Books

(A)theologies, Books, Israel-Palestine

How to Separate Jewishness from Zionism

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Parting Ways is Butler’s attempt to construct a Jewish narrative that coheres with her philosophical and political sensibilities as well as her allegiance to her Jewish heritage and lineage. As a Jew for whom religious practice and the Jewish textual tradition do not constitute her Jewish core, hers is a secular narrative of Jewishness outside the orbit of Zionism. Butler’s concern for Israel is that she believes its present construction is “Jewishly” indefensible (in the terms she develops in her book) and the muscularity with which Zionism is proffered squashes any alternative narrative of diasporic Jewish identity.

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Books, Science & Technology

High Ark: A Geologist on the True Meaning of Noah’s Flood

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At the Creation Museum in Kentucky, a place that promotes the idea that all of these layers of rock got created at once through Noah’s Flood—and yet right under their feet is this beautifully vetted stretch of limestone, it’s really too finely laminated and too extensive to possibly be explained by something like that. So you look at these things and you have to ask, what do you make of the world? Can the world tell its own story?

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(A)theologies, Books

The Faith that Faith Produced

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“I was washing dishes in the kitchen when I stopped believing in God. Years later, I’m often unsettled at how much of my life I’d spent in that kitchen and how little of it I can recall, except for that one moment. Overwhelmed by constant desperation, I turned suddenly courageous, pondered what might happen if He didn’t exist, decided that He didn’t, and then He was gone. I think the rapid departure hit me the hardest. How had I been so easily taken in?” 
—An excerpt from Haroon Moghul’s essay in All American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim

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Books, RD10Q

Still Captivated by Southern Gospel

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Why is a gay secular humanist academic who left the world of orthodox fundamentalist evangelicalism half a life time ago still singularly captivated by Southern gospel music? Why, in the book’s terminology, have I been a Southern gospel sissy lo these many years since evangelicalism ceased to otherwise be a functional worldview for me? And why am I still proud and happy about it? Turned outward, the question becomes: What is it about the music that supports so many various affections and attachments?

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(A)theologies, Books

The Redemptive Power of Jewish Self-Hatred

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“Jewish self-hatred” is an epithet that Jews fling at other Jews—for not being religious enough, or for daring to criticize Israel. As Paul Reitter puts it in his book, On the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred, the term is an “an instrument of censure,” a “smear.” Reitter’s title is slightly misleading—the book doesn’t explain why some Jews hate themselves. Instead he explains the origin of the term. Reitter argues that many historians have wrongly assumed that the term has always been censorious, but careful study reveals that Jewish self-hatred was first put forward for a salutary, even messianic purpose.

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Books, Culture, Sexuality/Gender

The Gospel Church and the Ruining of Gay Lives: An Interview with Anthony Heilbut

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Most insiders to this world are privy to the open secret of gospel’s deep reliance on the contributions and influence of gay men and women. But Heilbut opens wide the closet doors and peers in with the bright light of righteous outrage for the plight of the children in an increasingly homophobic religious culture, while also bringing a deeply felt sensitivity for the stories of the children and their musical sensibility. As he writes: “It is impossible to understand the story of black America without foregrounding the experiences of the gay men of gospel.”

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Books, RD10Q

The Book David Barton Doesn’t Want You To Read

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“Being a Christian scholar is first and foremost about getting the facts right and it should not be about trying to make an historical figure match your religious and political views or agenda. Sloppy and misleading historical writing used for advancing an agenda harms the general reputation of Christians as scholars.”

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(A)theologies, Books

No Longer At Sea: Kate Bornstein Talks Scientology

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When I first thought about writing the book, I thought I was dealing with the same Scientology I remembered, but I’ve since realized that it has changed. We never thought of it as a religion back then! We would call it a Church, but we would “wink” because we were fighting to get tax-exempt status. But I know that Scientologists today believe that it’s a Church—a religion—and it is becoming one.

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