From The Religion Dispatches

For H.A. Hellyer’s full coverage for RD from Cairo, click here.

It’s quite fascinating to see the role of religion and religious figures over the past week in Egypt. Certainly, the state in Egypt has mentioned the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) many times over the years, voicing the fear that in the event that the ruling National Democratic Party fell, Egypt would turn into an Arab version of Iran — a fear that was repeated many times over the last few days by the right-wing press all over the world.

There have been other things said relating to religious figures or organizations that are to be taken with a heavy dose of salt. Some in the Egyptian pro-Mubarak camp argued that Hizbollah from Lebanon were the ones responsible for opening the prisons in Egypt over the past week, and others played up that the Iranian president congratulated the protesters and hoped they would establish an “Islamic state” in Egypt.

One wonders, though, if the commentators actually realize what Egyptian society is really like.

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From The Huffington Post

The following is reprinted with permission from Religion Dispatches. You can sign up for their free daily newsletter here.

Just as in the case of Tunisia, we’ve been caught off guard by the rapid pace of events in Egypt. Commentators are having a difficult time understanding the dynamics of the Arab world and especially the role of religion in this latest apparent revolution. Many wonder why this isn’t an Islamic Revolution, and are audibly breathing a sigh of relief that it isn’t — assuming that somehow Egypt would follow Iran’s rather unique trajectory in 1979 and thereafter.

So why isn’t Egypt’s revolution an Islamic one? And what sets Tunisia and Egypt apart from Iran? Due to the quickly shifting nature of events, I’ve recorded four reasons why Egypt’s uprising isn’t an explicitly Islamic one.

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From Religion Dispatches

Religion Dispatches contributor Daniel Schultz recently published his first book: Changing the Script, based in large part on the thought of Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann. To mark the book release, we sent “Pastor Dan” to interview Brueggemann at his home in Cincinnati.

Dan: I should note, in the interest of full disclosure, that you and I are not only both from the United Church of Christ, we both come out of the Evangelical and Reformed tradition. I know for example that it is a pet peeve of yours, as it is mine, when that German side of the tradition gets ignored.

Walter: Right.

Dan: Do you think any of that tradition survives in your work?

Walter: Oh, very much so. I’m increasingly aware of it and, I think, intentionally work that way.

Dan: From the perspective of social justice or engagement?

Walter: From social justice, and I think the evangelical strand of that was marked by a kind of innocence about scripture—I think I have a fairly innocent perspective on scripture. Without raising excessive numbers of critical questions.

Dan: You tend to have a very straightforward reading of scripture.

Walter: That’s right, that’s right. Not complex, but also not quarrelsome. I don’t know if you know Carl Schneider, he was the great historian at Eden Seminary, the historian of the Evangelical Synod, and he accented all the time that the evangelical tradition was “irenic.” I think I get that. So in Old Testament Studies…

Dan: Old Testament Studies is not irenic.

Walter: Well, people really like to hack at each other and I don’t see the point of that. People who do otherwise are people from whom I can learn, and I don’t have any need to defeat them or top them.

Dan: I noticed in reviewing some of your work that you are very concerned with pulling those narratives out of scripture, whether within a particular book, or between the different books as they move along in the Old Testament.

Walter: I think that narratives construct the world for us and dictate policy and practice, and I think that our society is trying to live by a false narrative; the narrative of the national security state. So it seems to me the challenge for the church is to see whether we can show we have a better narrative, a more accurate narrative, out of which to generate policy and practice.

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As we enter into the final days and hours before the Parliament of Religions in Melbourne, Australia, we would like to take some time to reflect on the work ahead.  The 2009 Parliament will be ripe with challenge and promise and we will engage this opportunity by considering the interreligious movement as a whole. We are happy to share this series of five articles to help attendees prepare for their Parliament experience.

Our fourth article is written by Kim Bobo and is titled Ending Poverty: Real Questions for the Interfaith Community.  Bobo affirms the interreligious impulse to combat poverty, but contrasts individual acts of charity with the difficult and often controversial problems of systemic poverty.  Her article is a call to an authentic and ambitious response to poverty, and addresses how this can be achieved at the Parliament of Religions.

Kim Bobo is the Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice and is the former Director of Organizing for the organization Bread for the World. She is the author of Lives Matter: A Handbook for Christian Organizing and Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid – And What We Can Do About It, and co-author of Organizing for Social Change. She writes a column for the online magazine Religion Dispatches.  Please read her full article here.