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Why don’t we hear about nonviolence from the pulpit? There is a complex theology behind the Gospel message of activist, transformative nonviolence that is easy for a homilist to set aside in favor of “God-loves-you!” Sunday messages that demand little from believers beyond robust self-esteem and a vague acceptance of God’s expectation that we generally do right by others. Thus, dusted off during Lent and the Easter season, the premodern language of sin, suffering, sacrifice, and salvation, as Marcus Borg has argued and Pew researchers have tracked, are poorly understood by Christians themselves.

Saudi Arabia cracks down on Valentine’s Day and the reflection of an American Muslim…

A history of what began as a clique of kids on the street, developed into a disciplined organization that reordered the nature of gang relations in Chicago (inaugurating the alliances of various gangs under the umbrella “People” and “Folk” labels), and was reinvented by its “Chief” as first a Moorish Science and then an Islamic religious organization; all the while running a variety of criminal enterprises, culminating in negotiations with the Libyan government with the hopes of being paid in exchange for unleashing certain amount of targeted violence in Chicago. There’s a series of huge stories here, and this book—while certainly the best resource on the subject—is hurt by the sheer range of material it has to address.

With the swing to the Right of the 1950s, conservatives began to deploy “Judeo-Christian” in the fight against “Godless Communism,” contrasting it with “the communist projection of man as a producing, consuming animal to be used and discarded.”

This tempest in a teacup reminds me of some Shari’a controversies in contemporary Islamic societies…

Simply put: Font matters. Is it possible that the most pervasive typeface of late capitalism—Helvetica—is telling us what the gods wish: Do not worry. Trust in me. Put your value here, and you will be rewarded?

While many books will no doubt be written about the momentous events that are unfolding in the Middle East, many of them will doubtless leave out the prehistory. By exploring the rich tradition of nonviolent resistance in the Muslim world—from Palestine and Pakistan, to Kosovo and the Maldives—Amitabh Pal dispels the oft-repeated misconception that what we are witnessing in the Arab Spring is without precedent.

In light of a recent finding that evangelical Christians are more likely, statistically, to support the use of torture, a scholar proposes an approach to nonviolence based on the teaching of Christianity’s first theologian.

PBS’ The Jewish Americans covers three hundred fifty years of Jewish-American history with only a few glaring omissions.

Reverend Wright’s condemnation of the United States made waves, but right-wing preachers have been railing against America’s sins for years.