The Phantom Far-Right Menace in Germany's East

When my wife and I were about to buy a house on the edge of the Thuringian Forest a couple of years ago, some friends from Hanover expressed concerns. Their objection was not to the home itself. The traditional half-timbered house lying on a three-quarter-acre lot with immediate access to trails, selling for less than $250,000, was, in many ways, a dream. Their skepticism, instead, stemmed from its setting. They asked if we really wanted to live in an “AfD Dorf,” or AfD village — a hamlet full of people who support Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party. 

Their perception is based on statistics and phantom data visualizations that represent eastern Germany — the areas of Brandenburg, eastern Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia that from 1949 to 1990 made up the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany — as an almost solid mass of far-right sentiment. Outside major cities like Berlin and Leipzig, they see the entire east as one big AfD Dorf. 

They are not alone. In the aftermath of Germany’s March 2 federal election, which the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), won with 28.5% of the vote, there has been yet another round of commentary and analysis about eastern Germans opting en masse for the AfD. Color-coded maps, and their associated explanations, frame eastern Germany as almost solely responsible for the far-right party’s popularity and ascent to become the second-largest party in Germany’s parliament since its founding 12 years ago.

This is only partly true. In the area around Eisenach, the western Thuringian town my wife and I ended up finding the apartment we live in, 4 out of 10 voters chose the AfD. Those numbers need to be taken seriously. Yet the idea that the AfD’s rise is due entirely to voters in the east, and the maps used to sell that view, are demonstrably flawed.

According to statistics from the Bundeswahlleiterin, the officer responsible for overseeing elections at the federal level, 70.7% of the 10.3 million votes cast for the AfD last week came from western Germany, while only 29.3% came from the east of the country. The AfD did win the vast majority of eastern constituencies, but the party also took the lead in two western constituencies — Gelsenkirchen and Kaiserslautern — for the first time. 

While the ex-socialist states of the former GDR appear to be a sea of blue — the AfD’s color — on electoral maps, support for the party actually rose all across the country. As the AfD improved by 14 and 15 percentage points in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Thuringia, respectively, it also saw increases of near, or more than, 10 percentage points in several western states (Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Lower Saxony and North-Rhine Westphalia), including jumps of 11 percentage points in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland. The far-right party pulled support from across the political spectrum, with the center-right CDU/CSU conceding the most, losing 1 million voters to the AfD. 

In other words, the AfD did not become the second-largest party solely because of its voters in eastern Germany. That claim not only misrepresents the reasons for the AfD’s popularity but also plays into a decades-long narrative of “east-bashing” in popular discourse. Having lived here for nearly six years, this attitude feels lazy and elitist; it also misdiagnoses the real reasons for the AfD’s menacing rise. 

Haunted Land, Popular Saints: Rituals of Death along the U.S./Mexico Border

It’s a gray, mid-May morning in Panteón Municipal #1, a city cemetery in Tijuana’s Zona Norte neighborhood. Alberto, the gatekeeper, saunters down a rocky pathway lined with palms, jacaranda, and gravestones to a prominent, red brick chapel, built over the tomb of one Juan Castillo Morales.

The shrine is covered wall-to-wall with candles, flowers, and plaques with names and messages of thanks to “Juan Soldado” (Juan the Soldier), as Castillo is known. Amid the array sits a stylized bust of a young soldier, resplendent in military attire, this morning bearing a black rosary and a blue-and-white Los Angeles Dodgers snapback hat.

The shrine is one of many unofficial memorials where loved ones remember lives of immigrants lost along the U.S.-Mexico border. From chapels erected around the graves of unofficial saints such as Castillo to digital memorials people carry with them into the desert to the crosses, flowers, and other mementos left along the border boundary itself, these monuments not only pay tribute to the individuals lost but bear witness to the ubiquity of death — and faith — in America’s southwestern borderlands.

Rosalba Ruiz-Hernández, a 46-year-old mother of five, stands in the shrine. Ruiz-Hernández, originally from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, was deported back to Tijuana after her own failed attempt to start a new life in the U.S. Two of her grown children still live in Long Beach, Calif., near her former husband. They are undocumented, she said, but they make a living. Two others are in Tijuana with her. Matías, her middle son, died in the desert on his way north to join his siblings in Southern California.

“I come to Juanito’s chapel to give thanks for the children who have their new life in Long Beach,” Rosalba said, “and to pray for Matías’ soul.”

Juan Soldado is an unlikely saint. According to the Roman Catholic Church, he isn’t a saint at all. On Feb. 17, 1938, Castillo was executed for the rape and murder of Olga Camacho Martínez, a young girl who is buried in a cemetery just up the road. William Calvo-Quirós, an associate professor of American and Latino/a Studies at the University of Michigan, said the young soldier, a convicted murderer and rapist, transformed over time into Juan Soldado — a “folk saint” who is venerated as a victim of state violence.

And Tijuana holds many such stories, of border “saints” who, in death and in life, suffered at the intersections between worlds. And beyond Tijuana, there are numerous other unofficial saints’ shrines populating the U.S.-Mexico borderlands: El Tiradito in Tucson, Ariz.; Jesús Malverde in Culiacán, Sinaloa; Niño Fidencio in Espinazo, Nuevo León; the Virgen de San Juan del Valle, outside McAllen, Texas; and El Señor de los Milagros in San Antonio. Each memorial is part of a rich tapestry of rituals and beliefs that immigrants and their loved ones carry with them, or depend on, to sustain them amid migration, uncertainty, and death.

