The American relationship with Israel is both a political and an intellectual challenge for some students of foreign affairs.  Convinced that US national interests would be best served by distancing ourselves from the Jewish state, scholars try to figure out why our country behaves in this seemingly self-defeating way.
The problem is particularly tough for hard [...]

The more I’ve studied the long-term politics of Zionism in the United States, the more I’ve been struck by a paradox.  While most people see the Israel lobby as an attempt to use Jewish financial and electoral power to impose a special Jewish agenda on American foreign policy, it hasn’t actually worked that way.
In the [...]

Many people think that Jewish lobbying, pressure and influence dragged a reluctant Uncle Sam into the Middle East.  Think again.
Now it’s true that American opposition to Zionism has a long and distinguished pedigree.  In the 19th century, American missionaries built a network of colleges and hospitals across what was then the Ottoman Empire and what [...]

I always love when a blog post can be set to music, so I was very glad to be tipped off by a linking website (HT: Irenic Thoughts) to this video.
I was a little mystified by what these young people were doing until my research associate Sam (formerly team intern here at Mead GHQ, but [...]

Theodore Roosevelt may have called him a “filthy little atheist,” but Tom Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” got right to the heart of the American world view.  Common sense is more than a political slogan in the United States; a belief in common sense is basic to democracy as we think of it here in this [...]

After a rough week of paper grading, family visits and writing capsule reviews for Foreign Affairs, I’m getting back to an ambitious blogging schedule.  I’m working on a post about war with Iran that should be up by morning, planning a look at the state of the climate change movement following Al Gore’s typically unreflective [...]

Regular longtime readers of this blog know about E. Benjamin Skinner, a former Team Mead research associate who has gone on to great things.  He wrote a book on slavery in the contemporary world, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery, which received the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction. In the course [...]

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people; I thought I’d start at the top — with the bishops of my own church.  As the Episcopal church along with the other mainline Protestant denominations diminishes, we don’t have to look far to see bishops and leaders who are largely failing in [...]

Almost 500 years ago, Martin Luther posted his famous 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.  There’s no doubt that a lot of serious prayers were prayed and good sermons preached in the Castle Church where Luther posted his theses.  But over the years a lot of holy crap had collected [...]

Antisemitism is never a great subject to discuss, but there are two good reasons for posting on it today.  One is that the entire internet has been aflame with the feud between Andrew Sullivan and his longtime mentor Leon Wieseltier, and the question of whether Sullivan is an antisemite has gotten half the country’s bloggers [...]

Connections between the adult Jesus and the baby in the manger aren’t easy to make.  At first glance, the gospels don’t help much; whatever the gospel writers had in mind, producing complete biographies of Jesus wasn’t it.  Mark omits Christmas altogether, and starts with Jesus getting baptized and launching his career.  John has a short [...]

Back in the beginning of the Christmas season, I wrote about the way the gospel Christmas narratives “roll the credits” by giving genealogical tables that link Jesus to Jewish history.  In contemplating Christmas, we should never forget that the first Christmas was first and foremost a Jewish event.  Mary, Joseph, the innkeeper, the shepherds, the [...]

Greetings once again from sunny Belize.  Although I am blogging from a lovely beachside cabana with tropical breezes gently keeping the heat (and the insects) at bay as I lazily contemplate the snorkeling expedition we have planned for the afternoon, this point in the new year always reminds me of a fresh snowfall covering the [...]

Now it gets tough.  That little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying so cutely in the manger is the biggest trouble maker in world history, and the shocking claims that Christianity makes about who he is and what he means divide Christians not only from atheists and agnostics, but also splits Christians off from [...]

Yesterday King Herod’s massacre of every child in Bethlehem under the age of two shocked us out of the idea that Christmas is basically a pretty holiday about presents and elves.  Christmas is serious business, at least as Christians understand it.  The birth of the baby in the manger is connected with the murder of [...]