• religion

What do you all think? Is Michael Spencer at AlterNet right that Evangelicalism is collapsing? There seems to me to be some truth in it, but it also seems to be part of the ongoing narrative that the Right is a failure and is collapsing (something I can't quite bring myself to believe, what with the Democrats' failure to offer much of a strong cultural narrative to keep the country "on their side," unless Obama proves to be a stronger uniter than other Dems).

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• india
• islam
• religion
• the war on terror

I'm sure many Blogora readers are following the Mumbai situation closely and wondering how one might have hope for discussion, discourse, rhetoric...

I am distrubed by Marty Peretz's rant about "the reasonable Islam":

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• death penalty
• religion

This image comes via Bitch Ph.D.:

• Jim Brown's blog
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• religion

If you watch one viral video this hour, make sure it's this one! Tom Cruise rambles about Scientology. Note the Mission Impossible music playing on a loop throughout this clip - this makes it nerve-wracking to watch. The Church of Scientology has done all it can to keep this video from getting around, but the Gawker is sticking to its guns and hosting the video.

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• gender
• religion

Apropos of our recent conversations regarding gender in the Middle East, see this story about Hussein Rabei:

Formerly known as Zaineb, 33-year-old Rabei was raised as a girl after being born with genitalia that more closely resembled a vagina than a penis. Arab culture and its rigid views on gender meant doctors ignored growing signs that Rabei may in fact be male, he said.

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• political oppression
• religion

Now I've heard everything. While sitting on the hot tarmac today in South Carolina, missing my connecting plane to Copenhagen because of an engine problem, I was reading the latest issue of Newsweek and couldn't believe my bleary eyes. "In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission." The story claims the motive is to "cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama....By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama."

• Cynthia's blog
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• religion

My disaffection for Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Ft. Worth just became stronger after hearing this on NPR this morning:
"A new course at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for women only is homemaking. Women can't study to become pastors at this seminary, one of the largest for Southern Baptists in the USA. But they can learn about cooking and sewing, raising kids and "God's plan for marriage." The school says the program prepares women for the most important job they may ever have: nurturing a family."

• Cynthia's blog
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• religion

As many have probably read by now, Pope Benedict XVI has reiterated that non-Catholic Christianity is defective:

"These separated churches and communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation," the document read. "In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church."

The document issued by the Vatican is largely a restatement of doctrine that the Pope issued in 2000 as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. It is "unclear" (according to the NY Times and others) why this document was re-released. I'm reminded that ritual repetition is one way to make discursive structures seem natural and self-evident. I'm reminded of the return of the repressed. I'm thinking we should be asking: WWJD?

• Jim Brown's blog
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• religion
• rhetoric of religion

There's an interesting piece in Salon.com today on the newly unearthed Gospel of Judas that is pretty interesting. It's an interview with Elaine Pagels, author of many books, including Adam, Eve, and the Serpant (which blew me away as a grad student) and The Gnostic Gospels, as well as this new one: Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity (with Karen L. King). Lot's of bloggin' on it already, according to the Technorati. Part of the discussion involves the necessarily metaphoric language (already a redundancy) of religion and the Bible. Love to hear thoughts from some of you who scored higher than a 79 on the Bible quiz Jim posted a while back. :)

• ddd's blog
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• political rhetoric
• religion
• war rhetoric

There's an interesting piece over at Salon by Paul M. Barrett about how denunciations of terrorism by moderate Muslims are supposedly "not heard" by Americans:

"But this disconnect may not stem entirely from a failure to listen. It may also have to do with the way American Muslims have condemned terrorism. Specifically, until recently, Muslim leaders often added caveats to their condemnations that robbed them of real force."

These caveats and asterisks come in the form of questioning whether bin Laden was actually responsible for 9-11 or in the continued use of terms like "kafir" (a pejorative term for a non-believer) or "jihad."

While these types of terms and arguments are counter productive when addressing certain U.S. audiences, it seems clear that they are used with other audiences in mind (for instance, Muslims who are against terrorism but also uncomfortable with many U.S. policies). This discussion reminds me of a great book I read over break: No God But God by Reza Aslan. Aslan first provides a brief history of Islam (useful to those attmpting to understand distinctions between Sunni and Shia) and then argues that the the current "war" is only partly about East v. West and much more about a war within Islam. So, it makes sense that those attempting to denounce terrorism must do so in a way that addresses audiences within Islam and outside of Islam.

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