CLAL's Best of the Web Daily

What does America's religious future hold? A glance back at America's religious past by one of the leading historians of American religion, sheds light on both our past and future. [more]

We must fight to keep despair at bay. Despair is the enemy of life and is to be avoided at all cost. Or so we tend to think. But what if  despair has gotten a bad rap? What if despair is not life's enemy but a spiritual path that enables us to attain full acceptance of life's bittersweet reality? [more]

In an interview with Beliefnet.com Irwin Kula offers sage advice in helping us to meet the new year. [more]

What were the most spiritually literate films of 2002? How many of these did you see? [more] [more]

Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God, tracing her journey from Southern Christian roots to Orthodox Judaism and back to Christianity, makes for compelling and at times humorous reading. That she has traveled this entire path in a decade, makes us await with anticipation what the next decade of her life will bring. [more] 

European Boycotts of Israeli academics continue. Reports of snubs by British academics of their Israeli colleagues are proliferating. [more]

Zishe Breitbart, a Galician Jew known in the 1920s as the "strongest man in the world," and folk hero of the Central European Jewish masses, is the subject of a new movie by Werner Herzog, Invincible. As the film takes certain artistic liberties with the truth, it remains for the historians to tell the true story of this remarkable figure. [more]

The sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has apparently undercut the moral standing of not just Catholic priests but of the clergy more generally. [more]

Is there a God? Michael Newdow, the man who brought the court case against the "under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance and an avowed atheist, squared off against Pastor Cliffe Knechtle who argued in the affirmative while an audience of 250,000 gathered in 1500 churches came together to watch the webcast debate. [more]

Does Daniel Goldhagen get it right in his latest indictment of the Catholic Church for its role in the Holocaust? Was the Church's complicity so great as to warrant its making restitution to the victims?  [more]

Ten years ago Harold Bloom's The American Religion made quite a splash. Bloom argued that all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the faith of most Americans is a form of gnostic heresy. A number of religious thinkers who initially dismissed the book's thesis as preposterous, have recently taken another look, and fear that Bloom may indeed have been right. [more]

Is Islam more predis- posed toward violence than other religions? To hear good Christians ask this question in all sincerity, as if they had entirely forgotten Christianity's murderous past, strains credulity. And when Jews pose the question, it is often in defense of the proposition that we are indeed fighting a "war of civilizations," against Islam and that this time the Jews and Christians are on the same side. Alas, it appears that too many Jews and Christians find the war of civilizations rhetoric all too appealing.  And yet, at the same time, a legitimate question can be raised not about Islam in general -- since there is no such thing -- but about some sects within Islam today, and about Wahhabism in particular, in the present historical moment. Even Muslims are raising such questions about the character of the most energized sect in Islamic life today. [more] [more] [more] [more]   [more] 

Could it be that the story of Masada is a distortion of the truth of what really happened? Could it be that Yigal Yadin intentionally distorted the archaeological facts in order to produce a serviceable myth for a young nation intent upon producing a new kind of Jew? Just this is allege in a recnt book by the Dean of Social Sciences at the Hebrew University. [more]

The obstacles in the way of the development of liberal Islam are intellectual, social and material. The Saudi elites are committed to securing the continued hegemony of Wahhabism and no means is too foul to be employed for this purpose. The story of Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Islamic jurisprudence at UCLA,   makes helps us gauge the full magnitude of these obstacles. [more]

In the 1960's most social scientists assumed that secularization necessarily accompanied modern- ization,   industrialization and urbanization. The European case was regarded as exemplary for the rest of the world, East and West, North and South. In the past decade, the "secularization paradigm" has come increasingly into disrepute, however, and the European case is now regarded as the exception and not as the rule. [more]

In "God Is Great, and I'm Not" Michèle, a misguided 20-year-old hates her family, has an abortion, dumps her boyfriend and turns to Buddhism. But salvation comes  — well, almost — when she meets and falls in love with an atheistic Jewish veterinarian who is the son of Holocaust survivors. The film by Pascale Bailly explores the subtext of philo-Semitism in a society which remains better known for its continuing anti-Semitism. [more]

A new study finds that the economy of nations whose people hold firm religious beliefs, especially with regard to heaven and hell, tend to grow faster. Further, the stick represented by a fear of hell apparently stimulates growth more than the carrot of the prospect of heaven. [more]

A new book argues that Darwinian principles can fully explain the nature and function of religion, and also why one religion spreads far and wide and sustains itself over time, while its "competitors" fail to do so. [more]

American Jews are greying and having fewer children. The last decade saw a 5% decline in the number of people who identify themselves as Jewish. So read the headlines reporting the initial release of  quantitative findings from the latest National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS). A more nuanced qualitative analysis of Jewish identity and practice will follow in November. [more]
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Is common sense realism in decline? A recently published report by the Barna Group on the religious beliefs of Americans gives evidence of how religious beliefs are changing. While Barna bemoans the decline of Christian fundamentalist beliefs, we are more struck by Barna's  findings that Gen Xers are more likely than Boomers, and Boomers more likely than their elders, to believe in Satan, demonic possession and in the possiblity of communicating with the dead.   Does this presage a new efflorescence of religiosity or a new and troubling rise of postmodern credulity?[more]

