09 September 2019
Turkey: Secularism, Nationalism, and Democracy (1)
I begin here a two-part blog post on Turkey. What has captured the headlines is the Trump administration love affair with Saudi Arabia (apparently uninterrupted by the grisly murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggji) and its support of its proxy war against Iran in Yemen, now in its fifth year. But it is not just the Kingdom of Saudi…
07 May 2019
The Fight for Justice in Palestine
I confess to being surprised that I haven’t touched this topic more than once, and that back in January 2012 (though I do have a ten-page paper on Christian Zionism and the I/P conflict in Resources, the ideology without which President Trump could not do what is doing with this issue). We lived there for three years as a family…
05 February 2019
America's Original Sin and White Privilege
In reaction to remarks made by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), which questioned the offensiveness of white nationalism or white supremacy, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution (424-1) on January 15, 2019, condemning that ideology. Specifically, the House “once again rejects White nationalism and White supremacy as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that…
18 January 2019
Caring for Elderly Parents
This is not just an academic topic– how Muslims and Christians think about caring for aged parents. For me it’s deeply – achingly, in this case – personal. We moved down to Philadelphia from Connecticut in 2006 to be close to my wife’s mother whose health was declining. Less than five years later we actually moved in to her home…