Politics & Society

How the Christian Right Interprets and Tries to Legislate Religious Liberty

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Last week, a Texas Senate committee convened a special hearing to explore ways to “protect” religious freedom.
That’s a noble aim and in a state as religiously diverse as Texas, home to the country’s largest Muslim and second-largest Hindu populations, probably a necessity. But this Senate committee, called in part by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton, was actually not about strengthening current anti-discrimination laws that protect religious liberty.

Politics & Society

Michael Moore, Bernie Sanders, and the Place of Single-Issue Politics

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Having already cycled through a wide array of ad hoc political pejoratives—unrealistic, anti-feminist, anti-Obama, socialist (but in the bad way)—the Clinton campaign unveiled a new Sanders burn recently: single-issue candidate. This tag, of course, is no more charitable or honest than the previous ones. Like any serious candidate, Sanders offers an array of policy prescriptions and articulates them with varying levels of specificity.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Reflections on Israel 2016

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Present day Israel has discarded the rational, the universal and the visionary. These values have been subordinated to a cruel and oppressive occupation, an emphatic materialism, severe inequalities rivaling the worst in the western world and distorted by a fanatic, obscurantist and fundamentalist religion which encourages the worst behaviors rather than the best.

Christianity

Monotheism as a Moral Issue

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Part I. Domination Over Nature
And God said, let us make Adam in our image, after our likeness and they shall dominate the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, and the cattle and every moving thing on the Earth. – Genesis 1:26
In this installment, the first of four, I will concentrate on the moral imperative of monotheism; in the next, on the implication of this passage for the principle of equality; in the third, on the moral limitations on equality that inhere in the principle of loyalty; and finally, in the fourth, on the implications of God’s Image for the concept of reason, an innate human characteristic. Monotheism is taken for granted in the Abrahamic faiths and indeed in many other religions, even though the commitment to a single God is inconsistent with the use of the plural to refer to God, not only in the beginning but in the second clause this passage. We do not receive a singular reference to God until the tetragrammaton (Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh) is introduced in Genesis 2. True, we are not bound by the text as some American constitutional lawyers think they are committed to the words written down on parchment one hot summer in Philadelphia.

Healing Israel/Palestine

A Day of (Un)Rest in Hebron

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This incident was one of the many egregious attacks on Palestinians that we, two Jewish American women, witnessed while we were spending time in Hebron working with activists at the YAS Center and documenting the daily human rights violations that they face.

Culture

California’s Dirty Secret Comes to Light: Environmental Racism Meets Black Lungs Matter

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With the Democratic presidential candidates taking aim at the lead poisoning in Flint and with the ongoing revelations about Republican Governor Rick Synder’s role in the disaster, one might form the impression that environmental racism has a partisan divide, but those involved in the protests in California know a different story. The Rev. Laurie Manning of Skyline Community Church UCC in Oakland has been active in struggles against both fracking and the proposed coal terminal. In November, she joined an interfaith coalition to deliver a letter to Brown that called for a halt to fracking. On Tuesday of last week, Manning addressed a rally outside Oakland’s City Hall in seeking to delay consultant work that could bring the city closer to having a coal terminal. In her remarks, Manning spoke of the pride she felt about Governor Brown’s environmental leadership in Paris, but then asked, “Why would we want to be complicit in prolonging and accelerating this environmental and humanitarian health crisis?”

General News

Calling Secular Voters to Make Ourselves Known to the Politicians

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Secular voters are tired of being ignored during elections. That’s why the Freedom From Religion Foundation has launched the “I’m Secular and I Vote” campaign. During election years, we atheists and agnostics have to pinch ourselves to remember we exist. Candidates have been so schooled in pandering to Bible Belters and the evangelical right has thrown its king-making power around so long that popular portrayals of the influence of religious voters are vastly exaggerated. More the pity then that no one is wooing the “Nones,” the one-quarter of the adult U.S. population and one-third of all Millennials who identify as “nonreligious.”

Culture

Mothers, Daughters and the Democratic Primaries

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In “Not Their Mother’s Candidate,” in last Sunday’s New York Times, Susan Faludi purports to situate the difference between women who support Clinton and women who support Sanders in terms of the history of American feminism. According to Faludi the conflict is one between “mothers” and “daughters,” which first appeared among feminists in the 1920s. The “mothers” of today (Madeleine Albright, Gloria Steinem) call for loyalty among women; the “daughters” (the flappers then; unnamed today) pursue personal liberation rather than group loyalty. One is almost finished with the article before one realizes that in fact it is another twisted pro-Clinton intervention, based on the assumption that Sanders is not electable.

Gender and Sexuality

Intimate Violence, Societal Violence: Online Exclusives

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These online exclusives are freely accessible articles that are part of an ongoing special series associated with Tikkun’s Winter 2016 print issue Intimate Violence, Societal Violence. These pieces represent a range of sophisticated, multi-faceted perspectives on intimate partner violence. Taken as a whole the pieces work to challenge the dogmas and ideological blind-spots that silence victims, while opening up space for creative and nuanced approaches to healing for both the abusers and the abused. In her piece, “An Invitation to Community: Restorative Justice Circles for Intimate Partner Violence,” Emily Gaarder describes the empowering process of restorative justice and the profound effects of drawing upon community support for assistance in conflict resolution. In “Intimate Partner Violence & Intimate Partner Justice: How Spiritual Teachings Impact Both” The Reverend Al Miles challenges what he calls a “misuse of spiritual teachings,” noting that spiritual texts that support the oppression of women appear to directly contradict teachings within those same traditions which profess love, dignity, and mutual respect in intimate relationship.

Politics & Society

For Hillary

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Personal toughness, stamina, and grace under pressure are not negligible considerations. She survived one of the most humiliating ordeals imaginable during the course of her husband’s widely publicized philandering and subsequent impeachment. She has taken more of a beating politically at the hands of political opponents and enemies for a longer sustained period than virtually any other modern political figure I can think of. Yet the fact remains that they have barely laid a glove on her; in interviews, debates, congressional testimony and public appearances, she is invariably poised, cheerful, responsive and articulate. I can’t think of a single instance where she ever lost control or suffered even a momentary meltdown.