Anthony Samad: Religion without sincerity, reason, or spirituality is not a good look no matter who wears this evil jacket. Evil things happen when people play with God and use political motives to desecrate his word.
A Burning Question: Extremists on 9/11
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Tina Dupuy: While the debate about books by those who read had been centered on the iPad versus the Kindle – Dove World’s debate is the bible versus the kindling. Which makes bloodletting suddenly seem forward thinking.
Ramadan: The Best Time To Discuss America’s Growing Anti-Muslim Sentiment
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Anthony Samad: You have ideologues like Newt Gingrich saying building a mosque near the twin tower site is tantamount to building a Nazi building next to a Holocaust site, or building a Japanese memorial at Pearl Harbor.
Destroying America to Save It: Reflections on a Mosque
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John Peeler: There is a more fundamental issue: if we allow our response to be governed by intolerance, we deal a hard blow to the version of America that embodies freedom of religion for all. Will we then turn in upon ourselves, resentful and repressive towards the Other, and terrified to live by our own truth?
But Is It Good for the Jews?
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Ed Rampell: The Netanyahu government’s “might makes right” stance not only jeopardizes international Jewry, but above all endangers Israel. Unnecessarily pissing off most of the international community may not be a good survival strategy, but it is a tried and true formula for hate crimes perpetrated against those perceived as belonging to the offenders.
Angels and Innocents
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Sikivu Hutchinson: Since God sees and “forgives” everything that is petitioned, the moral universe of children is a tiny, confining funhouse of mirrors. In communities where death at an early age is considered unremarkable by mainstream media and policymakers, the deferment demanded by faith is an insurance policy against social oblivion.
Holy Wars: Putting the “Mental” into Fundamentalism
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Ed Rampell: General Sherman, who burned Atlanta to the ground, rather famously and pithily said, “War is hell.” Stephen Marshall’s new documentary about religious fanaticism, Holy Wars, turns Sherman’s quote on its head with the clever tagline, “War is Heaven.”
Pistol-Packing Politicians and the Prince of Peace
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Berry Craig: Now one office seeker from the Wild West is appearing in a TV commercial, shooting guns and invoking the Almighty. She’s Machine Gun Gorman, an uber-conservative candidate for Congress in the Arizona Republican primary.
The Right Side of History: Religious Leaders Urge Immigration Reform
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Seth Hoy: Conservative religious leaders made the case for common sense solutions to our immigration system—comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) that secures our borders, follows the rule of law and provides a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S.
Religion’s Ugly Head
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Carl Matthes: After speaking directly with God, the current Leading Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 86-year-old Boyd Packer revealed last year that Mormons must form an alliance with Catholic Bishops in California to stop the desecration of Christian teaching. The aim of this unholy alliance? Stop same-sex marriage.
Constitution Contains Not One Commandment
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Tina Dupuy: There are no democratically elected leaders in the Christian Bible. I know – it’s shocking. But, if you catch the rhetoric pertaining to the US Constitution, you’d think the Ten Commandments are its bullet points. They’re not. The whole idea of a representative democracy (a Greek word) comes from Ancient (think then-solvent) Greece. The leaders in the Bible were all kings or tyrants and the Bill of Rights is nowhere in the New or Old Testaments.
Paging Dr. King
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Tom Degan: That’s what I love about this guy! American history is littered with “Christian” religious leaders. Try as you might, you can’t escape them. The thing that sets Reverend King apart from most of these guys is the fact that he wasn’t a hypocrite. He never tried to twist the words of Jesus of Nazareth into anything other than what they were – a call to love one another and for kindness and gentleness. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton is another celebrated American Christian who took the gospel seriously. So was Dorothy Day. Please give me a day or two and I might be able to name more, but at the moment none come to mind. Both Merton and King died in 1968, Day in 1980. They’re gone and they’re not coming back.
Voices From Haiti: “God, We Have Not Heard You for a Long Time”
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Georgianne Nienaber: Religious fundamentalists have long attempted to make sense of human suffering by twisting the existential argument and blaming suffering upon the victim. How Haitians have managed to avoid incorporation of shame into their collective psyche is truly a wonder.
A Hundred Years of War
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Joseph Palermo: The invasion of Iraq was the greatest terrorist recruitment program ever. It destabilized one of the most important big cities in the Arab world. It fueled pan-Arab nationalism as well as jihad against the West. It caused a sectarian bloodbath because of the jolt given to power relations by external military force.
Missionaries Doing What Missionaries Always Did
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David A. Love: When I heard that ten American missionaries are on trial for kidnapping 33 Haitian children and attempting to take them to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, I, like most other people, was outraged. But I can’t say I was surprised.
Friday Feedback: Eschew Totalitarian Thinking
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To whatever extent we citizens abdicate our responsibility to learn and employ the tools of good self goveernment, others will usurp those powers and enslave us.
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