Nobody knows how many of these saints exist, wrote historian Paul J. Vanderwood. But the popular devotions and informal canonizations that emerged around them are a testament to the unjust circumstances of their deaths and, by extension, the deaths of many in the borderlands. These are souls with “unfinished” business, Vanderwood wrote — they “clamor for assistance” and cry out for justice.

Hundreds of migrants die every year along one of the world’s deadliest land borders. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency reports that 8,050 people died attempting to cross the border between 1998 and 2020. The agency recorded an additional 568 deaths in 2021 and 895 in 2022 — the most deaths recorded in a single year. Many more, who die from some form of exposure (heat stroke, hypothermia, or dehydration), are left unaccounted for and unclaimed. Then there are those who die somewhere in Mexico or Central and South America, en route to the U.S.-Mexico border.

This, said Calvo-Quirós, makes the border a nearly 2,000-mile stretch of “haunted land.”

German Pastor to Pay for Anti-LGBTQ Statements

Nearly five years after a German pastor sparked controversy with comments about homosexuality, the legal dispute appears to be over with a settlement of 5,000 euros (about $5,550 USD).

Olaf Latzel, pastor of a conservative congregation in the state-privileged Protestant Church, called homosexuality “degenerative” and “demonic.” He condemned what he called the “homolobby” and slammed “these criminals” at a Berlin LGBTQ pride celebration, “running around everywhere.” Latzel made the comments during a 2019 marriage seminar. Only about 30 couples attended, but the seminar was later shared on YouTube.

He was charged with incitement of hate against a people group and found guilty in 2020 in the Bremen District Court. Latzel was ordered to pay a fine of 90 euros per day for 90 days—the equivalent of nearly $9,000 USD.

Latzel appealed and won in regional court. The judge ruled that while offensive, the pastor’s comments were nonetheless protected by constitutional protections of freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

Prosecutors appealed that decision and in February 2023 the Higher Regional Court deemed the case “incomplete” and sent it back to Bremen.

Now, the Bremen Regional Court has suspended the proceedings, with one condition: the pastor must give 5,000 Euros to the nonprofit Rat & Tat-Zentrum für Queeres Leben (Advice and Action Center for Queer Life) in Bremen.

Latzel has six months to transfer the funds. With that, the case against him will be dropped completely.

Image And Power, Satire And Sacrilege At The Paris Olympics

When I teach a religious studies class, I try to pull something from the headlines to use for discussion. You know, something religion-y to get students thinking about religion’s continuing ubiquity and importance in the world today.  

Had I been teaching a class at the end of July 2024, there would have been only one option for that thing: the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

Not the bells ringing at Notre Dame Cathedral and not Sequana, goddess of the river Seine, galloping in gleaming silver with the Olympic flag. Worthy topics, to be sure. But none was more worthy of discussion — if social media were the measure of things — than a living tableau of LGBTQ+ performers posing in what seemed to be (or…possibly not) a recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”

It created some conversation and controversy, to say the least. And rather than adjudicating the right- or wrongness of the artistic choice, the ins and outs of the potential offense, whether the portrayal was Ancient Greek or Renaissance Italian, or the dynamics of French secular culture, global Catholicism and U.S. evangelical culture (again, all worthy topics), I would have used the kerfuffle as a case study in the power of the image and the power of satire in the world of religion.

The power of image

With or without religion, images are powerful. They move us to anger, they move us love; they move us to buy, they move us to believe.

And in his eponymous book, religion scholar David Morgan discusses the power of the “sacred gaze” — a way of seeing that invests an object (an image, person, time or place) with spiritual significance. Across a variety of religious traditions, Morgan traces how images in different times and spaces convey beliefs and produce religious reactions in human societies – what he calls, “visual piety.”  

As human products, images and religious ideas have grown together, with some images having the power to determine personal practice and identifications, rituals and notions of sacred space. As “visual instruments fundamental to human life,” images have their own materiality and agency. Think of the ubiquitous statue of the Buddha sitting in backyard or the glittery gold calligraphy of “Allah” or “Muhammad” hanging over a family’s living room; the brightly colored images of Ganesha and Krishna or a copy of Eric Enstrom’s “Grace” hanging in kitchens and cookhouses across the U.S.

Each of these images serve as markers of a whole range of social concerns, devotional piety, creedal orthodoxy or gender norms.

So too with da Vinci’s “Last Supper.” As one of the most well-known religious images the world over, the painting is not a part of any Christian canon. It isn’t even an accurate representation of what the Last Supper, as recorded in the Christian Gospels, would have been. Jesus’ disciples were not Renaissance European white men, they were probably not pescatarians, nor were they seated on one side of the table (or seated at that kind of table at all). But as a myth we knew we were all making, and as the National Gallery’s Siobhán Jolley pointed out on X, the painting morphed from being a sign (a painting portraying an interpretation of biblical texts) to a signifier (a bearer of meaning so pronounced that it came to visualize Jesus’ last meal with his followers for many).   

And in our contemporary culture(s), such visual cues carry a particular kind of power. In a highly visual society, bombarded by the rapid consumption of images on screens of varying size and intensity, images can transcend one context and speak to many — as did the recreation of da Vinci’s “Last Supper” (or…maybe not) when it resonated both positively and negatively with so many.

As a visual quotation of a popular image, we translated its meaning and the image spoke with power to various communities and subcultures. It tore people up and took the internet by storm. It manifested opprobrium and offense, celebration and adulation, as it was read as a sacrilege of the highest offense or as a symbol of vibrant tolerance and pleasing subversiveness. Along the way, it created a whole range of responses, on what is and what is not offensive, what is and is not idolatry, what is and is not Christian privilege, what is and is not persecution; the list could go on and on.

