- Advanced search
- Maximize
Rick Warren’s Biblical Blowback
The proper role of government is to punish evildoers, Pastor Rick Warren tells Sean Hannity. If the Rev’s read is to be believed, the United States is in deep trouble.
Religion in Tension on World AIDS Day
From “God Hates Fags” to Desmond Tutu’s calls for compassion, religion has been deeply intertwined with the struggle for AIDS justice. Fully two decades after activists first challenged church authority on HIV/AIDS religion's report card is mixed.
After Mumbai: Winning the Global War on Terror
As long as the world community chooses to focus primarily on military options, these attacks will continue. But there are other options if we are willing to talk.
Mumbai is Not 9/11
Though many have already sought to draw comparisons between Mumbai and 9/11, the most striking thing about the horrific attacks in Mumbai is the local sense of place that that the terrorists tried to destroy.
Selective Sympathy and the Mumbai Chabad House
Are the deaths of “our” people more important to us? What were two Brooklyn Jews doing in India anyway? Our columnist reflects on the selective sympathies of Westerners—of Jews in particular—upon hearing the news of the murder of an Orthodox rabbi and his wife during this Indian national tragedy.
The “G-Word”: Genocide’s Slippery Nature
Once the camps are built and the trains are running—once the machetes have been distributed and the hate radio is broadcasting—it’s too late to respond. A Thanksgiving report on the state of our (un)ethical response to genocide.
RDBook: Is Zionism Anti-Semitic?: Zizek's Violence
Philosopher Slavoj Zizek thinks that Judaism and Zionism are in tension with each other, but this seeming paradox is just the tip of the iceberg, or Greenberg, or Goldberg...
Israel Under Bush: The Islamophobia Years
The Republican strategy of scapegoating Muslims may have been calculated to lure Jewish voters, a failed strategy that turns out to be the tail-end of a long and damaging trend.
The Law-less Legacy of Global Capital
John Law was a murderer, a gambler, and an economic advisor to kings. What does his story, and the tale of the first great market panic, have to tell us about today's financial crisis?
Killing the Prophet: The Spanish Exception
In a small town in Spain, a yearly festival celebrates the hybrid racial and cultural identities, both Christian and Muslim, of the local populace—a ritual of reconciliation.
The Politics We Deserve
Religious politics in America have been dominated by discourses of fear, violence and triumphalism in recent decades. It may be that after this election, although warnings of doom will issue forth as loudly as ever, other conversations about religion and social change may resound as well.
What 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?
Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired
The Vatican's website considers a patron saint of the internet, Muslims debate divorce by text, and Jews pray by email; How does the inevitable transition to the virtual realm affect religious experience across the world?
Pariah or Charmed Hero: America's Obsession with Jews and Israel
Listening to Palin and Biden, one is reminded that American support for Israel borders on obsessive. The biblical story of the golden calf reminds us that obsession does not usually produce good gods—or good policy.
Religious Right hammers Obama on abortion; 3 states, 3 anti-abortion initiatives; An Obama Supreme Court through the eyes of a conservative activist; Early marketing of the War on Christmas.
RDBook: Bernard Avishai's The Hebrew Republic
Political economist Bernard Avishai thinks that Israel's best hope for peace and a bright future is to embrace European-style secular democracy, integrating its Arab citizens into a business-driven globalized economy.
The United States has exported its contradictory and confusing HIV prevention strategy to Africa: Abstain, Be Faithful, Condoms (ABC). Herewith a modest proposal to reconcile Christianity, identity, and HIV prevention...
RD10Q: Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam
The author discusses his journey through a Muslim subculture, the connection between Nietzsche and Hendrix, and how heavy metal might end the war on terror...
How is it that a holiday and fasting month that inspires Muslims to do good things provokes a volatile reaction in a country that prides itself on religious freedom?
The Beijing Opening Ceremonies had an odd way of ignoring history, politics, and the West itself...