Six Overlooked Gems from the Future of World Religions Report
The Leftovers: Hot HBO Drama or Hot New Religious Trend?
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Jews and Muslims Join Forces for Academic Freedom
My university is not a battleground.
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The Collapse of the American Jewish Center
The polarization of American Jews has increased with each large-scale eruption of fighting between Israel and Palestinians. With each escalation there has been a shift of pro-two-state solution activists to the left; at the same time, though, the right becomes strengthened and entrenched.
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When Children’s Literature is Not Defined by “Innocence”
I wanted to think about how we mediate the past for children—and how we tell stories about children who lived in the past. Writing about religion, memory, and children’s literature became my way of doing that.
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Multifaith Weight Loss: The Problem of Fat, the Promise of Peace
When things go well, feelings of “joy” and being “moved” abound, much like the Slim Peace participants claim of their experience. It is unclear whether such events actually change how these Jews and Muslims perceive each other, or if they only change how Jews and Muslims view themselves.
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“Hey You! Anti-Semite!”: A Jewish Krewe does Mardi Gras
Krewe du Jieux parades through the French Quarter every year, tossing bagels and handing out “Jew eggs,” small plastic eggs containing a yarmulke-wearing baby.
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Apocalypse Now and Then: Our Global Death Wish
What ought we do about millennial thinking in our day? If the combined 1300 pages of these two books have taught me anything, it’s that we can’t make it just go away. There is something fascinating, and perverse, in the human psyche that seems to yearn for this world to be other than how it is, even if that means destroying it.
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“Profound Delight in Being”: Remembering John Hick
John Hick, a celebrated theologian and philosopher who died earlier this year, was drawn to issues that transcend any particular tradition—the question of evil, the meaning of suffering, life after death, and religious diversity.
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A Neoconservative Jesus, Certified Kosher
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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Traditional Marriage: One Man, Many Women, Some Girls, Some Slaves
So, let’s see if I can total all this up. Traditional marriage is one man with multiple wives, multiple concubines, wives conquered in war and wives acquired in levirate marriage, possibly including girls under the age of ten, but definitely not including anyone of a different ethnic group, in an arranged marriage with disposition of property as its purpose. That seems very different from “one man, one woman,” does it not?
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