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Church and State in Japan: The Case of the Yasukuni Shrine

By Mark R. Mullins

…d and deified, and are now worshipped as a kami (god), along with the Class-A war criminals enshrined several decades ago. Over the years, a number of individuals have made personal visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and requested that enshrinement be cancelled and the names of their family dead be removed from the shrine register. In addition to appeals from Japanese families, there are also Koreans and Taiwanese who have been dismayed and angered to…

The End (of Religion) is Near, Scientists Say

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…make no parallel effort to learn ours. And that is precisely what this not-so-benign linguistic analogy suggests. If “religion” (never defined) is like Quechua—and thus rapidly dying out, I take it—then who’s speaking the religious equivalent of imperial Spanish? It would seem to be the scientists themselves, and their language of choice is math. That makes this study no longer benign or funny. It’s an almost sneering and worrisome glimpse into t…

Belize Overturns Sodomy Law Defended by Religious Right, Ugandan Officials Will Continue to Suppress Gay Groups, And More on the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…es at Huffington Post about his wedding to a Nigerian man in a small family-and-friends gathering in Rochester, New York at the end of July. In spite of their requests that guests not post photos on social media, someone either gave or sold photos from their wedding and first dance to a gossip blogger in Nigeria and the story spread like wildfire on Nigerian blogs. An excerpt: I felt lost. I still get a terrible feeling in my stomach just a week a…

Gambian Prez Rails Against Gay ‘Evil Empire’; Irish Priest Comes Out During Mass; Trans Talk on Tunisian TV Sparks Debate; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…body and others if they knew what gay and lesbians did. “The offer of a one-to-one meeting with an inspector, who was a complete stranger to them, in order to discuss personal matters of sexuality was also viewed with alarm by some parents. “It is clear that many of the questions asked are viewed by parents as wholly inappropriate, particularly given the age of the children involved.” A spokesman for the Office for Standards in Education, Children…

Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

By Chris Stedman

…tion of the Sikh shooting, but it did list an instance where a Florida door-to-door salesman was shot, and noted the recent mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. PZ Myers, who is among the most visible atheist bloggers in the world, did write about the shooting twice, though one of his posts simply referenced the shooting as a way to condemn America’s “gun culture,” while the other focused on Pat Robertson’s comments. (Most of the more than 35 other…

Pious White Reformers and Race, Then and Now

By Peter Laarman

…ivilizing” these people, they could not be permitted to remain living cheek-by-jowl with whites; moreover, they occupied highly desirable land north and west of the Ohio River and smack in the middle of the rich uplands of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. Benevolent whites therefore took it upon themselves to organize a number of “civilizing” projects, then pressed for voluntary migration of the natives to lands beyond the Mississippi…

To Be Queer, Gifted, and Black: A Conversation with Theologian Pamela Lightsey

By Nyasha Junior

…but by quite a few. Persons within the community self-identify, and by self-identifying they say they don’t want to be put into a box. They don’t want to use these binary categories of male and female, straight or homosexual. So when one says queer nowadays, one is intentionally pushing back against the binary conversations that often happen when we’re talking about ourselves. Persons who self-identify as queer want to indicate that they understan…

A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…eft fringes of American Protestantism; it is a traditionally moderate, left-of-center body whose historic heartlands are the Mid-Atlantic and the Upper Midwest. If the this denomination is making moves toward full inclusion, other Protestant bodies can’t be far behind. Female Clergy Oblivious to Irony This is not the first time the ELCA has had these conversations. In fact, almost identical arguments were made forty years ago when the issue was th…

New Poll Reveals Jews May Be Open to Change in Israel Policy

By Benjamin Weiner

…w more secure. And as for Iran, negotiators and hardliners are running neck-and-neck. The stakes are high. If President Obama attempts to take a harder line with Israel he risks alienating his Jewish base. At the same time, if American Jews are not willing to support the president, they risk a diminishment of their own political capital if he does it anyhow. The J Street data, if nothing else, indicates that there is at least the potential for col…

Will Pope’s African Tour Change Attitudes on Divorce and LGBTQ Among African Catholics?

By Kaya Oakes

…a has gone through a startling increase in recent decades. Since 1980, the number of African Catholics has grown by 238%, in contrast to Europe, where it has grown by only 6%. Some of this may be attributable to higher fertility rates in African countries, but it also reflects the church’s success in missionary efforts. And where there are a decreasing number of vocations to the priesthood in Europe, where vocations have declined by 23%, African v…