Religion Dispatches
The plot of Twilight: a young woman—clumsy and plain—is deeply and unconditionally loved and protected by an all-powerful, omnipotent being whose love makes her special. For a moment, Twi-hards let themselves believe, however crazy it sounds, that they too could be irresistibly beautiful one day, loved by an ideal God-man who sees them, really sees them.
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“The First Muslim isn’t a “message” book. If anything, since I’m agnostic, you might call it an agnostic biography. But I think many readers may be surprised at Muhammad’s deep commitment to social justice, his radical protest against greed and corruption, and his impassioned engagement with the idea of unity, both human and divine—major factors that help explain the appeal of Islam.”
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Part of the scandal of American Christianity is that statistically the U.S. is the most Christian country in the world, and yet as a country we have the greatest income inequality in the world. And as a country we are uncritically committed not simply to being the most powerful nation in the world militarily, but to being as militarily powerful as the rest of the world combined.
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Dialogue between atheists and the religious is an absolute minefield. I can promise you there are no kumbaya drum circles in this book—if that’s your thing, great, but it isn’t mine, and it doesn’t have to be your thing to get involved in efforts that promote religious pluralism.
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The Souther Baptist Convention’s Lifeway Christian Resources refused to stock Rachel Held Evans’ book ostensibly because it contains the word “vagina.” Or is it that a female writer will only be acceptable if she recites SBC rhetoric, fully supports SBC leaders, and knows her place at home and at church?
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In the book, Gene Robinson tackles questions like why marriage is an issue for LGBT people, why straight people should support it and why civil unions, while they are a good first step, simply won’t be enough to satisfy the LGBT community.
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It’s easy. It’s so easy to skewer the American South, to depict its denizens and cultural products and religious values as a homogenized clutch of deprivation and backwardness. It’s so easy that The Learning Channel is riding high in the ratings game these days with Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, the latest offering to confirm mainstream media’s deep investment in portraying a one-dimensional and abject South. The old weary stereotypes slide down smoothly, like the creamy underlayer of a hashbrown casserole. It takes too much work to refract the South through a variegated interpretive lens; and besides, would consumers buy into this multifaceted vision anyway? If ever there were a bullseye target for this kind of elitist and unhelpful framing, it would surely be Southern Gospel music.
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By tracking the way Jesus Christ has been rendered through the American racial imagination—actually lining up all the evidence, from Puritan witch trial transcripts through stained glass windows through contemporary movies—Paul and Ed give us a new place to start a national discussion about who owns the image of God. That discussion has been going on, as The Color of Christ demonstrates, in communities of color since the early nineteenth century, if not before.
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A new memoir by Israeli peace activist Miko Peled, the son an honored general, details a far different history from the one most Americans are familiar (or comfortable) with.
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For those still in denominations like the United Methodists that are not accepting of LGBT people, go to your church and put a note in the offering plate that says you won’t give until things change. Every time we’ve tried that, the pastors have called people in immediately to talk to them and it opened up a dialogue in that church that was serious because they could see that that could spread among other people who are pro-gay. One thing you can do is withhold your money. Why are we supporting our own oppression?
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