For all that it was (or was not), the Opening Ceremony moment (and it was, after all, but a blip on the screen) illustrated once again the power of religious images, even in increasingly secular societies.

The power of satire

In addition, whatever the performance was meant to represent, it was almost certainly meant as a form of satire.

A genre with generations of history, religious satire’s power lies in its ability to direct the public gaze to the vice, follies and shortcomings of religious institutions, actors and authority writ large. Whether calling out hypocrisy or corruption, religious satire has been used for centuries to take religious elites or established traditions to task.

Examples of savage satire and nipping parody abound across religious history. From the Purim Torah and its humorous comments read, recited or performed during the Jewish holiday of Purim to "Paragraphs and Periods,”(Al-Fuṣūl wa Al-Ghāyāt) a parody of the Quran by Al-Ma‘arri or the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer or Robert Burns’ poem “Holy WIllie’s Prayer,” authors and authorities, playwrights and poets have wielded scalding pens to critique what they see as the hypocrisy, self-righteousness and ostentation of religious communities.

As such, satire has been powerful as a means of protest both from without and within religious traditions. For example, the 16th-century rebel German monk and Reformer Martin Luther used his caustic touch to call what he thought were abuses within the Catholic Church to task. Jeering and flaunting his way through theological controversies and the dogmatic discussions of his day, Luther was not one to skirt the issue or back away from using humor and satire to prove his point. In fact, he was well known for his use of scatological references, offending his followers and opponents with vulgar references to passing gas and feces.

Each of these examples shows how satire relies on a combination of absurdity, mimicry and humor to highlight the problems its creators see with religious actors’ or institutions’ behaviors, vices or social standing.

To that end, the opening ceremony’s display was religious satire par excellence, insofar as it pushed a particular social agenda and advocated for certain recognitions for a marginalized community through its exhibition. The living display not only created a stir but captured the public imagination, sparking discussion and debate about Christian privilege, European culture and the acceptance and affirmation of LGBTQ+ individuals in religious communities. In this way, religious satire can also help create community and a sense of belonging among those who are in on the joke and jive with the critique embodied in the satire.

The persistent power of religion

The debate around the tableau will (hopefully) die down in the days and weeks to come (and perhaps already has in a media cycle that serves up a fresh controversy every 24-hours). But if I were to point to just one lesson in my religious studies classroom, I would highlight how the scene — for all it was or wasn’t — proved once again the power of images and satire in the field of religion.

It is another case study in how, even at supposedly “secular” events in a decidedly “secular” country, religion — and the primary and secondary images and satire thereof — remains persistently present and ubiquitously potent. And that, dear students of religion, is something to keep in mind for the next controversy, which is sure to come sometime soon.

Is Tampa the new Dearborn?

While the city’s Islamic infrastructure is dynamic, the community’s mix of progressive values and social conservatism makes it an outlier in a polarized ideological landscape.

Ashraf “Ash” Ayyash, owner and operator of The Fryer House foodtruck in Temple Terrace, Fla. (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

“You’ve got to try The Fryer House,” Aaysha Kapila told me via the Tampa Halal Food Facebook group. “It’s new on the scene, but it’s amazing.” The “scene” in question? Tampa’s market for halal food. And The Fryer House, a food truck that opened in December 2023, is one of the newest on it, offering a fusion of Arab, Asian and American Southern fried chicken — from hot chicken sandwiches to fiery golden tenders to chicken and waffles.

Blending Palestinian spices with Japanese styles and Latin American peppers, the food truck’s owner, Ashraf “Ash” Ayyash, says his brand of “halal hot chicken” has proved a hit. While his customers come from a cross-section of Tampa society, many are Arabs and South Asian Muslims looking for a spicy, sumptuous, halal option for lunch or dinner. During Ramadan, Ayyash said, he cooked thousands of pounds of chicken. At a series of major local events during the month of fasting — Ramadan Suhoor Nights — he averaged 300 pounds per night.

Sitting underneath Ayyash’s menu with its hot, very hot and “pepper x” levels of spiciness, a slim, 30-something Palestinian American named Zyad is snacking on some of Ayyash’s specially seasoned french fries. This, he says, is one of his favorite options in Temple Terrace, a city on the northeast side of Tampa Bay and epicenter of its robust halal food scene. “There’s a Yemeni place down the road, several shawarma options, an Arab grocery store, a Turkish grocery store, bakeries, clothing stores, restaurants, food trucks. The list goes on,” he told New Lines.

“Tampa,” Zyad said, “is like the new Dearborn,” referring to Dearborn, Michigan, the first Arab-majority city in the U.S. and home to the largest mosque in North America.

Though there are no official statistics, estimates of Tampa’s Muslim community range between 5,000 or 6,000 in the Temple Terrace-New Tampa area alone, to upward of 36,000 or as high as 100,000 in the greater Tampa Bay area, which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

Community statistics show an estimated 500,000 Muslims in Florida and over 150 mosques and Islamic centers across the state, from the Keys in the south to Pensacola on the panhandle. And they cut the cross section of Muslim-American society: Almost one-third were born in the U.S., with the remaining 69% coming from places like Pakistan and India, Egypt and Palestine, Guyana and Puerto Rico. The Tampa Bay area is home to tens of thousands of Muslims from over 80 different countries.

