Many on the American Right define themselves as Christians and angrily defend the religion’s symbols and myths, but this Christian Right ignores a core reality about Jesus, that he spoke to and for the poor, decried the rich, and demanded…
Category: Religion
Israel’s Ethical Challenges
A bitter irony of modern Israel is that the Jewish people have historically been at the forefront of tolerance, reason and egalitarianism but now have leaders who demand a Jewish religious state accompanied by the repression of Palestinian Muslims, a dilemma…
One ‘Silent Night’ in the Trenches
Dehumanizing the enemy is a key part of modern warfare, bolstered by the modern art of propaganda, often with the blessing of religious leaders. That was why the Christmas Truce of 1914 was so seditious, as Gary G. Kohls explains.
Mandela, MLK and Jesus
The death of Nelson Mandela offers Christians a chance to reflect on the great protest leader at the center of their religion, the historical Jesus, with his anger at ostentatious wealth and his disdain for social inequality, as Rev. Howard Bess reflects.
Does Christmas Obscure Jesus?
The Christmas season celebrates the regal myth of Jesus his supposedly miraculous birth and royal lineage as a king of kings but that loses sight of the historical Jesus and his revolutionary message of justice for the poor and powerless,…
Meaning of the War Over Christmas
From the Archive: The latest Christmas tradition is for Fox News and the Right to work “the base” into a lather over a supposed “War on Christmas,” but there is a larger message in how right-wing propaganda creates “victimhood,” as Robert Parry noted…
Warring Over the ‘War on Christmas’
Despite America’s over-the-top, month-long celebration of baby Jesus topped off with a government holiday ignoring the Constitution’s separation of church and state Fox News and the Right have conjured up a “war on Christmas,” now as much a tradition as eggnog, Nat Parry…
Israel’s Troubling Walls
The Israeli government is planning to build more and more walls to keep Palestinians and Arabs out of Jewish-held territory, a troubling twist on a dark history when walls were used to lock Jews in, Lawrence Davidson observes.
Jesus’s Idea of God’s Kingdom ‘on Earth’
From the gospel accounts, Jesus was a fierce critic of the economic injustices of his day, demanding within his Jewish tradition a radical redistribution of wealth and a recommitment to Israelite teachings about caring for one another. That was his point…
Was Jesus a Zealot?
The turning point of Jesus’s fateful week in Jerusalem was his protest at the Temple, which the Jewish priests saw as a challenge to their authority and which led to his trial and execution. But was this disruption violent or non-violent, a question posed by Reza…