Religion Dispatches
Can a religious text be lethal? The story of Abraham and Isaac, shared by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, has been used for centuries to glorify sacrifice—and it has never been our own story more than it is right now.
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An interview with the author of a new book that takes a critical look at the biblical tale of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and sons, claiming that this story at the core of anxiety between religions isn’t exactly as it seems.
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Writer Michael Baigent talks about his latest book, Racing Toward Armageddon.
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Is Easter drained of meaning if we acknowledge its borrowed practices and mixed origins? Is there a limit to how porous the boundaries between traditions should become?
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Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau picks up an unfortunate thread in his latest cartoon, in which a character ponders the superiority of Jesus to the wrathful OT deity, and inferences are made regarding moneychangers and usury.
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The first decade of the twenty-first century seems to have upended the Jewish world. What does it mean that conservatives, and some Orthodox, have begun to agitate for social justice, while progressives, traditionally secular, are “taking back the texts”?
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Netanyahu’s decision to declare two holy sites located in the Palestinian Territories and once shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims “national heritage sites” triggers violence and conflict.
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Two new books, one offering a vision of interfaith, universal religion, the other a model of a radically transformed Judaism, attempt to wrestle God into the everyday. Against the ascendancy of the so-called New Atheism, both writers argue for a God who transcends “god-management systems” and whose primary claim on us is through our own spiritual longing.
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The reactions to the English-language publication of a book deemed “a scandal” reveal as much about the politics of contemporary Israel (and of its relation to the American Jewish community) as they do about the history the book describes. It’s not that Shlomo Sand believes that the Jews are not the chosen people—he argues that they might not be a people at all.
Read MoreThe Orthodox Jews of Lakewood, New Jersey, are worried about supporting the rights of gays and lesbians to marry because it might reflect badly on the community. Rabbi Justus N. Baird offers a corrective.
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