Especially around Busch Boulevard and 56th Street, not far from the Busch Gardens amusement park and the main campus of the University of South Florida (USF), Tampa’s Islamic infrastructure is dense, a testament to its rarely recognized, but consistently growing, Muslim community. Not only are numerous mosques and several of the nation’s premier Islamic schools in and around Temple Terrace, but there are also law offices with signs in Arabic and Urdu, numerous halal restaurants, Middle Eastern barber shops, Ramadan decor hanging in shop windows and a large halal slaughterhouse named Musa’s.

Abdullah Jaber at CAIR’s offices in Temple Terrace, Fla. (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

“I would estimate around 70% of the businesses in the Temple Terrace area are Muslim-owned,” said Imam Abdullah Jaber, executive director of CAIR Florida, the Sunshine State’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties organization whose offices are also in Temple Terrace. “There are Muslims heading the Chamber of Commerce, professors at local universities, dentists, physicians, you name it.”

They are also shaping local, state and national elections with the growing political power that comes with such a presence. But that influence is far from monolithic: The Muslim community’s shifting political crosscurrents and fault lines mean it doesn’t align neatly with either camp in the country’s increasingly polarized landscape. “I think you can be socially conservative and yet be an advocate for social and racial justice,” Jaber told New Lines.

“Maybe that’s impossible with America’s current politics, but I think Tampa is leading the way here. It’s a model for American Muslim life.”

Righting the American Dream: A Review of Diane Winston's Latest Book

You have probably heard it before. You will most likely hear it again. In fact, it’s almost so banal a “fact” that it’s become a truism: The media has a liberal bias. Some would even go so far as to say that the news media is a bastion of liberal ideology that does not reflect the diverse range of opinions held by most Americans. On social, cultural, and economic issues, it is believed, newswriters are partisans, prejudiced to the political left.

Using timely historical analysis, Diane Winston’s Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision challenges the “myth of the liberal news media,” detailing how outlets across the United States “normalized and circulated Reagan’s religiously inflected neoliberalism”—what she calls his religious imaginary. This not only influenced what consumers thought about Reagan’s tenure and its era but, Winston argues, shaped policies that led to the increased “income inequality, militant unilateralism and intergroup conflict” (200) we continue to see today.

Young evangelicals listen to their pastors. Do pastors listen to them?

“When students come back at semester breaks, that’s when the conversations really pick up,” said Jon-Michael Phillips, 35, a youth pastor at a nondenominational church in Jackson, Michigan, a city of about 31,000 between Ann Arbor and Lansing, the state’s two big college towns.

As students from the University of Michigan and Michigan State return home for the holidays, Phillips is less concerned about college football rivalries than about the political discussions he is bound to have. “Every year, students want to talk to me about things they are struggling with,” he said, “and one of the topics a few are sure to bring up is politics.” 

Phillips said students often share that when it comes to LGBT issues, the environment or the Republican Party, they increasingly feel at odds with the politics they often heard from the pulpit as they grew up or what was shared at home. 

As they become more politically aware and active, Phillips said, they start to question how their evangelical Christian parents and pastors have presented these issues and others. 

“The nice thing is they still want to talk and want to know what I think,” Phillips said. “The question is what I can do with these conversations.” 

Special Guest Episode at the Maydan

Podcasts are fun.

They’re even more fun when you get to do them with a valued colleague.

A couple of months ago, Wikke Jansen and I sat down to talk about my book The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean. Wikke is a visiting fellow at the Berlin University Alliance Project “Global Repertoires of Living Together (RePLITO) and received her Ph.D. in Global Studies from the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Humboldt University Berlin, where we got to know one another through the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies.

Wikke not only carefully read my work, but also asked some poignant and pointed questions about what its points might have to say to other themes in the study of global Islam and decolonization.

The result is a special guest episode at the Maydan, an online publication of Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University, offering expert analysis on a wide variety of issues in the field of Islamic Studies for academic and public audiences alike, and serving as a resource hub and a platform for informed conversation, featuring original articles and visual media from diverse perspectives.

Going Hungry for God: Why Do People Fast?

“I wonder what it would be like to fast in Siberia,” my friend Mohammed asked.

Mohammed had always enjoyed Ramadan in the company of family and friends in Jordan — a Muslim-majority country in the Middle East. He was curious what it might be like to fast in places where Muslims were in the minority or where daylight hours extended late into the night, extending the fasting period beyond the limits he was used to.

According to Islamic tradition, fasting is required during Ramadan, the ninth month of its lunar calendar. In 2022, Ramadan is likely to start on April 2. For thirty days, those fasting are obligated to abstain from drinking, eating, or engaging in other indulgent activities (like sex, smoking, and activities considered sinful) from just before sunrise to sunset. Depending upon where you are in the world, that can mean fasting 10 or up-to-21 hours. It was the idea of fasting for such a potentially long time that prompted Mohammed’s ponderous question about fasting in Siberia.

Muslims are far from the only religious actors who fast. Bahá’ís fast during daylight hours during the first three weeks of March in preparation for the Naw-Rúz Festival. As this post goes to press, Christians the world over are still in the midst of their Lenten fasts and looking forward to Easter. Jews fast as part of Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement — as a means of repentance and solemn preparation. Some Hindus regularly practice fasting as a means of willful detachment and devotion.

With such a wide range of similar aesthetic practices, one might wonder: why do so many different religious people choose to go hungry for god?

What is "Religion" Anyway?

In 2013, the Disciples of the New Dawn started posting highly offensive memes on Facebook. They attacked everyone from Pagans and steampunk fans to women who had C-sections.

