In ranking American presidents on the he-man macho scale, Theodore Roosevelt will score pretty high on almost any judge’s sheet. But when he talked about using the “bully pulpit,” he was using t...Read More
On 23 February 2012, I attended the debate at Oxford University’s Sheldonian Theatre between Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Arch-New Atheist, Richard Dawkins. The topic up for dis...Read More
In “Atheists As “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society,” Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann show that “atheists are less likely to be accepted,...Read More
Atheists and theists seem to have a lot to talk about these days. They regularly engage each other in debate, they are producing some of the most popular literature on the market, and they are becomin...Read More
There is a very short distance between empowering religious voices and reinforcing religious privilege. There is a very fine line between saying "You can be gay and religious!", an important message I...Read More
As 2011 drew to a close, a number of articles surfaced about Black atheists in the US – being Black and a scholar of religion, they caught my interest. Though the amount of recent attention belies t...Read More
The first thing I noticed about the Western Wall is that everybody was crying. I had been lost in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, and when I rounded the gate above the Wall (the Kotel) t...Read More
Today is the first full day in Israel. Jet lag woke me up at 5:45am and I grew restless waiting out the dawn in my twin bed, so I pulled on running shoes and trotted out into the indigo chill. The Sea...Read More
I lived in Indonesia during the summer of 2010. When Indonesians meet someone new, they ask two questions: What is your name? and What is your religion? I was startled one day when a wizened Indonesia...Read More