http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/religion/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:10:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/146/passion_regular_or_decaf/ Those who virulently criticized Mel Gibson’s The Passion even before its release seem unassailable: Are they not justified to worry that the film, made by a fanatic Catholic known for occasional anti-Semitic outbursts, may ignite anti-Semitic sentiments? More generally, is The Passion not a manifesto of our own (Western, Christian) fundamentalists? Is it then not the duty of every Western secularist to reject it, to make it clear that we are not covert racists attacking only the fundamentalism of other (Muslim) cultures? The Pope’s ambiguous reaction to the film is well known: Upon seeing it, deeply moved, he muttered “It is as it was”—a statement quickly withdrawn by the official Vatican speakers. The Pope’s spontaneous reaction was thus replaced by… religion social justice David Sirota Thu, 04 Mar 2004 09:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/519/it_raining_amendment/ The ugly clouds had gathered so long on the horizon that the first drop was a relief. Bush’s February 24 endorsement of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage came after weeks of foul bellwethers, including coded gay-bashing in his clinker of a national address in January and a host of hostile signs flashed by surrogates. Even First Wife Laura got into the action, sounding like a drag-queen caricature of incensed propriety when she called same-sex unions “shocking.” But the thunderclaps of repression against a ritual most Americans believe will become law in their lifetimes ring a bit hollow. Lost in the storm is the real risk to religious liberty that would come from embedding a particular religious bias… civil liberties LGBT politics religion social justice David Sirota Fri, 08 Apr 2005 14:36:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2059/the_pope_failures/ Pope John Paul II’s reaction to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is well known. Immediately after seeing it, he murmured, “It is as it was!”—a statement that was then quickly withdrawn by Vatican officials. A glimpse into the Pope’s spontaneous reaction was thus replaced by the “official,” neutral stance, corrected so as not to hurt anyone. This withdrawal, and its nod toward liberal sensibility, betrayed what was best in the late pope, his intractable ethical stance. Today, in our era of over-sensitivity regarding “harassment” by the Other, it’s increasingly common to hear complaints about “ethical violence,” those ethical injunctions that “terrorize” us with their brutal impositions. In its place, these critics would prefer to see an “ethics without… religion David Sirota Tue, 31 May 2005 06:59:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2133/jesus_is_this_news/ No matter how much columnists and media critics bemoan the sorry state of American journalism, no matter how low the press sinks in the estimation of the American people, the news media, particularly on television, remains defiantly abysmal. Now, on top of the usual toxic doses of runaway brides, irrelevant celebrity trials and President Bush holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah, we have the rise of Jesus News. Blinded by their own erroneous news frame that the last election was all about "moral values," and pressured to give religion more coverage by an evangelical right running on methamphetamines, the news media are devoting more airtime to everything Jesus. The ghoulish death watch of Pope Paul John II ("Is he dead… media religion David Sirota Fri, 23 Sep 2005 08:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2306/ready_for_dialogue/ "I'm afraid that if I watch a lot of TV, I will start to hate myself as an Arab, or as a Muslim or as a Palestinian," says Samar Dahmash-Jarrah, "because there is nothing out there except bias and stereotyping and hatred." Jarrah, 42, is a long way from her year-and-a-half stint as a contributor to CNN's "World Report" in the late '80s, when she was filing three-minute spots every week from Jordan. Back then, she had hope that the fledgling world news network could bridge gaps of understanding between nations and cultures. Now, she's given up on the mainstream press, and has decided to personally act as a medium for the two cultures she calls home. Since moving to… religion middle east David Sirota Sat, 24 Sep 2005 08:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2327/reckoning_with_the_god_squad/ At the Central Baptist Church in Marshall, Texas, where I was baptized in the faith, we believed in a free church in a free state. I still do. My spiritual forbears did not take kindly to living under theocrats who embraced religious liberty for themselves but denied it to others. "Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils," thundered the dissenter Roger Williams as he was banished from Massachusetts for denying Puritan authority over his conscience. Baptists there were a "pitiful negligible minority" but they were agitators for freedom and therefore denounced as "incendiaries of the commonwealth" for holding to their belief in that great democracy of faith-the priesthood of all believers. Such revolutionary ideas made the new nation with its Constitution… religion David Sirota Mon, 10 Oct 2005 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2341/a_fundamental_history_lesson/ To have witnessed even as a child the descent in Germany from decency to barbarism gave the question "how was it possible" an existential immediacy. So I have wrestled with that question, tried to reconstruct some parts of the past and perhaps intuit some lessons. The German-speaking refugees who came to this country in the '30s had enthusiastic feelings about the United States. Not only gratitude for saving them, giving many a chance for a new start, if often under harsh circumstances, but love and admiration for a country that was, when they arrived, still digging itself out from an