Tapping into fears about religious fundamentalism and public obsession with “cults,” their vitriolic posts went viral.

As the posts were shared with increasing frequency, some started to wonder whether Disciples of the New Dawn were a real religious community or just a cabal of internet trolls goading us into digital outrage (it turns out, they were the latter).

When I teach courses on religious studies, I like to use the case of the Disciples of the New Dawn as an opportunity for students to wrestle with the concept of religion itself. It prompts them to consider questions like: what makes a religion real? Or, what makes a religion ”religious” at all?

While we may feel like “we know religion when we see it,” we generally struggle to be exact when it comes to determining what counts as religion. Even if we have a vague idea, defining religion feels like pinning jello to a wall.

Which makes things difficult. Because, before can begin to dig deeper into the topic of religion, we first have to define the object of our study.

So, what is this thing we call “religion” anyway?

ReligionLink: Seven religion stories for 2022

When I met Mary Gladstone, ReligionLink’s Assistant Editor, back in 2012 I knew that someday I wanted to help put the publication together.

Why? Because ReligionLink is the ultimate resource for journalists reporting on religion.

A service of the Religion News Association and its Foundation, the monthly newsletter delivers free tools and tips for writing about religion with balance, accuracy and insight. Our source guides and story ideas provide insight into headlines on specific faiths and topics from around the world.

Ten years later, I am proud to announce that I am ReligionLink’s new Editor!

Now, I’ll be part of putting together comprehensive source guides and story ideas on the most timely and controversial issues in religion and ethics.

For my first edition, I tried my hand at a bit of religion news “prophecy.”

From The New York Times to The Economist, pundits and news “prophets” have been predicting that 2022 will be the year of “adjusting to new realities.” This not only means adjustments in daily life, but broader shifts in politics and technology, economics and, of course, religion. 

My first edition of ReligionLink explores seven issues that may deserve attention this year, including resources and potential sources to help you cover them:

• Democracy, autocracy and … aliens

• Major SCOTUS decisions

• Endemic religion

• Religious communities and climate change

• The continuing rise of “spirit tech”

• Religious economies

• International sporting events and human rights

December 2021 Book Giveaway!

Looking to get that religion nerd in your life something unique for the holidays?

Interested in exploring the vibrancy and diversity of Muslim life and experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean?

In the market for an effective sleep aid? ;)

Well, I’ve got extra copies of my new book The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean and I’d like to give one away!

To enter to win a copy sent to the address of your choice, simply do any of the following between now and December 14, 2021:

1) Sign up for my Religion+Culture E-Newsletter;

2) Sign up for the Latin America and Caribbean Islamic Studies Newsletter;

3) Share news about the book and/or the book giveaway and tag me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Entries are open until December 14. Multiple entries allowed.

Questions, comments, or conundrums? Send me a note.

Gracias a Dios, alhamdulillah, and great thanks to each and every one of you

The acknowledgements section of my book was extremely gratifying to write. It is even more gratifying to share it here with you.

Perhaps this has become trite to say, but after such an undertaking, I can attest that completing this book would have been impossible without the help of others. I am indebted to each and every one of the following individuals and to many others. 

The debts of gratitude and appreciation that I have accumulated are vast, and I ask forgiveness from all those I neglect to name here. And, it must be said, any errors in this book are solely my own and are not the responsibility of those who provided input throughout the process.

First, to the students in my spring 2017 Islam in the Americas course at the University of Florida: You gave me the idea for this book. Thank you also to the graduate students in my course at Otto Friedrich Universität Bamberg in Germany. Beyond inspiration, you helped develop, think through, critique, and expand some of the ideas that formed the backbone of this work. You also researched and wrote your own papers, which informed my knowledge and expanded my understanding of the landscape of this field. Best of all, you challenged me with your questions, comments, and critiques. You are already contributors to this field, and I thank you for your continued engagement with it.

To those I spoke with at the Latin American Studies Association Congress, the Caribbean Studies Association Conference, the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, the University of Florida and its Center for Global Islamic Studies, the Florida Caribbean Students Association, Florida International University, Otto Friedrich Universität Bamberg, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, and Freie Universität Berlin: My presentations at these venues helped me to elucidate and elaborate on some of the themes in this book. Preparing these presentations also allowed me to work out some of the devils hiding in the details. Thank you to the participants, presiders, and panelists for your critical feedback and insightful questions.

Thank you to the editors of the extraordinarily helpful Critical Muslim series and Hamsa: Journal of Judaic and Islamic Studies. Thanks also to Frank Usarski and the International Journal of Latin American Religions and its editorial team for publishing an early review of literature that came to form the basis for this book’s outline. Thank you also to Celso Luiz Terzetti Filho for recommending me for its inaugural issue. Thank you to the people behind The Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions—senior editor Henri Gooren, the contributors to my section, and the editorial staff at Springer—for allowing me to serve as a section editor for the entries on Islam and Judaism in Latin America and the Caribbean. Readers will note that I have referenced entries from the encyclopedia in this book, which is a testament to the essential nature of the work, especially with regard to its emphasis on religions too often ignored (Islam, in particular) when surveying religion in the region.

To the Muslims and others who invited me into their homes and mosques, who told me their stories, or who shared their insights and experiences with me: I dedicate this book to you for good reason. There would be no book without you, plain and simple. I am humbly honored to learn from you in each conversation and new experience that I stumble and bumble my way through. Thank you for your patience, your confidence to speak, and your permission to allow me to share these stories. Gracias a Dios, alhamdulillah, and great thanks to each and every one of you. This book is my perspective on your narrative, and I respectfully submit it to you for critical feedback. I look forward to the conversations to come.

