The American Academy of Religion's Seminar on Religion in the American West has recently launched a group blog.
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Announcements, events, and opportunities related to topics of interest to TIF readers are posted here. Additionally you may find round-ups of news items and brief commentary on current events.
For a listing of all of the events announcements, click here.
For a listing of announcements regarding books, click here.
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Religious signage
by Sam HanAt Design Observer, William Drenttel offers up a post and slide show on religious signage in the American South. He ponders whether the usually nondescript signs in front of churches that contain a Bible verse and the name of the church and/or pastor are at all reflective of a cultural difference between New England, where he is from and currently lives, and the South in how religion is expressed.
May 3, 2010
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Losing faith in peace
by Charles GelmanIn the latest issue of Foreign Policy, Aaron David Miller, a long-time State Department official and advisor to six secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations, details his apostasy from the "false religion of mideast peace." Stephen Walt, in turn, offers a critical response.
May 4, 2010
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Mississippi’s sacrifical lambs
by Lydia BrawnerThe mounting tides of awfulness in the Gulf of Mexico have prompted increased traffic in Abrahamic language.
May 5, 2010
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Seattle-area nuns investigated for “feminism”?
by Sam HanIn light of the bad press that the Catholic Church has been receiving lately regarding the cover-up of sexual abuse cases, this report from KUOW, the local NPR affiliate in Seattle, that three Seattle-area Catholic women's communities are under investigation by the Church, following complaints of “feminism” and “activism,” is a bit of a head-scratcher.
May 5, 2010
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“Love Thy Neighbor? Not If He’s Different”
by Ruth BraunsteinAt Miller-McCune, David Villano reports on a new study that finds that religious adherents in the U.S. are more inclined toward ethnocentric attitudes than agnostics.
May 5, 2010
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Feminism, secularism, and marriage
by John D. BoyIn the latest issue of Studies in Social Justice, an open-access e-journal, Ada S. Jaarsma addresses the "post-secular turn" in feminism with regard to the question of same-sex marriage.
May 5, 2010
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Happy National Day of Prayer
by Lydia BrawnerToday marks the 59th annual National Day of Prayer. The day was enacted by Congress in 1952 (36 U.S.C. § 119) after being initiated by Conrad Hilton of Hilton Hotels (Paris Hilton's great grandfather, if you appreciate irony) and Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas. A flashpoint for debates over the separation of church and state, the National Day of Prayer was recently ruled unconstitutional by a United States District Court in Madison, Wisconsin.
May 6, 2010
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Tariq Ramadan on South Park and censorship
by Charles GelmanTariq Ramadan speaks with On Faith's Sally Quinn about the meaning(s) of jihad and why Comedy Central was wrong to censor a recent episode of South Park for fear of potential backlash from Muslims.
May 6, 2010
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The belief of or in God?
by Sam HanRecently, there was a brief back and forth at Cif Belief between Michael McGhee and Stephen Clark. The former, a self-described secular humanist, is currently on the philosophy faculty at Liverpool University, where the latter, "a professing Christian," is Professor Emeritus.
May 10, 2010