Search

Forty years ago, Indian militants, as they were then named, occupied the island of Alcatraz. In their memory, our writer reflects on both the bloody history of the first Thanksgiving, and the remarkable, enduring power of tribal tradition to create spiritual sustenance in the modern world.

In the Bible, God has a preference for the poor and outcast, but this message is lost on many contemporary readers. A new edition seeks to remedy this ignorance, even as it turns a tidy profit for the publisher.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, visionary anthropologist, once said: “The world began without man and will end without him.” Was he post-humanist? Post-monotheist? Such binaries can’t capture a thinker of his subtlety.

Only two governments have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Somalia and the US. President Obama supports ratification, as does Hillary Clinton. On the opposing side? Christian Right Home Schoolers and believers in “American Exceptionalism.” Ironies abound.

The latest generation of religion scholars has studied Lévi-Strauss only to distance itself from his theories, and to challenge the myth of structuralism. Perhaps in doing so we have created a fable of our own.

With his signature combination of controversy-avoidance and biblical cherry-picking Joel Osteen promotes the good life.

The not-so-new ecumenism of the religious right: stoking fears of secularism as the new Nazism.

With the Obama administration’s renewed support for immigration reform, and new support from conservative Christian leaders, immigrants’ rights activists are looking toward real progress—and their vision is supported by recent scholarship in the intersection of religion and immigration.

Controversial Muslim Scholar Tariq Ramadan, banned from travel to the United States, spoke in Montreal last week at the annual convention of the American Academy of Religion. In a question-and-answer session he answered accusations of “doublespeak.”

The secular world, in confronting evil, has long relied on one solution: the use of coercive power to violently incapacitate those who do evil—often with “collateral damage.” Maybe it’s time to explore other options?