Religion Dispatches
Haidt’s primary point is actually a good one: people on all sides of the political debate ought to listen more carefully, and try harder to understand one another. He correctly identifies a cardinal sin of so many liberals and lefties: failing to give conservatives an honest hearing. But it’s lousy strategy. If you want to win, you’ve got to have the best possible intelligence about what the other side is up to.
Read MoreA pair of evangelical professors have written a point-by-point refutation of the religious right’s favorite historian. The question remains: does it matter?
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Is the human drive for immortality, from the Alexander the Great to Frankenstein to the latest technology-driven movements, just an illusion?
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Why “spiritual, but not religious” is problematic and makes one academic want to punch those who say it in the face. Hard. Theologians are often open about their religious stance, so there shouldn’t be a double standard for critical, reflective atheist voices.
In many ways, The Rich and the Rest of Us is political sustenance for the already converted to liberal and leftist causes. Quoting historian Howard Zinn and looking to the insights of filmmaker Michael Moore probably will not convince many conservatives to rally to the cause—and when Smiley and West rely on Barbara Ehrenreich, they are drawing upon a fellow dissident. Put simply, they are preaching to the choir—but choirs need encouragement too. This is what Smiley and West accomplish: they provide the Occupy generation with a text to rally around.
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After some perfunctory praise of the last three popes, Boteach gets down to his Glenn Beck-ish business: “The American Evangelical community has proven the most stalwart and reliable friend of Israel in the United States.” Christians and Jews are now “brothers” because “together they confront the implacable foe of Islamist terrorism.”
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In The Mirage, 9/11 is actually 11/9, the day when Christian fundamentalists from Texas slammed airliners into Baghdad skyscrapers, sparking a war on terror that rages across a nearly unrecognizable North America. Will Americans go for a book where the world power is the United Arab States and the lead characters are almost all Arabs and Muslims?
Read MoreI was excited to read Religion for Atheists—really I was. Here’s a confessed atheist, pop philosopher Alain de Botton, who nonetheless actually believes that religion is worth looking at, unlike his more militant friends in the New Atheist camp. .
Read MoreSome people think that evangelicals only do charity out of a selfish desire to convert non-believers. Others insist that evangelical faith-based organizations are secretly installing a Christian theocracy. Both assumptions are misguided in my view because they are too narrow. Moral Ambition seeks to broaden (and refine) our sense of what everyday evangelicals believe they are doing, or would like to be doing, when they engage the public sphere.
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Not since The Israel Lobby has a Jewish book evoked so much ire and criticism from the American Jewish community.
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