It is always a sign of war going badly when the US mounts a “winning hearts and minds” campaign to go alongside conventional military operations. It surely is a worse sign when US Marines teach Afghanis to read the Koran so they can “help people understand Islam’s true nature.” When Devil Dogs are tasked with [...]
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If you occasionally wander over to HuffPo Religion (I do not recommend doing it too often), you will notice all kinds of articles offering all sorts of authoritative or alternative interpretations of religious texts such as the Bible, Koran, Torah, Rig Veda, etc.
In not one of these articles will you ever be told there are [...]
Tags:exegesis·hermeneutics·HuffPo Religion·interpretation·interpretive communities·Is There a Text In This Class·Literary Theory: An Introduction·religions of the book·religious texts·Stanley Fish·Terry Eagleton·theological disputation
Not long ago, I discussed an article on Islam by Cynthia Boaz. In her article, Boaz attempted to correct several misconceptions regarding Islam and presented us with a progressive, liberal, and tolerant interpretation of Islam. While there are Muslims outside of the US who interpret Islam in the way Boaz does, there are also Muslims [...]
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