Op-Ed: “Religion As A Wedge”: The Rick Warren Debacle
With the choice of Rev. Warren to make the inaugural invocation, the president elect has proven himself tone deaf to the nuances of American religious life.
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The Most Popular Stories of 2008
The numbers are in and you, the reader, have chosen your favorite RD stories of the year; from Rick Warren to AIPAC, Sarah Palin, Creationism 2.0 and the fabled “death” of the religious right.
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The War On Terror Is Over
First of all, the phrase “war on terror” needs to be retired. As a war, it is largely imagined, and as an idea it is ill-conceived. The effect of thinking in terms of global war is to make enemies out of millions of Muslims who would otherwise have been our friends.
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Inauguration Day: Re-imagining Ourselves
With the election of Barack Obama Americans have proven that we are able to re-imagine something as fundamental as race, as the perception of our bodies in society. But oppression is a complex mechanism, and we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded to its workings.
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“The Call” Warns of Antichrist Legislation in California and Beyond
The conservative evangelical founder of “The Call,” Lou Engle, is on a crusade to end legal abortion in the United States. He believes that George W. Bush and his Supreme Court picks were the result of prayer and, as depicted graphically in Jesus Camp, he aims to inspire young evangelicals to defeat the forces of Satan and his legislation.
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Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead
This Halloween, apart from your garden-variety ghouls, skeletons, monsters, witches, vampires and zombies, Americans will be visited by the ghosts of past presidents, the spirits of dead soldiers, and by the souls of those who endured slavery. It is a season of reckoning, both social and political. The election, on the other hand, is about life, today, now. Or is it?
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History in the Making: Religion, Race and Gender in the Presidential Election
A distinguished scholar and minister reflects on the persistence of racism in US political history, on the role of religion in political culture, and on the fulfillment of long-awaited vision of a world community built on justice and freedom.
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Op-Ed: A Few Things I Wish Barack Obama Had Said
I deeply regret that some people took, or claimed to take, my use of this metaphor as a reference to Sarah Palin. Let me say categorically that I do not see Governor Palin as a pig…
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Neither Christ Nor Antichrist: A Reflection on the Election of Barack Obama
When we think of Obama as “savior-elect,” we court trouble. When we forget history we weaken our own resolve; mysteries can be dangerous and days of Jubilee do not always end with eras of sublimity.
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History in Real Time: Teaching Obama
A professor of African-American religious history talks about teaching with a heavy heart, year after year, about the truths of racism. With the election of Barack Obama, this year will be different, but the journey of healing has only just begun.
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