a review of religion and media
An excerpt from Making Moderate Islam: Sufism, Service, and the “Ground Zero Mosque” Controversy (Stanford University Press, 2016) by Rosemary R. Corbett. With an introduction by the author. Continue Reading →
Our lady in Tampa, Abby Ohlheiser, reports back from the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Continue Reading →
Minority Rights are a “Special Privilege;” Next to Newt’s Godliness; Tebowing the Spotlight; Catholic Attitude; Because Your Military Rulers Said So; The Sui Juris of Citizenship Continue Reading →
Elissa Lerner: Have you been losing sleep over the crippling anxiety that Islamic law might one day trump Constitutional law? Fear not – Oklahoma is on the case! “Save Our State” question 755 banning shari’a law from the Sooner State passed with a whopping 70% of the vote on Tuesday. In a “pre-emptive strike” according to the proposition’s sponsor Rex Duncan, Oklahoma is now proudly the first state in the union to prevent courts from considering shari’a in reaching decisions. Please. Like they would in the first place. Oklahoma’s Muslim community hovers somewhere between 0 and .1% of the population. Continue Reading →
Elissa Lerner: Have you been losing sleep over the crippling anxiety that Islamic law might one day trump Constitutional law? Fear not – Oklahoma is on the case! “Save Our State” question 755 banning shari’a law from the Sooner State passed with a whopping 70% of the vote on Tuesday. In a “pre-emptive strike” according to the proposition’s sponsor Rex Duncan, Oklahoma is now proudly the first state in the union to prevent courts from considering shari’a in reaching decisions. Please. Like they would in the first place. Oklahoma’s Muslim community hovers somewhere between 0 and .1% of the population. Continue Reading →
Elissa Lerner: Have you been losing sleep over the crippling anxiety that Islamic law might one day trump Constitutional law? Fear not – Oklahoma is on the case! “Save Our State” question 755 banning shari’a law from the Sooner State passed with a whopping 70% of the vote on Tuesday. In a “pre-emptive strike” according to the proposition’s sponsor Rex Duncan, Oklahoma is now proudly the first state in the union to prevent courts from considering shari’a in reaching decisions. Please. Like they would in the first place. Oklahoma’s Muslim community hovers somewhere between 0 and .1% of the population. Continue Reading →
This week Digby wondered if Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, is making a move to appear more Godly in order to get the Tea Party nomination for president in 2012. It’s a worthy question, now that a multitude of observers (read Jonathan Kay, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Sarah Posner, David Dayen, Laurie Lebo, Ari Melber, Jeff Sharlet) have concluded that the religious right has successfully got its firm grip on the Tea Party. Gingrich will appear at Liberty University’s convocation today — the title of his talk is “Rediscovering God in America” — and then meet with Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. and others after the talk. Which all would induce a giggle — Gingrich, motivated by God?! — if we didn’t remember how skilled Gingrich is at mongering fear for power. And money.
But a more important question is this: How was it so easy for tax-loathing, live-free-or-die discontents to cede their “leaderless” movement to the long-standing insiders who have worked for self and corporate interests in the name of a “family values,” “pro-life” God? Perhaps they are not discontent with what they think they are discontent. Continue Reading →
This week Digby wondered if Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, is making a move to appear more Godly in order to get the Tea Party nomination for president in 2012. It’s a worthy question, now that a multitude of observers (read Jonathan Kay, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Sarah Posner, David Dayen, Laurie Lebo, Ari Melber, Jeff Sharlet) have concluded that the religious right has successfully got its firm grip on the Tea Party. Gingrich will appear at Liberty University’s convocation today — the title of his talk is “Rediscovering God in America” — and then meet with Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. and others after the talk. Which all would induce a giggle — Gingrich, motivated by God?! — if we didn’t remember how skilled Gingrich is at mongering fear for power. And money.
But a more important question is this: How was it so easy for tax-loathing, live-free-or-die discontents to cede their “leaderless” movement to the long-standing insiders who have worked for self and corporate interests in the name of a “family values,” “pro-life” God? Perhaps they are not discontent with what they think they are discontent. Continue Reading →
A more personal note: My sister writes this morning to tell me that her friend, Glen Lapp, a resident of our home county, Lancaster, and an aid worker for the Mennonite Central Committee, was killed in the Taliban ambush in Afghanistan last week. Glen had been in Afghanistan for nearly two years and was slated to return home in October. He was one of ten killed in the ambush.
Amidst the current climate of protest against a mosque at Ground Zero and “creeping Islamophobia,” it’s easy to be critical of evangelizing efforts to convert the heathen “Moslem” in the countries where we’re, as a nation, committed to war. And yet, writes my sister, there’s a way to understand and do God’s work that doesn’t involve a crusading effort for conversion: “He was so against trying to convert others to Christianity… and abhorred other Christians who did. He was fully only there to help provide medical aid to those who needed it.” Glenn’s story complicates the conflicting yet monolithic ideologies often applied to our responsibilities in Afghanistan (and the Middle East in general) by, in turn, neoconservatives like Newt Gingrich and progressive anti-war activists.
For more on Glen Lapp’s death, read here, here, here and here. Continue Reading →
14 October 2005 Newt Gingrich is back, saying some vague stuff about religion being the cornerstone of America’s identity and the key to reigning victorious over Islamic terrorists, all in preparation for…a Continue Reading →