Unlike Judaism, Islam is passed down through the father. The Qur’an even grants a Muslim man permission to marry a Jewish or Christian woman, so long as she is chaste. “A believing maid is better than an idolatrous woman,” the holy text says. Thus it was for centuries: Muslim men married other women of the Book, who were permitted to […]
BeliefWatch: Marriage Read More
What would Jesus download? One of the hottest sites on the Internet is GodTube.com, the Christian answer to YouTube. It’s a goofy, fascinating window into the world of Christian youth. There’s a clip of Ray Comfort, the popular evangelical preacher, demonstrating the perfection of God’s creation with an actual banana. It’s hard
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What has Rich Cizik done to make Jim Dobson so mad? Cizik has, for 26 years, been the Washington-based lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, a job one would hardly call high profile. Over the past year, though, he has become something of a celebrity: the evangelical leader who speaks for the cause of environmentalism.
BeliefWatch: Tree Hugger Read More
On the day of John F. Kennedy’s funeral, Robert Kennedy wrote his eldest child, who was 12, a short note: “Dear Kathleen,” it said, “you seemed to understand that Jack died and was buried today. As the oldest of the Kennedy grandchildren
BeliefWatch: Good Word Read More
In the aftermath of 9/11, when the offices of The Wall Street Journal were temporarily moved from Ground Zero to SoHo, a young journalist sat at his desk and edited one story after another about the Muslim world abroad. Jihad this, fatwah that, Sunni, Shia, how do you spell hijab? “It occurred to me that I was almost entirely ignorant
BeliefWatch: Reporter Read More
Once there was a Christian, a man from a wealthy family. He had conservative values, and he crusaded his whole life for social justice. In the end, he changed history. His name was William Wilberforce, and in 1807 he finally succeeded in abolishing the British slave trade.
Christian pastors do it with Muslim imams. High-school seniors do it with each other. Actors and authors do it, as do comedians and combat pilots. It’s interfaith dialogue, and in the world of religion, it’s very much in vogue.
Beliefwatch: Interfaith Read More
There is at least one moment in every religious person’s life where commitment to faith collides, inconveniently, with desire. For Zeena Altalib, that moment occurred last year at the local swimming pool. An American Muslim of Iraqi descent, Altalib wanted to take her baby son, Yusif, for a swim. But what to do about the fact that her religion requires
Beliefwatch: Surf’s Up! Read More
In your prayers tonight, you might want to thank God that no one has put you in charge of the Task Force on General Education at Harvard.
Beliefwatch: Ivy League Read More
When Julie Sandorf’s daughter, Sarah, was 3 years old, she came home from nursery school and declared: “Mommy, I don’t want to be a Jewish, I want to be a Christian.” These words sent Sandorf, an assimilated Jew with almost no grounding in her own religion, running, aghast, to the first place she could think of: her local bookstore. “I
Beliefwatch: Bookish Read More