Last Sunday "60 Minutes" aired a piece on the theology behind Evangelical Christians' support for Israel. Many Jewish viewers were disturbed by the news that Evangelical support is bound up with their expectation that in the "End of Days," after the Jews have conquered the entire Land of Israel, Christ will return, 2/3 of the Jews will perish and the remainder will convert to Christianity. Does Israel really want or need such "friends" as these? Many say "No way!," but others  say "Who cares about their theology, their support for Israel today is welcome."[more] [more] [more]

In the days just after the attacks of 9/11 the uniquely American combination of religion and patriotism found expression in the widespread popularity of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." In the past few months, however, "God Bless America" has given way to another anthem of the American civil religion, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," a martial and crusading tune of Civil War provenance.  [more]

In Israel today many secular Jews are turning to New Age and Eastern spirituality. For some, this turn amounts to a turning away from Jewish or secular traditions to what seem to be more meaningful alternatives. For others, the turn to the East or to New Age spirituality has served to deepen and renew their relationship to Jewish religious forms and practices. Indeed, one of the most interesting effects of the increased contact with these alternative spiritual sources has been the creation of new hybrid forms of Jewish religious practice that combine Judaic and Eastern or New Age elements. [more]

The ethics of forgiveness. Is repentance a prerequisite? Proceeding from a Jewish conviction that repentance must precede forgiveness, Jeff Jacoby takes issue with Pope John Paul's recent 9/11 anniversary prayer in which he asked God to "show mercy and forgiveness for the authors of this horrible terror attack.''   -- "Mercy and forgiveness?" asks Jacoby. "For the men who coldly plotted and pitilessly carried out the slaughter of thousands of human beings? How can the pope seek God's pardon for such monsters? How can he imagine that God would grant it?..." But as Jacoby notes, the belief that the appropriate religious response to evil is forgiveness is hardly unique to this pope, but has deep resonance in Christian religious thought and feeling. Jacoby initiates a discussion of this issue and its moral repercussions. [more]

How Americans pray -- for what and how often -- is the subject of a recent survey by the Christian Science Monitor. A fascinating report about America's becoming a more prayerful nation since 9/11/01. Especially notable is the move by many to pray in interfaith contexts,  [more] [more]

Have you heard the Good News? Christian scholars have declared that Jews do not need Jesus for salvation and need not be converted in order to be saved. This conclusion, which marks a high point in the movement toward ecumenical understanding, has not been favorably received in all Christian denominations. [more] Read the recent report of the Christian Scholars Group. [more]

Between 1990 and 2000 mainstream denominations declined while evangelical and charismatic denominations became increasingly popular. What does this tell us about the changing face of religion in America? What  implications are there for Jewish religious life? [more]

Two new books shed light on the changing role of the rabbi in the religious life of American Jews. One is a book of unconventional photographs, the other explores changes in the American religious landscape by focusing upon one congregation's effort to select a replacement for its outgoing rabbi of thirty years. [more]

An fierce wind of anti-Israel sentiment is howling through the halls of the humanities departments in American colleges where left wing professors are playing the self-appointed part of anti-colonialist tribunes on behalf of the oppressed Palestinians. [more]

The new creationism is a sophisticated affair, combining particle physics and chaos theory to argue for "intelligent design." But does this new theology really hang together logically or scientifically? Simon Blackburn critically reviews the recent books by Templeton Prize winner, Sir   John Polkinghorne, and finds the argument to be wanting. [more]

On a related front, Alan Orr takes on William Dembski's argument for "intelligent design." [more]

Many would accept the proposition that good morals in no way require a religious foundation, that the "second tablet" of the 10 Commandments possesses moral force even if the "first tablet" is set aside.  And yet there is a strong case on the other side that holds that an ethic that lacks religious grounds cannot be trusted to prevail in the face of the temptations of daily life. [more]

Rowan Williams, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, is a theologian, a scholar, a religious liberal and a spiritual leader. He also has a long paper trail, a record of commenting on war, abortion, homosexuality, consumerism and life in the  secular city. [more]

In the course of two decades evangelicals have moved from the periphery to the center of American intellectual life. Alan Wolfe traced this story in his article, "The Opening of the Evangelical Mind" in The Atlantic. But the story behind the story might well be dubbed "the funding of the evangelical mind," the extraordinary story of how the Lilly, Pew, Templeton and Fieldstead foundations have strategically deployed  their  philanthropic dollars  to underwrite and promote this intellectual flowering. [more]

"To be a great photographer, Garry Winogrand liked to claim during the 1970's, it was first of all necessary to be Jewish. The best ones, in his opinion — past and present, himself included, naturally — shared this birthright. Jewish photographers by his definition were nervy, ironic, disruptive of artistic norms and proud outsiders." [more]

The French Jewish thinker Emmanuel Levinas, who sought to bridge the gap between the secular and religious, remained largely unknown in Israel during his lifetime. But seven years after his death, a growing circle of Israelis view him as 'perhaps the greatest Jewish philosopher since Maimonides' . [more]

"NORFOLK, VA  -- An Orthodox Jewish synagogue is winning some support for its bid to create a symbolic enclosure in Ghent using utility poles and lines. But the area's largest civic league remains split on whether to back or oppose the project.