Category: Interfaith
Psalm 137 and Religious Violence, Part V: Milton’s Allusive Abuse
For Part I of this series, click here; for Part II, click here; for Part III, click here; for Part IV, click here. If Stephen Marshall’s literalism makes his reading of Psalm 137 easy to interpret a... Read More
Book Review: “The Language of Science and Faith” — Important Answers, but Limited Questions
As a future rabbi whose brother is a chemical biologist, I must write any review of a book on Christianity and Darwinism with care and respect for the authors, even as they approach these issues from ... Read More
Psalm 137 and Religious Violence, Part IV: No Neuters
As the cases of Digby and Smectymnuus illustrate, the Israel/Edom metaphor does not readily admit of middle ground. Indeed, in a famous sermon given on the occasion of a Parliamentary fast day on 23 F... Read More
Psalm 137 and Religious Violence, Part III: Bishop Hall and the Smectymnuan Hydra
The invocations of Psalm 137 got uglier when Hall addressed a new tract to Parliament in the wake of the Root and Branch Petition. This tract drew responses from adversaries in his first category, the... Read More
An Atheist with Atheists United
On February 28, 2011, I attended a meeting of Atheists United at the Center for Inquiry (CFI) in Hollywood, California. It was a typical day in southern California—sunny, beautiful, without a clou... Read More
Psalm 137 and Religious Violence, Part II: Root and Branch
Like Jacob and Esau after the episode of the pottage, the family relationship of the English Church had gone quite sour by 1640, and this bitterness gave Psalm 137 its potency in the church-government... Read More
Psalm 137 and Religious Violence, Part I: “Down with it, down with it, even to the ground”
7 Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of Jerusalem: how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground. 8 O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery: yea, happy shall he be tha... Read More
Averting Your Eyes: The Devastating Consequences of Ignoring Women’s Rights
I was walking down the crowded, cobblestoned streets of Jerusalem’s Old City when a bearded man with narrow eyes reached out his hand and tried to grab my breast. I did not know him. I had not... Read More