Islam-Muslims

Bush the universalist

Every time President Bush speaks of his Christian faith, the mainstream media get all roiled up. Here’s how a 2003 story in The Christian Science Monitor began:


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Would Niebuhr subscribe to First Things?

Paul Elie’s latest essay for The Atlantic, a 6,400-word report on the variety of political thinkers who cite the late Reinhold Niebuhr as their hero, starts off strong but spends too much time waist-deep in the big muddy of debates about the Iraq War.


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Faith-free Pakistan news, again

I am, at the moment, reading The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. It’s an amazing book (a Pulitzer Prize winner), especially if you are interested in the foundational beliefs that fuel the fire in the Al-Qaeda faithful.


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Suck it, MSM (a GetReligion poll)

Let me note, following the gentle snark from the Divine Mrs. M.Z. the other day, that her GetReligionista comrades had, in fact, noted the pronouncement from the public intellectual Kathy Griffin. We simply were waiting for M.Z. to return with her soft, nuanced touch on the keyboard in order to address this weighty topic.


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How to face Mecca when floating in space?

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this interesting religion news from the Associated Press out of Malaysia: Malaysian cosmonaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor will be part of a Russian crew heading to the International Space Station next month.


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Labels, labels and more Lebanon labels

My first reaction, when I read the bold Washington Post headline, was negative. I am not fond of religious labels, but this looked like a futile attempt to avoid one. It said: “Anti-Syrian Lawmaker Killed in Beirut Blast.”


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Rise of convert Islam in Europe

Tucked away in the middle of The Washington Post Saturday was an extensively reported story about how recent Islamic converts were key players in recently foiled terrorist attacks in Germany. The story starts on the front end discussing what “counterterrorism officials and analysts” are saying and follows up on the back end with a rebuttal of sorts from religious leaders in Germany’s Muslim community. For one reason or another I get the sense that those reporting this story spent less time in the mosques and more time on the phone with law enforcement and public safety officials and thinkers who watch things like this:


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