unprecedented depression, under a leader whose motto was,"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," unlike his German… religion war David Sirota Wed, 09 Nov 2005 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2378/islam_needs_radicals/ George W. Bush. Tony Blair. Silvio Berlusconi. Jacques Chirac. Along with most every Western leader, pundit and policymaker, they are frantically searching for the "moderate Muslims" who can save Islam from itself and improve relations with the West. The problem is that there's no such thing as a moderate Muslim, at least the way these decision makers define the term. Look at whom they call moderate: President Bush often cites Jordan's King Abdullah and Morocco's King Muhammad as the epitome of modern, moderate Muslim leaders. But a glance at the Amnesty International reports on their countries, or those of other so-called moderate regimes, reveals them to be anything but moderate in the way they treat their citizens. In fact, their… religion David Sirota Thu, 15 Dec 2005 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2434/the_georgia_preach/ Republicans have so relentlessly branded Democrats as secular humanists that it's important to remember that the vast majority of voters who define themselves as "liberal" or "progressive" also say that they are people of faith. Given this, it's interesting that while Democrats are frantically seeking a moral identity, they largely ignore the most prominent Christian in their party, Jimmy Carter. The former president's latest book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis is full of insights that Democratic leaders could take advantage of. Although organized by chapters, Carter's tome actually consists of two informative essays: The first is the 39th president's view of the highjacking of American Christianity by fundamentalist demagogues. The second reviews the ill-considered policies of the Bush administration.… religion David Sirota Mon, 09 Jan 2006 05:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2450/cult_of_character/ From the outside the bland, unmarked exterior of the Character Training Institute's headquarters blends remarkably well into its immediate surroundings. This is a section of Oklahoma City that hasn't yet benefited from the nearby, upscale urban development intended to draw both tourism and business to the area. Both the downtown Greyhound Station and the county jail are situated a few blocks from here, which explains the number of forlorn, transient men and women wandering down West Main Street. For the most part these folks seem to have more immediate priorities than paying attention to the dozens of foreign-looking visitors entering and exiting the 10-story Character Training Institute (CTI), which also serves as the headquarters of the International Association of Character… religion David Sirota Tue, 21 Feb 2006 04:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2510/islam_vs_the_west_clashing_sensibilities/ Were it plausible, I would suggest that al Qaeda and American neo-conservatives planted the cartoons published last fall in a Danish newspaper that satirized Prophet Muhammad. The Muslim masses' predictably furious response to the cartoons provides perfect inversely proportionate illustrations of the two cults' clash-of-civilizations scenario. But in fact, this increasingly rancorous dispute does pit two foundational principles against each other: Islam's proscription against portraying its Prophet, and the West's reverence of free expression. Muslims have a religious obligation to take offense at "desecration" of Islam, while Western nations feel compelled to speak up in protection of free speech. These clashing views have put in motion a cycle of mutual antagonism that is likely to keep spiraling downward unless cooler… religion David Sirota Wed, 01 Mar 2006 13:40:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2540/organizing_the_religious_left/ Berkeley polymath Rabbi Michael Lerner returns with his latest book, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right. Lerner's raison d'etre is to catalyze "a movement with a progressive spiritual vision [which] would provide an alternative solution to" the Religious Right. With the book weighing in at 408 pages, Lerner has ample space to demonstrate his erudition in psychology, philosophy and politics. The Left Hand of God begins with a description of America's "Spiritual Crisis," both in terms of its historical origins and its psychodynamics. Lerner follows with his prescription for this malaise, a new moral agenda--one that stems from "a new bottom line" that values each person for their intrinsic worth rather than what… religion David Sirota Tue, 16 May 2006 01:45:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2649/saving_secular_society/ Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current. I don't really mean it, but my anxiety is genuine. It's one thing to have a government that shows contempt for civil liberties; America has survived such men before. It's quite another to have a mass movement--the largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation--rise up in opposition to the rights of its fellow citizens. The Constitution protects minorities, but that protection is not absolute; with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic majority, a tightly organized faction can get around it. The mass… religion David Sirota Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2719/two_faces_of_gop_hate/ On the surface, Shawn Stuart and Ralph Reed have little in common, other than their quest for public office this year as Republicans. But, Stuart, a bona fide Nazi running for state representative in Montana, and Reed, who has repeatedly appealed to antigay and racist bias as Georgia GOP chair and hopes to become lieutenant governor, share an intimate bond. They both have bigotry at the core of their campaigns. Playing on prejudice is a dance they perform with differing degrees of grace. Reed, a slick and polished consultant, looks to win his August primary, while