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Sadly, there is still a fair amount of ignorance and bigotry toward black non-believers in African American communities due to the stereotype that atheists are immoral, rudderless, and not authentically black. This belief is especially insidious for black women. Mainstream African American culture places a high premium on black female caregiving, piety, and sacrifice. The patriarchal traditions of the Black Church, with their emphasis on charismatic black male leadership and biblical literalism, play a key role in socializing black women to be subservient and self-sacrificing.

Most of us are watching the unfolding events in Egypt with awe and anticipation hoping its citizens will nonviolently supplant a repressive and dictatorial regime with a democracy. Those of us who have physical or emotional ties to Israel see a more complicated picture. Israel is watching the…

The gracious, affirmative, and arguably universalist tone of Pope Benedict’s encyclical (in marked contrast to his 2010 letter, with its emphasis on the authority of the priest as this fed upward through the hierarchy of the Roman Church) is more than a nod to the new digital social reality. Sure, it’s perhaps a little silly for the Pope to be “inviting” Christians into locales through which most have been travelling regularly for several years by now. But it is nonetheless important that he has offered his spiritual and ethical leadership into the increasingly digitally integrated world.

The next best thing to a living, breathing Muslim is an approximation of one—that is, the silver screen. Why not? Movies explore the lives and experiences of Muslims in a format that can be watched as easily at home as on the train. Plus, a lineup of cool movies, foreign and domestic, will only make you, your friends, or your community look intimidatingly more sophisticated.

Years later, when the remembrance of so many other things had faded, the memory still remained crisp in her mind. She saw herself lying in the hospital bed, bleeding, writhing in agony. She remembered…

Most principled atheists do not go beyond simple denial. They refuse to go further, to seriously question the ground beneath their feet. And, by holding on, consciously or not, to their unjustified assumptions, they end up rejecting far too little.

By repeatedly asking what was in his heart, the FBI seems to have, not only sought to establish intent, but assumed that Muslim militancy is directly related to religion. Moreover, its operative assumption about religion was an implicitly Protestant one which conceived religion as an inward experience (faith) rather than the more Islamic conception of religion as the moral standard by which people ought to be judged. While the FBI was trying to ascertain the intent of Mohamud’s heart, Mohamud himself, by FBI’s own account of events, appears to have been preoccupied with creating sensational headlines.

Evangelicals and fundamentalist Hindus come together in their denunciation of yoga.

From the ashes of Mt. Carmel, the largest forest fire in Israel’s history, a strange phoenix is rising: a clash of civilizations. It’s not between Israelis and Arabs, nor between Jews and Muslims. It’s a clash between two worldviews. Let’s oversimplify, for convenience…

Whatever happened to that great big Roman Catholic Church? It seems to be shrinking before our eyes despite unprecedented media attention. No amount of hype can disguise the Vatican’s disappearing act…