Features
Lethal lawn care: Poisons in the grass
It’s springtime and the pressure is on. For several weeks now I’ve been growing anxious as I watch the brown neighborhood grasses gradually turn to shades of green. Like other homeowners, I am on the lookout for that first dandelion or patch of crabgrass, sure signs that I’ve been delinquent in the care of my “back 40.” I am ready to stomp out each pesky weed that disfigures the hoped-for lush green carpet.
Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Third in a series
In late 2003 President Bush said, in response to a reporter's question, that he believed Muslims and Christians "worship the same God." The remark sparked criticism from some Christians, who thought Bush was being politically correct but theologically inaccurate. For example, Ted Haggard, head of the National Association of Evangelicals, said, "The Christian God encourages freedom, love, forgiveness, prosperity and health. The Muslim god appears to value the opposite."
Literary agent: A profile of Phyllis Tickle
In 1987 Phyllis Tickle, then the religion editor at Publisher’s Weekly, foresaw a rising demand for religious books. Books, she wrote, were about to become “portable pastors.” Her prediction proved true. Beginning in the early 1990s, sales of religious books began a steady increase. In fiscal 1997, when Tyndale’s Left Behind series hit bookstores, growth in the market surged again (especially for Tyndale) and has remained robust.
Voices
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism? The politics of recognition
When people speak loosely of anti-Semitism, do they have in mind a religiously derived separation from Judaism on the part of Christians historically, or a pernicious racialist theory? Twentieth-century political theorist Hannah Arendt argued that these are two distinct theories. Anti-Semitism is a modern racialist theory that promotes the view that the Jewish people are what the National Socialists in Germany called “subhuman.” The Nazis drew on all sorts of “scientific data” to back this up, and many top scholars in Germany signed on in this effort.