This past decade in the U.S. the Big Three players in religion took a right beating both from within and from without. These mega-institutions (either in numbers or cultural-political weight) couldn’t even agree on what pencils to bring to their secret meetings, and yet each one had their hands in enough havoc to upend the entire planet. In the midst of all the head-butting and playground antics, religious liberals decided that “interfaith dialogue” would be the decade’s rally cry and everyone (who supported Barack or Hillary) jumped on board. And while for many of us, the concept and actions of interfaith dialogue seemed more like a code for “Please help me talk down these baby-eating Muslims,” the mainstream institutions themselves just tried to hold on to what was left of their increasingly unrecognizable kaleidoscopic identities.
Here’s an overly simplistic look back at (read: Roast of) the Tri-Force of Faith in the 2000s:
Islam
Throughout the post-9-11 world it seemed everyone wanted a piece of the holy deen, making it a very busy decade for our Muslim brothers and sisters. Fundi-Jews continued to want all the land and more, while fundi-Christians wanted fundi-Jews to have all the land and more, hoping that this continued land grab would force the rapture to come that much quicker. Jaded white boys wanted to feel maligned in order to subvert their white guilt, so they converted in record numbers, and then some became a cliché and got really conservative about it all. Post-grad white girls found strength in the hijab, converted, and then realized that that whole Third-Wave feminism thing was actually still pretty whitey-centric, and thus swapped “Wave” for “World” and hipped themselves to Amina Wadud and Sa’diyya Shaikh.
Within the faith itself debates raged as everyone claimed to be a proponent of the real Islam. Anglo Sufis from upstate NY took fancy Middle Eastern names as they had since the 70s, and whirled to new heights as each claimed to be a follower of the “primordial path,” making up whatever “felt right,” and thus became “spiritual” and not “religious.” Self-proclaimed “Progressive Muslims” got themselves a nice marketable name (Progressive Islam) and a few websites to back them up. They cozied up to Foucault and attempted to force open the said-to-be-by-a-mufti closed gates of ijtihad, thus simultaneously alienating everyone and themselves. On the other end of the political spectrum Salafis tried to show us all a fuzzier and more matter-of-fact side of conservative Islam, while Wahhabis…ugh…well…. Wahhabis either tried to reinvasion themselves as Salafis, or else tried to prove that Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab was actually a progressive forward-minded gent who had simply been co-opted by marginal fanatic kings with weird goat-tees who just so happened to have a country named after themselves.
In the end, all this fell to the wayside as once Prog-Islam author Mike Muhammad Knight published a handful of wonderful AmerIslam narratives that finally expressed the punk flesh, pro-wrestling blood, and boyhood semen of finding religion when you know all too well that religion is kind of a crock. We all got happy.
Christianity
Christianity had a weird time this decade as God-the-Father-fearing peoples across the country somehow managed to remain both on the sidelines of all that was going down (“At least our prophet is a man of peace.”), as well as, and very much ironically, one of the major causes of all that was going down (GW Bush doing “God’s work” as he shocks and awes the world into a fabricated war that resulted in [and continues to be the cause of] hundreds of thousands of deaths). Yes, fundi-Christians spent most of the 2000s inventing nuanced ways of justifying horrendous acts of violence in the name of one of the most inspiring prophets to have ever walked the Earth (or on water).
All the while the innards of the Christian faith got all sorts of messed up. The old Pope became the new Pope, the Episcopal Church bifurcated over debates concerning whether or not homosexuals should be considered equal participants in this thing called “humanity,” lovable crust-punks in Philly started a “simple way” and began living among the poor in the City of Brotherly Love, and the first black president of the US, who, like all the rest, is Christian, was and is still thought to be a Muslim by anyone who considers Fox News to be their primary source of “fair and balanced” news coverage.
In the end fundi-Christians succeeded where most others could not in dumbing the debate down to criminal depths.
Judaism
My Jewish in-laws are fond of talking about how un-handy they can be around the house. My father-in-law can’t hang a picture. My mother-in-law has probably never plunged a toilet. My sister-in-law barely lifts a finger. And yet, during this past decade somehow in the homeland it was as if every Israeli became a frickin’ master carpenter! The illegal building of settlements in obviously occupied territories just kept on keepin’ on throughout these initial millennial years even while everyone and their grandmother was telling them to stop. But what could the Israeli government do with all those sheckles in its ears? “Huh? Stop? But, Hamas keeps firing rockets into our dessert.” True, but don’t you think bulldozing a block of Palestinian homes (olive trees included) every time a 6-year-old hurls a pebble is pay-back enough?
And then to counter this arrogance what did we get? Neturei Karta, or “Orthodox Jews United Against Zionism.” I mean, it’s badass enough to wear an ankle-length black overcoat with a $5000 fur hat in August, but it’s diabolically badass (hmmm…) when you wear it to a conference in Iran as you sit on a panel discussion with notable Holocaust deniers. Alas, despite our wanting to love Neturei Karta for their no-compromise take on the Israeli State debate, the dudes made us feel slightly uncomfortable, reminding us once again that no single movement can speak to all our ideological convictions.
Still, within the Jewish tradition things heated up. More and more women within the Jewish Renewal Movement started wearing yarmulkes, making even the most liberal of Jews cringe. Then there was esteemed scholar and author of The Thirteen Petalled Rose, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, who brought back a little old-school religious purism saying that intermarriage was one of the greatest threats to Judaism. Then wrapping up the decade you had Rabbi Marc “Mordechai” Gafni once again finding himself at the short end of every notable Jewish figure’s stick as he was accused (and almost arrested in Israel!) for having one too many girlfriends at the same time.
All in all, this was a crazy ass decade, no?
Praise God for all He is doing. Thanks!