To the many scholars whose work I turn to in this book: This is your book, as well. As I state in Chapters 1 and 11, the book is meant to be an overview of an ongoing conversation in which you are all vital parts. Thank you for allowing me to be a co-collaborator in this field. I hope the book helps all of us continue to teach, learn, and delve deeper into the topic. Specifically, I would like to thank several individuals whose work I reference or allude to and with whom I was able to speak about their particular areas of expertise and research: Carlos Jair Martínez Albarracín, Patrick Bowen, Philipp Bruckmayr, Karoline P. Cook, Kevin Funk, Michelle Romero Gallardo, Juan Galvan, Hazel Gómez, Cynthia Hernández González, Nik Hasif, Aisha Khan, Aliyah Khan, Schuyler Marquez, Arely Medina, Harold Morales, Alaina Morgan, Madelina Nuñez, Luciana Garcia de Oliveira, Lucía Cirianni Salazar, Omar Ramadan Santiago, and others. As I recently said to Schuyler Marquez, “A win for one of us is a win for all of us” in this emerging field.

To my family and friends: Thank you for your cheerleading, encouragement, and forbearance as I talked about my project, retreated into my writing cave, or cut you off as I jotted down an idea that popped into my head. Thanks especially to my parents, Bob and Sandy: You have always encouraged me, no matter what I have done. When I was worried, stressed, or overwhelmed, you gave me proper perspective and the support to keep me supple to the strain of life and work. You gave me life—literally, figuratively, and spiritually. Thank you to Brett, who taught me the meaning of perseverance in the face of adversity and can always make me smile. Thank you to my German family and friends, including Karl Knaack (also known as Stefan Müller) and his electronic music, which helped me work through hours of manuscript writing, editing, and research. Thank you to Michael and Emily Knippa for a lovely stay in St. Louis, where I was able to write the bulk of Chapter 9. Thank you also to Andy and Faye Scott, whose lovely farmhouse in Bend, Oregon, permitted me to write the concluding chapter in peace and comfort while admiring the cloud-covered Cascade Mountains. 

Despite my weaknesses as a writer, I would like to thank all those who taught me how to research, write, and edit my way through an essay, a paper, a blog post, a news story, or a book: Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Campbell, Mrs. Davis, and editors at the various papers, magazines, and portals in which I have had the honor to be published. Thanks also go to professors, mentors, and colleagues at Concordia University Irvine, who specifically helped refine my academic research and writing skills—Christine Lawton, Eshetu Abate Koyra, Korey Maas, James Bachman, Steven Mueller, and Jack Schultz, among others. I still have much to learn, and any shortcomings in my syntax or style are solely my responsibility. 

I am forever thankful for the pure privilege it was to conduct research with, learn from, and grow alongside the faculty, staff, and fellow researchers at the University of Florida, its Department of Religion, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Center for Global Islamic Studies. Terje Østebø, Anna Peterson, Benjamin Soares, Efraín Barradas, David Hackett, Robin Wright, Whitney Sanford, Zoharah Simmons, and others provided the space for me to explore the themes of this book and write its first draft during my time in Gainesville. Thanks also to Barbara Mennel and Sophia Krzys Acord at the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere and their sponsorship of my attendance at the 2018 Writing Retreat at the Austin Cary Forest Learning Center, where I was able to put the final touches on the first draft.

I would also like to thank those who provided funding to support revisions of the manuscript. First, thanks to Ermin Sinanović and the Center of Islam in the Contemporary World at Shenandoah University for a grant that supported significant revisions in fall 2019. Thank you also to the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for funding my research at the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies at Freie Universität Berlin, where I was able to make final revisions (even amidst the Covid-19 pandemic) with the full security of a research position in a supportive environment of colleagues. In particular, I thank Konrad Hirschler and Lars Ostermeier for their leadership and direction, Nadja Danilenko for writing tips, Antje Müller for taking care of the logistics of my position, Giulia Brabetz for her assistance and critical feedback on the manuscript along the way, and the fellows who participated in my Theorizing Global Islam reading group, in which we discussed this book’s main arguments and themes.

Thank you to the team at Lynne Rienner Publishers. I appreciate (and tremble a bit at) being able to follow in the footsteps of Judith Elkin, who published The Jews of Latin America with the same independent academic publishing house years ago. While my work cannot hope to compare, Lynne Rienner, Caroline Owen Wintersgill, Nicole Moore, Sally Glover, Allie Schellong, Diane Foose, and others were gracious throughout the process as we sought to provide a companion to such a seminal work. My thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers who provided critical, detailed, and constructive feedback that improved the final version of the text significantly. Unfortunately, that type of review feedback can be a rare commodity in academic publishing. Therefore, I am extremely grateful.

Finally, Paula, how can a paragraph express how much you have given to me in life and how much you have contributed to this book? In short, it cannot. Let this suffice for now: Thank you for your fierce intellect, constant encouragement, contagious joy, and for providing proper rhythm in life. Thank you for allowing me time to explore mosques and other sites of interest in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, New York, Iowa, Florida, the Bahamas, and elsewhere. Thank you also for reading the manuscript and providing feedback, specifically in matters related to Arabic. You were gracious to take time out of your schedule to do so. What’s more, every time I finished a chapter, wrote a few thousand words, or just stared at the computer for a while trying to figure out where to go next, you were always ready with an encouraging word, an insightful comment, or an offer to get snacks. You are the most amazing best friend and partner I could ask for.

