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Youth Violence Among American Muslims: A Perspective
What drives some young American Muslims to fight other people’s wars—or worse still, to bring these battles home?
Conservative 'Cafeteria Catholics' Favor Opposition to Gay Marriage Over Health Care
As the debate over gay marriage is reignited in New Jersey, the local Roman Catholic bishops threw themselves in with a zeal they have yet to display in the fight for universal health care, despite theological requirements that they fight for it. Are they acting like “cafeteria Catholics,” picking and choosing which parts of the Church’s mandates to follow?
Revisiting Hagar, The Woman Who Named God
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.
Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity
The idea of transgender Christianity shocks people on both sides of the divide: conservative religious reject any kind of gender variance and the LGBT community can be suspicious of organized religion. In all of this, trans-Christians are forging a new spirituality.
How Should We Speak of Unspeakable Evil?
Do we turn to the wrong institutions when we go to courts of law to attempt to enact forgiveness or reconciliation for genocide?
Seeing the Future: Can Religion Evolve and Survive in a Changing World?
Since the fall of Secularization Theory, which claimed that belief in God would slowly recede in the face of science and technology, we still must ask: Is there a future for formal, organized, institutionalized religion as we presently recognize it in rapidly globalizing, postindustrial and postmodern world? Here’s what religion will have to do for humans to survive and flourish.
“[I] Pray For Barack Obama To Die And Go To Hell”: The Story The Media Missed
When an Arizona man brought guns to an Obama speech the story went unnoticed by a media prone to seeing such people as lone nuts. A look at the sermons of his virulently anti-gay pastor who’s been praying for Obama’s death, however, reveals similarities to a far right theology associated with militias, radical prolifers, and proponents of theocracy.
Mobilizing Religious Progressives on Health Care
The President is reaching out to faith leaders to help reframe the health care debates in moral terms, and religious progressives are heeding the call(s).
What Good is a Morality That Doesn’t Encompass All Life on Earth?
The way we live will lead, inevitably, to the extinction of half of the planet’s biodiversity by century’s end. How can our morality, or our religion, prepare us for this?
Rarefied Islamophobia: When Americans Duplicate the European Cultural Talk
By presenting itself as a disinterested collection of “facts” and “data,” an alarmist new book about the Muslim threat to Europe has been taken more seriously than your standard Islamophobic pamphlet.
Oh My God(dess)! Feminist Spirituality in the Third Wave
Feminists hate religion, right? Not necessarily. From Christian feminists participating in Wiccan rituals to Goddess worshipers honoring Jesus, the landscape of feminist spirituality is is not what it was in the ’60s and ’70s.
Senator Ted Kennedy: A Catholic We Could Canonize
Though he was never one to wear his religion on his sleeve, Sen. Kennedy’s liberal record of working for social justice falls squarely within the Catholic tradition.
Air Kissing the Mezuzah: Religion and Science Collide in Fight Against Virus
In both Israel and India, religious rituals governing purity and health are clashing with efforts to stop the “swine flu” virus from spreading and killing more citizens.
The Unbelieving Future of Christian Faith
Adherence to doctrine has long been a marker of faith among Christians. But what do the creeds and fine distinctions of theological argument have to do with commitment to justice?
When Words Kill: A Health Care Glossary
Euthanasia, end-of-life, death with dignity, assisted suicide: these mean entirely different things depending on whom you consult. The health care debates have enormously high stakes, and yet we don’t even agree on the terms.
Health Care Post-Mortem: Left is Right, Right is Left and Public is Loser
So long as the health care battle is focused on the model of market competition—the very notion that health care is best conceived as a for-profit industry—the whole debate is a non-starter. If a meaningful health care reform is to pass, Democrats and liberals will have to return to their social justice roots.
Sisterhood is Islamic: an Interview with Daisy Khan
The face of modern global feminism is wearing hijab. The director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement talks to us about the new "Jihad Against Violence" and other developments in the worldwide Muslim women's movement.
On the ELCA’s Historic Shift to Include Gay Clergy: Reflections of a Self-Exiled Lutheran
Reflecting with mixed emotions his decision to leave the church of his childhood over its inability to accept gays, the author recalls his own words, that “Scripture calls us to look beyond Scripture, to God and to our neighbor,” and wonders whether he should return to the church; indeed, whether such a thing is possible.
Afghan Idol: Can a Talent Competition Save a Nation?
An interview with the director of Afghan Star, a documentary that follows a tense but cathartic talent competition.
On the Taliban’s Hit List: An Exiled Pakistani Singer’s Plea to Save Music
An interview with a singer marked for death by the Taliban. Curiously, while the Taliban claims that music is a violation of Islamic law, they do have their own melodies and hymns.