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As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon

By Katherine Kelaidis

…de against Albanian Kosovars in the late 1990s. The fact is, a significant number of Serbs, and even a large number of others from traditionally Orthodox backgrounds, continue to harbor a great deal of anger about Western intervention in the Kosovo War, which they see as a failure by the West to comprehend the historical role-reversal that’s taken place, including the persecution of Orthodox Christians by Albanians and other majority-Muslim ethnic…

Pope Denounces Gender Colonization; Indonesian Court Considers Islamist Request To Criminalize Homosexuality; Egypt’s Grand Mufti Says No One Has Right to Harm Homosexuals; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…corruption, was full of provisions open to abuse and directly opposed the spirit of a 2014 Supreme Court verdict that recognized the third gender and called for a raft of rights and measures for transpersons. “It is difficult to be calm and hopeful reading the bill. It stinks of callousness and ignorance,” said activist Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli. “By the looks of it, the transgender community and allies may have to gear up for a long struggle.” In…

Good News: Religious Outreach Works On Vaccine Hesitancy. Bad News: We Need It.

By Daniel Schultz

…them and for everyone around them. The good news here is that significant numbers of the hesitant and resistant respond to faith-based approaches. And although PRRI estimates that about 13% of all Americans are “generally agreeable to QAnon theories,” those same people respond the best to those approaches. The study names six such techniques: A religious leader encouraging vaccine acceptance A religious leader getting a vaccine Religious communit…

The Religious Right and the Tea Party on “Education Choice”

By Julie Ingersoll

…e open to anyone who wishes to attend, though there will be a limit on the number of schools (no more than ten in the next decade) and the number of students enrolled. Opponents see charter schools as quasi-privatized schools (and also fear that this is a first step toward further privatization). They see even these limited charter schools as a threat to funding for public education—especially in these difficult budget years where public education…

PCUSA’s Nod to “Traditional” Marriage Understandable, but Not Accurate

By William E. Smith

…t and change. Many of these developments, furthermore, continue to shape a number of the assumptions American Christians have about the nature of marriage. Consider the following examples of historical changes in Christian marriage and whether we can honestly still call today’s version “traditional.” 1) Were individuals always required to be conventionally alive? For the majority of the past two thousand years, Christian women could marry Jesus, w…

A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…, they’re marked as Suppressive Persons (SPs) because they are harming the spiritual progress of those around them. Those family members will be encouraged to disconnect. For example, if my dad was in Scientology and decided to leave, that would be okay unless he started saying negative things about Scientology that would cause me to doubt or feel uncomfortable. And then that would be seen as Suppressive, and I should disconnect from him so I can…

Evangelical Pastor Argues for Full LGBT Inclusion: “I Think It’s Inevitable”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…sion of evangelicalism which will be inclusive of LGBT people. There are a number of evangelicals that are very open to this and are having the same experience I had of actually knowing gay and lesbian people, so I think it’s inevitable. I think there will be a sector of evangelicalism that will go past mainline protestant denominations, which have more institutional restraints. The more autonomous congregations will outpace them in acceptance. Th…

How Fitbit Helps a Conservative Evangelical College Monitor Students’ Bodies For Christ

By Jonathan Root

…enter,” students filled out a computer card with their ID number, activity number, and the time, intensity, and distance of their workout. The data derived from the cards helped to determine grades. One student who had been forced to enroll in the Pounds Off Program said, “I’m really sad for the school. It has so much potential, so many positive things about it, but you can’t treat people this way… They treat you like you’re not close enough to Go…

Scottish Episcopal Church Angers Conservative Anglicans With Embrace of Same-Sex Marriage; and more in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Bulgarians because it is based on a “kukeri” mask, used to chase away evil spirits in a number of annual customs and rituals. This irked two of Bulgaria’s largest folklore groups, Gotse Delchev and the Bulgare ensemble, who wrote an open letter objecting to the use of traditional Bulgarian folk symbols in the Sofia Pride event. Eighteen embassies and a few representatives of international organizations had publicly supported the event. That stands…

The Internet Is Not Killing Religion, Religion is Killing Religion

By Elizabeth Drescher

…New Jersey, Delaware, and North and South Carolina exhibited extraordinary spiritual discord and sectarianism as well as a remarkable but all too familiar indifference to things spiritual. In America’s first European century, then, traditionally thought of as exclusively Puritan, Christian practice not only proved insecure but showed dangerous signs of declining rather than rising. Colonialism, against its own Christianizing designs was, it seems,…