied that religious intolerance lies at the heart of his worldview: “science must destroy religion.” Now, he is doubling down on his anti-Muslim animus: “The bad acts of the worst individuals—the jihadists, the murderers of apostates, and the men who treat their wives and daughters like chattel—are the best examples of the doctrine…

A Long History of Blaming the Jews

By Gordon Haber

…k for the political status of Jews a millennium later. In the Middle Ages, European monarchs “insisted that the Jews belonged to them in a peculiar way, different from that of their other subjects” (emphasis Nirenberg’s). Thus the king could use the Jews as tax collectors and moneylenders, and in both cases get his hands on most of the cash. In thirteenth century England, for example, King Henry III taxed Jewish moneylenders so heavily that they h…

How Robert Bellah (1927-2013) Changed the Study of Religion

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…e the remarkable developments of the 16th through the 18th century that in Europe included the Reformation and the Enlightenment. This was a moment of anti-authoritarian popularism in society that resulted in a new social form of religiosity, a communitarian spirit that transformed Christianity and gave rise to a whole new protestant movement. At the same time, similar movements were emerging in other traditions in other parts of the world. In Ind…

Note to the New Pope: Half of the World’s Poor are Women

By Marian Ronan

…rgoglio of Buenos Aires, stepped out on the Vatican loggia at 8:22 Central European Time today to be introduced to the world. In some respects, the election of Cardinal Bergoglio is a very promising sign. As an archbishop from the most populous Catholic continent on Earth, Latin America, the new Pope Francis I symbolizes a shift that has been a very long time coming, from Eurocentrism to the Church of the Global South. Not to mention his reputatio…

Bibi’s Bad History

By Shaul Magid

…-uncle being pursued and beaten by anti-semites somewhere in “the heart of Europe,” gesturing to the Nazis but extending beyond them. The finale proclaims that “biblical prophecies are being realized,” supported by a quote from the prophet Amos that the Jews “will never be uprooted again from their land.” The problem here is that Amos prophesied in the eighth century B.C.E., long before the Second Temple. Indeed the Jews did return to the land, on…

Fear of a New Jewishness

By Jacob S. Dorman

…models of Judaism and Jewishness developed relatively recently in Eastern Europe—the object of much shtetl nostalgia among American Jews—may have shaped Ashkenazi Jewishness to be far more insular, and far more pale, than was the historic norm among Jews in earlier times or other parts of the world. In other words, it is quite possible that the process that the Pew Report documents of centrifugal forces creating a wide spectrum of American Jewi…

Harold Camping, Prophet of Apocalypse, Dies at 92

By Daniel Silliman

…d. Therefore, we should not be surprised at what we are learning about the numbers God has placed in the Bible. We should not be surprised at the new insights many believers are receiving, insights that relate to the timing and the details of the end of the world. There were about 80,000 copies of the two books in print when the end didn’t come. “So that was inaccurate,” Camping told Christianity Today. The error didn’t cause Camping to reform. If…

Global LGBT Recap: “Lavender Fascism,” Rage in India, Pope Francis Ousts Culture Warrior

By Peter Montgomery

…gress in the UK illustrates the growing divide between eastern and western Europe on LGBT issues that is documented in a new report from Pew. A ban on adoption by gay couples in Northern Ireland has been lifted over objections from government officials after the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court denied a request from Northern Ireland Health Minister Edwin Poots to appeal a June court ruling that the ban violated European rights law. Northern Ireland’…

Global LGBT Recap: Promise and Peril in the New Year

By Peter Montgomery

…equality and reproductive choice that it works to foment and strengthen in Europe and international bodies. The Vatican: Malta, India, Uganda, More to Come Toward the end of 2013, Pope Francis was declared person of the year by both TIME magazine and, more controversially, by the LGBT-oriented Advocate. As the year draws to a close, conservative and liberal Catholics, and LGBT Catholics and non-Catholics, will be keeping a close eye on the Vatica…

You Are What You Eat: New Book on Cannibalism Reimagines What It Means to Be Made of Flesh

By Michael Schulson

…? What about taking pills made from powdered mummies? That was a remedy in European pharmacies into the 20th century. Is eating your own placenta an act of cannibalism? What about eating someone else’s placenta? Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History Bill Schutt Algonquin Books, February 2017 Stop thinking in culinary terms, and the question gets even thornier, because bits of human bodies cross over into other human bodies all the time. Ailing…