Religion Dispatches
The idea of martyrdom hasn’t been in very good shape lately. One common usage of it—“I’ll not be made a martyr!”—refers to the prospect of somewhat tragic but mostly useless suffering, perhaps in the service of a delusional cause, religious or otherwise…
Read MoreIt’s your duty as a Muslim to rebel.
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Recent studies of yoga reveal the formative influence of (wait for it) Buddhism, Jainism, Sufism, television, military calisthenics, Swedish gymnastics and the YMCA, as well as of radical Hindu nationalism, upon today’s postural yoga practice. There is no doubt that the Vedas, Upanishads, and folk traditions of India have been formative toward yoga: yoga is almost inseparable from them. Nevertheless to assert that yoga is essentially and primarily a Hindu practice means to ignore millennia of generative influence from other quarters. Worse still, it means to step blindly into a political fight for the heart of India that has simmered for over two hundred years.
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Had the inexperienced Idaho missionaries read so much as Haiti’s Wikipedia page they would have learned that the nation has a history of slavery, colonialism, and missions that warns against attempts to remove Haitian children from their home.
Read MoreMany have recognized colonialist themes in Avatar but is there also room for an anti-imperial reading of the bible in its narrative?
Read MoreWhat (and where) holidays mean; when the bloody demise of Jesus resonates more than the triumph over death.
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The best-selling poet in America today was born in Afghanistan, practiced a form of Islam that originated in Iraq, and has been dead for 800 years. How did a white man from Tennessee, who doesn’t read a lick of Persian, make Rumi accessible to mainstream America?
Read MoreWhat does it mean when someone like Sarah Palin uses religious rhetoric to talk about American foreign policy? Is she just provincial, or is she signaling a complete disregard for the principles of liberal democracy?
Read MoreWomen should not be excluded from the benefits of global sisterhood because of a shalwar kameez, or a business suit, or a kaffiyeh… Or because of Islam.
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