Public Lecture: What hath ethnography to do with religion journalism?

Diversity and difference continue to pose a pronounced challenge to the public understanding of religion.

For decades, both religion scholars and journalists have striven to address religious pluralism and advance religious literacy through a range of critical research and explanatory reporting. One shared aspect between them has been the use of immersive techniques in order to offer more nuanced, contextual, and longform narratives of the miscellany of religious traditions.

On the one hand, ethnographers of religion have produced textured analyses of religious individuals, socialities, rituals, and material cultures, further refining and complicating our understanding of what “religion” is and how it is lived in particular places. On the other hand, some religion newswriters are afforded the opportunity to take deep dives into religious actors’ lives and contexts and tell their stories in popular fashion via features, podcasts, and video stories.

Despite their differences, qualitative religious studies scholarship and religion journalism have more in common than usually acknowledged.

As part of the series "Erfurt Monday Lectures: New Topics in Religious Studies” at the University of Erfurt, I will share some insights and reflections as both an ethnographer and a journalist and how my research and reporting on religion has led me to explore questions related to the ethics, norms, and aesthetics of both fields and how they might work together to shine light on how religion and spirituality function in the lives of religious actors and socialities in a diverse array of locales and from multiple points of view.

The event will be Monday, 21 June 2021 at 5:00 pm Central European Time (11:00 am EDT/8:00 PDT). You can learn more about the event HERE, register ahead of time via e-mail, or simply attend the event at the link below (requires WebEx software).

If you have any questions, be sure to reach out to me as well: k.chitwood@fu-berlin.de.

Waiting for Justice: for over four years, World Vision employee has remained imprisoned without fair trial

Every day, at least once and sometimes more, Khalil el-Halabi logs on to Twitter and posts pictures, videos, and appeals on behalf of his son Mohammad.

Tagging people he believes might come to his aid—human rights lawyers, politicians, and journalists—he calls for justice and mercy. On January 4, he posted, “To our Israeli neighbours. My son will be brought to court for the 154th time Tuesday facing a charge he has not committed without any credible evidence.”

He closed the tweet with a quote from Amos 5:24: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Khalil’s son Mohammad el-Halabi is the former Gaza director for World Vision International. He was arrested by Israeli authorities in 2016 on allegations of aiding terrorists by diverting millions of dollars from the evangelical humanitarian aid group to arm militants in Gaza—charges Mohammad el-Halabi, still employed at World Vision as a zonal manager, adamantly denies.

After more than four years, Halabi is still awaiting justice. He hasn’t had the chance to defend himself or even see much of the evidence against him. Human rights experts with the United Nations say Halabi has also been denied access to his lawyer and tortured. His case is causing consternation among politicians and legal experts and has cast a cloud over evangelical organizations doing charitable work in Gaza and the West Bank.

Introducing the Latin America & Caribbean Islamic Studies Newsletter

The study of Islam & Muslim communities in Latin America and the Caribbean is a field on the rise and features an ever-expanding network of scholars.

This newsletter is one way for us to be connected.

The idea behind the Latin America & Caribbean Islamic Studies Newsletter is simple: to bring together persons interested in the study of Islam and Muslim communities in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the networks that exist across, between, and beyond the Americas. The goal is to increase knowledge and encourage further scholarship on the topic.

The quarterly newsletter will not only communicate information on research opportunities and contribute relevant resources, but also serve as a platform to connect and collaborate.

The Latin America and Caribbean Islamic Studies Newsletter is secular, academically independent, and non-confessional. Its main aims include gaining recognition for the field, creating a network of scholars with the hope of one day creating a formal membership organization, generating further interest in the topic, and producing data, analysis, and insights on the subject from various fields of research and the public sphere.

The General Editor for the newsletter is Dr. Ken Chitwood and the Editor is Ms. Giulia Brabetz, both of the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures & Societies at Freie Universität Berlin. Contributions will include work from a range of scholars working in various fields. While the newsletter will be predominately in English, specific articles and resources will be provided in Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Arabic, and other languages. 

The first newsletter will be sent mid-October, 2020. 

If you are interested in learning more about the newsletter or have specific questions or concerns, please contact k.chitwood@fu-berlin.de. 

Otherwise, we invite you to subscribe and share this invitation with other potentially interested people in your network. 

Plague Started Their Passion Play in 1633. COVID-19 Canceled It in 2020.

As an epidemic raged across Europe, a picturesque German village in the mountainous south of Bavaria decided to do something about it. 

Having already lost 80 of their own to the plague, the villagers of Oberammergau pledged to perform the Passion of Jesus Christ—his suffering, death, and resurrection—every tenth year, so that no one else might die. 

So goes the historical legend of the origins of the Oberammergau Passion Play, an almost four-centuries-old tradition that takes place once every 10 years. 

The year of the pledge was 1633, not 2020. The Pest—German for plague—was the so-called “Black Death,” not the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, in an ironic twist of fate, the 42nd Oberammergau season—set to run between May 16 to October 4, 2020—was postponed last week due to measures taken by local government authorities in response to the new coronavirus outbreak. 

For my latest story in Christianity Today, I spoke to organizers, tour operators, locals, and potential pilgrims about their hopes, fears, and the realities of what it means to postpone a once-in-a-decade ritual in light of COVID-19’s rapid spread across the globe.

Amid Ramadan celebrations, Jordanians fear an uncertain future

Traveling in Jordan during Ramadan presents a buffet of both blessings and challenges.