Stuart, a clumsy first-time candidate, is a longshot for the legislature. Reed, more than Stuart, disguises gay-bashing and scapegoating of immigrants in rhetoric of… Race Elections 2006 Elections Religion and Spirituality David Sirota Thu, 13 Jul 2006 05:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2728/the_persecution_of_the_american_taliban/ Remember John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old so-called "American Taliban," who was captured in Afghanistan during the initial phases of the U.S. invasion of that nation? I've often wondered what has happened to that intriguing white American derided as a handmaiden of the radical Islamic sect that ran Afghanistan and gave haven to al-Qaeda. Lindh was on a religious quest that had taken him to Yemen and Pakistan before he entered Afghanistan. His faith-based journey echoed themes found in many stories of Westerners seeking enlightenment in exotic lands. But Lindh's spiritual quest received little sympathy. Instead, administration officials disparaged him as an al-Qaeda sympathizer; right-wing commentators portrayed him as a product of his parents' liberal permissiveness. He was demonized in much… Religion and Spirituality Civil Liberties Race War on Terror David Sirota Tue, 18 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2742/death_of_a_toker_utopia/ The motto of Rainbow Farm in Vandalia, Mich., could have been "A Working-Class Hippie Is Something to Be." On Memorial and Labor Day weekends from 1996 to 2000, a few thousand amplifier-factory workers, hippie girls and truckers' wives-turned-political-activists camped out there to smoke weed, listen to rock 'n' roll, hear pro-legalization speeches and commune with the land and each other. A 34-acre campground owned by a gay couple named Tom Crosslin and Rolland Rohm, Rainbow Farm was located in a hardcore Republican part of southwest Michigan. The county's prosecutor, Scott Teter, believed he was "guided by the Lord" and crusaded against abortion and drugs. After several attempts to squelch the festivals, Teter succeeded in May 2001, when a police raid,… Books Religion and Spirituality Civil Liberties David Sirota Tue, 01 Aug 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2744/cmon_get_happy/ Toward the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Crack-Up," an essay about his personal decline during the Great Depression, he wrote, "The natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness." Glancing at the headlines today, it's hard not to agree. Within the past six months, a spate of books on happiness has appeared in stores as if to remind us of our right to pursue it. Positive-psychology enthusiasts Daniel Gilbert and Jonathan Haidt arrived with Stumbling on Happiness and The Happiness Hypothesis, respectively. Former cell biologist-cum-Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, with Richard Gere's seal of approval, wrote Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill. And Darrin M. McMahon, an intellectual historian, produced the exhaustively researched and edifying… books religion and spirituality art and culture David Sirota Tue, 15 Aug 2006 05:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2790/examining_iran_ties_to_hezbollah/ The conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah had hardly begun when the Bush administration and its neoconservative supporters began blaming Iran for the conflagration. On July 25, Henry Crumpton, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, told a reporter that Iran is "clearly directing a lot of Hezbollah actions. Hezbollah asks their permission to do things, especially if it has broader international implications." Meanwhile, in the July 24 Weekly Standard, William Kristol called Hezbollah's fighting an "act of Iranian aggression" and suggested "we might consider countering [it] ... with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities." However, giving Iran another tongue lashing, or worse, deciding to attack it, will do nothing to stop the violence in the region. Not only… middle east religion and spirituality international affairs politics David Sirota Thu, 21 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2827/the_neocons_lexicon/ The Republicans' deployment of the term "Islamofascism" to define the enemy in the Bush administration's war on terror is clearly an attempt to improve their prospects in the midterm elections. By conflating contemporary terrorist threats with fearsome historical enemies, the GOP seeks to divert attention from the increasingly unpopular occupation of Iraq. But the adoption of this term also reveals the Bush administration's ideological disarray and the Republicans' political desperation. Many pundits trace the neologism to historian Malise Ruthven, who used it in a September 1990 article in the London Independent. But Ruthven used it to describe authoritarian Muslim states like Morocco, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Stephen Schwartz, the neocon author of Two Faces of Islam, insists that he is… war on terror politics iraq war religion and spirituality David Sirota Tue, 03 Oct 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2837/jesus_is_tragic/ Kids are cute. Documentaries confirm this, from the nerdy word-whizzes of Spellbound to the agile dancers of Mad Hot Ballroom. But in the new documentary Jesus Camp, children are terrifying symbols of the Christian Right's power to indoctrinate, manipulate and control. The film's creators, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, directed another kid-centered chronicle, The Boys of Baraka, which follows a group of inner city teenage boys from Baltimore as they spend a year at a school in Kenya. In Jesus Camp they venture to the American heartland for an eye-opening journey into the lives of Evangelical Christians, specifically their Jesus-loving spawn. Conservatives may hail the film as a celebration of their supremacy; for secular humanists, Democrats and the 49 percent… movies art and culture religion and spirituality David Sirota