newt gingrich

Election 2012, Politics/Law

The New Disciples: Report from South Carolina

By

Across South Carolina—and indeed the country—voters attend tiny churches, Bible studies, and prayer meetings. Their collective views on the candidates are much more difficult to measure and assess. And while they may be consumers of Christian talk radio, or televangelism, or other religious media, they are not lock-step followers of the decisions of elites who met at a ranch in Texas, or of Jim Bob Duggar, or of anything but their own received revelation. 

Read More
(A)theologies

What’s Islamophobia, and Do I Have It?

By

I’m not arguing that Islamophobia is racist, or that Islamophobes are racists, because that’s not quite what’s happening. For one thing, Islamophobes embrace ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and racists wouldn’t (indeed couldn’t) do the same. But consider the similarities: the Islamophobe must assume Muslims suffer some sort of pre-Islamic inferiority, sufficient to explain how some (largely non-white) people—actually, a lot of people—not only fell for Islam in the first place, but then stayed down. How long do enforced ideologies last? Nazism: twelve years. Communism: some decades. Islam: Fourteen centuries and counting.  

Read More