Essays

In another example of how mass media shape and constrain what constitutes legitimate Islam and religion more generally, the New York Times published a news analysis on April 10, 2011,...

For most of the second half of the twentieth century development was assumed to be consonant with modernity and its attendant practices: secularism, reason, and science. However, it is increasingly...

I do not have much to add to the debate surrounding the Islamic Cultural Center that will surely be built near Ground Zero. But I do have a strangely delayed...

What does the academic study of religion have to contribute to public discussions concerning Major Hasan’s religious identity? What do we know about religion and religious identity? We are worried...

President Obama's much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last Thursday demonstrated once again that he is an extraordinarily skilled orator working with fantastic speech writers.  The speech also...

Here I want to briefly comment on Obama's discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian question. Two of Obama's statements in particular have been widely celebrated as marking a new direction in American...

One of the questions that plagues my study of American religion is why there is such a frequent close correspondence between American Christianity and war making. This question displays my...

You see, the interview on Al Arabiya confirms that the politics of fear can safely endure, barely disguised as the politics of love. It's (Christian) politics as usual, in other...

Despite disappointment in Obama's arm's length approach during the campaign, the vast majority of Arab and Muslim American voters supported him on Election Day. They felt his domestic and foreign...

President Barack Obama has moved quickly to follow up on his inaugural statement: "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."...

The Bush administration has widely been assumed to have significantly favored evangelical Christian perspectives and organizations in its policies. A corollary of that assumption has been that regime change would...

Presidential inaugurations are occasions for civil religious drama.  The inauguration of Barack Obama was no exception.