Tag Archives: religion

(Andrew Cuomo) Liberal Political Theology (Coronavirus)

Posted on April 13, 2020 by zjb

Like the one today (April 13), I’ve been watching a lot of these daily press conferences with Gov. Cuomo of New York in response to the Cornonavirus pandemic. Personally, I find them unvarnished and reassuring. Listening for religion and religion … Continue reading →

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(Maimonides) The Difference Between Religious & Secular Is The Difference Between Heaven & Earth (Mishneh Torah)

Posted on March 31, 2020 by zjb

By way of a little contribution via Maimonides to academic arguments about the existence or non-existence of “religion” and “the secular.” The argument is that the two terms along with the judgment that posits either the difference or separation between … Continue reading →

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(Maimonides Says) Cultivate the Middle Way (Hilkhot Deot) (Coronavirus)

Posted on March 29, 2020 by zjb

At the time of a global health pandemic, where better to turn than to the Great Eagle? Hilkhot Deot is a moral-medical compendium, famous for its elaboration upon the Aristotelean mean. But that’s not the half of it. The larger … Continue reading →

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(Spinoza Says) Enlightenment Now (Shut the Synagogues) (Coronavirus)

Posted on March 27, 2020 by zjb

[[Dutch Portuguese Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo arguing for the lifting of the ban on Baruch Spinoza, December 6, 2015. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)]] About Enlightenment, post-secularism, and anti-liberal twaddle. Watching in real time and with some pleasure as the unfolding relationship between … Continue reading →

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A New Consensus in Israel about What Being Jewish Really Means

Posted on December 3, 2019 by zjb

Excellent piece by Tomer Persico on the “liberalization” of Jewishness and Judaism in Israel today. The carefully wrought takeaway: “But the importance of the current situation goes well beyond the political arena. The evolving Jewish identity represents a sort of … Continue reading →

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Is There a Jewish Problem in Religious Studies & at the AAR?

Posted on November 21, 2019 by zjb

The place of Judaism and Jews, in their tiny little corner in the study of Religion and at the AAR has been a running question as old as the AAR itself about which a little history could be written, and … Continue reading →

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Affective Partisanship & Ideological Partisanship (Theories of Religion Redux)

Posted on November 6, 2019 by zjb

[h/t Joshua Garoon] This op-ed by Thomas Edsall here at the NYT about the relationship between group partisanship and ideology reminds me of arguments in theories of religion going back to Marx-Durkheim and Weber that touch upon contemporary affect studies. … Continue reading →

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(Idea & History) Hermann Cohen After Marx

Posted on September 19, 2019 by zjb

[Max Lieberman, Women Plucking Geese (1871)] In the introduction to the Religion of Reason, Hermann Cohen claims that the unity and uniqueness of the idea of God “elevates belief to a speculative height that by comparison all other problems become … Continue reading →

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(Israel) Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes (Political Spectacle)

Posted on May 30, 2019 by zjb

Here’s one arm, there’s the other arm of a dominant political beast. It’s like a bomb suddenly went off, shredding the political body of the Jewish right in Israel, an explosion that gives the lie to the notion that there are … Continue reading →

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The State of Israel and Religion & State

Posted on May 28, 2019 by zjb

An unmanageable quid pro quo, religion serving state and the state serving religion does not a pretty picture make.

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