On the one hand, it’s a joy to experience the alternate rhythm of a nation fasting from food, drink, and the pleasures of life from sunrise to sunset and to observe how that changes the daily schedule and provides margins of time and space for spiritual reflection and rejuvenation.

On the other hand, it can be hard to grab lunch at that café you heard about in Abdoun because almost nothing is open for business during the holy month of fasting.

On the whole, I truly enjoyed my time in Jordan and the opportunity to experience the fasting and the feasting with Jordanians who quickly became friends. During iftars — meals in the evening to break the daily fast — and in a couple of local mosques, I got the chance to talk to young Jordanians about the country’s present and its potential futures.

The result is my latest piece with Religion News Service, which explores the many reasons why young Jordanians are uncertain about their kingdom’s future.

Find out why and read more by clicking below:

Fellowship with Spiritual Exemplars Project

What role does religion play in motivating exemplary individuals to commit their lives to humanitarian work? How does engaged spirituality sustain their work in the face of great challenges?

These are the questions I will help the University of Southern California’s (USC) Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) explore as a journalist-fellow reporting on, “Spiritual Exemplars: A Global Project on Engaged Spirituality.”

I am humbled, honored, and terribly excited to join a team of top-notch journalists from around the globe to help report on and write profiles about individuals working on humanitarian causes, such as poverty and  human rights.

The journalist-fellows for the Spiritual Exemplars Project. (PHOTO: USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture)

These “exemplars” are often inspired and sustained by their spiritual beliefs and practices. Whether they are Buddhist, Muslim or Christian — or do not adhere to any particular tradition — their spirituality compels them to be engaged with the world.

Religion and spirituality matter. They motivate us. They move us inwardly and outwardly and move with us across the globe. Throughout the annals of time and over vast geographic boundaries, religion and spirituality have helped humans express their deepest questions, confront some of the most critical issues of life, and influenced virtually every human society, civilization, or culture since the dawn of human history. 

Despite their ubiquity and importance, religion and spirituality are still relatively misunderstood. Even if they are valued, there remains a blind spot in our critical, but compassionate understanding of how religion and spirituality function in the lives of some of humanity’s most inspiring individuals and compelling communities. In the U.S., but also abroad, we suffer from what scholar Stephen Prothero calls, “religious illiteracy.” 

That is why it is important for us to seek to understand religion and spirituality in all of its vast diversity and from a variety of perspectives. 

The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture studies, documents and helps communities understand the changes that shape religious cultures in Southern California and across the globe.

My writing, teaching, and speaking have been geared toward addressing religious illiteracy since I started with my first blog back in 2007. Given that the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture studies, documents and helps communities understand the changes that shape religious cultures in Southern California and across the globe, I saw working with their Spiritual Exemplars Project as a prime opportunity to continue that work. Through my work over the next couple of years I aim to continue to shine light on how religion and spirituality function in the lives of exemplars and their communities in a diverse array of places and from multiple points of view.

If we want to understand our world and how the complexities of the human condition inform behavior in changing contexts, we must pay attention to the role of religious traditions and spiritual practices. Not only will this allow us to better appreciate the human condition and apperceive its highest shared values, but it might improve the possibility of addressing some of humanity’s most urgent shared challenges. 

Although the foundations of modern religion are shifting and spirituality as we have long known it is undergoing daily transformations, neither shows any signs of going away. Religion and spirituality will remain tenaciously important and will continue to impact human societies for the foreseeable future, playing a role in addressing the world’s most intractable problems — both for good and for ill. 

For these reasons and more, I am beyond thrilled to be a journalist-fellow with the Spiritual Exemplars Project and look forward to the stories, reports, and scholarly work that comes out of our work together over the next two-and-a-half years.

Be on the lookout for stories from the project on this website. If you have not already, be sure to sign up for my e-mail list so you can stay up-to-date with all the latest religion and culture news!

"Brewery church" story goes down smooth, but questions still bubble up

If you know me at all, you know that my interests in beer and religion are both relatively high.

That’s why when I came across Castle Church Brewing Community in Orlando, Florida I jumped at the opportunity to report on the “brewery church” for the Religion News Service (RNS).

Beyond the surface phenomena (and all the beer+religion puns like, “frothy faith”) there was a deeper resonant story at Castle Church that I wanted to tell — a story of church changing as we know it, of 30-somethings looking for home, and issues surrounding notions of class, gender, and race.

The story I wrote for RNS touches on these themes and invites you to reflect a little more on the significance of a brewery that is a church, a church that is also a brewery. As you read the story, enjoy the gimmick. Sure. But beyond the “beer church” novelty, take a moment to reflect on questions such as:

• What can a “brewery church” tell us about American religion? American Christianity?

• Why — at this moment in time — is such an idea popular let alone feasible?

• Who might be attracted by such a model? Why?

• Who is potentially marginalized by such a model? Women? People in the neighborhood north of Orlando International Airport that can’t afford craft beer? Good ole’ Florida boys looking for a Budweiser? Is this just a place for cis white males who want to play Settlers of Catan, drink beer, and debate Augustine?

These questions and conversations are still fermenting in my own mind (sorry, couldn’t help another beer pun!) and I don’t have any ready answers after my reporting. Furthermore, each of the people I interviewed for this story — Rev. Jared Witt, Dr. Annie Blazer, Jeremy Carnes, and others — had also thought about these issues and had some weighty and worthwhile comments to make on each.

With that in mind, I invite you to share your thoughts, send your questions, or post a comment on this blog or at ReligionNews.com by clicking the link below.