Social Science Research Council

Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a German convert to Islam and professor of Islamic theology at Münster University, has put forward a theory that the prophet Muhammad never existed, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Jessie Daniels at Racism Review argues that “advocates for gay marriage need to work on their religious intolerance.”

Jenny White of Kamil Pasha (and of The Immanent Frame) links to “an insightful and provocative article” by Kerem Oktem in The New Humanist.

Presbyterian pastor Henry G. Brinton believes the secular environmental movement must reach out to religious groups if the planet is to be saved.

Echoing the atheist bus campaign in England, the American Humanist Association is launching a series of wonderfully grammatically correct ads that read, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.” These ads have been run in the New York Times and Washington Post, and will soon find their way into Washington DC Metro buses. The AHA’s press release tells us…

Tom Heneghan at FaithWorld reports.

In response to the resurgence of aggressive, intolerant and even violent religious fundamentalism of recent decades, deep questions, often answered in the negative, have been raised about the place of religion in public life. Religion is often experienced and described as antithetical to public order, democracy, and progressive values. However, the example of religious environmentalism shows (once again) that religion in and of itself has no particular political identity—it is neither left nor right, democratic nor undemocratic. [...]

Geoffrey R. Stone writes on the separation of church and state in The Huffington Post.

In a recent post at The Immanent Frame, Jason Bivins wondered in closing whether our present moment might become what Robert Orsi has called an “abundant event,” “characterized by aspects of the human imagination that cannot be completely accounted for by social and cultural codes.” Randall J. Stephens reports on a recent forum on “abundant history” in Historically Speaking, and has posted Robert Orsi’s lead essay and Jane Shaw’s response here.

From The Economist, a report on setting limits on Islamic extremism in Indonesia since the 2002 Bali bombings.