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New Mormon Anti-Gay Policy Sparks Mass Exodus From Church; Christian AID Workers in Africa Refuse to Help Gay Refugees; Ukraine Rejects, Then Accepts EU-Required Gay Rights Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…shed Bahgat’s account of his ordeal, which concludes defiantly: I wish for freedom for the thousands of people unfairly detained in Egyptian prisons. I reassert my rejection of the criminalization of journalistic work, the use of the Penal Code to imprison journalists, and the trial of civilians in military courts. Azerbaijan: Activist Flees Persecution, Struggles in Germany Alturi.org has published a profile of Cavid, an Azerbaijani human rights…

‘Atheizing’ the Dead, Religious Doughnuts, & Tax-Free Witching

By Michael J. Altman

…e Church of Body Modification has run into trouble with her school’s dress code. The 14-year-old is looking at a ten day suspension if she returns to school wearing her prohibited nose ring. In Roswell, New Mexico, a group of students have been suspended for giving their teachers boxes of doughnuts with religious messages attached to them. Romania has decided not to tax its witches and fortunetellers. One reason being that the witches and fortunet…

“Freedom” vs. “Liberty”: Why Religious Conservatives Have Begun to Favor One Over the Other

By Stephanie Russell-Kraft

…liberty suggests a “defensive response.” “I think you could say we are all free, but what does free mean? It’s such a general concept,” said Green, noting that liberty can have more immediate and personal connotations, when spoken to the right audience. “That word seems to resonate with a particular segment of society,” he said. It’s very clear which segment that is. Over the past ten years, lobby groups on the religious right have latched onto “r…

Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…bbis and religious leaders” have spread. Scotland: Anti-gay Minister Named Free Church Moderator Rev. David Robertson, an opponent of marriage equality, has been named the next moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, which has welcomed some clergy and congregations that have left the Church of Scotland over the question of gay clergy.Robertson is also director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity. Before the Scottish Parliament approved m…

Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

By Rachel Wagner

…des, but exploded in 2003 with the publication of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code which, more than anything, showcases Brown’s muddled if provocative incorporation of the Gnostic worldview into the novel. Fans of The Da Vinci Code don’t need to go out and purchase Robinson’s translation, they can simply read the Gnostic texts online at the Gnosis Archive. Or, if they’re interested in other early contenders for New Testament inclusion—the Gospel of P…

An Untold Tale: American Fiction vs. The Religious Right

By Christopher Douglas

…rl Sagan, and Dan Brown’s popular religious mystery thriller, The Da Vinci Code. Sagan has a reputation as a proto-New Atheist, but his novel suggests he was intensely sympathetic to religious experience and authority. By the end of his novel he has his scientist protagonist embark on a career of “experimental theology” after she has discovers the “signature” of God in the very structure of the universe. At the same time, Sagan was not impressed b…

Among the Problems with Trump’s Proposed Ban: Who is a Muslim?

By Michael Schulson

…denying that Judaism is a religion (instead, it’s an ideology, or a legal code, or an international cabal), and emphasizing definitions of Judaism rooted in physical heritage. This nudge toward biology makes sense. For one thing, it’s easier to judge somebody’s identity based on ancestry than on beliefs and cultural traditions. The latter is pretty nebulous. The former is quantifiable. Also, bigots haven’t historically cared much about the person…

In Hamline Case, the ‘Free Expression vs. Religious Sensibilities’ Frame Obscures a Stark Reality About Higher Education

By Junaid Jahangir

…own skin is involved in the game. In other words, hanging rainbow flags to promote Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is a cheap tactic if LGBTQ employees are treated poorly when it comes to pay, benefits, leave, promotion, and job security. Divide-and-rule is not a new tactic, for it’s well known in the Indian subcontinent that the British pitted one local Raja against the other based on tribe, religion, or caste—among other factors. The same…

Free Will, Fate and FiveThirtyEight: The Theology of Election Polls

By Alan Levinovitz and Michael Schulson

…kind of freedom in order to have another. MHS: You mean that you trade the freedom to choose for the freedom of a world that feels unconstrained by predetermined trajectories? AL: Precisely. Which, bizarrely, means that free will is actually more constrained! MHS: Well, that’s kind of the ethic behind big data, right? That, at least in aggregate, decisions that feel like free choice actually follow very clear and pre-determined patterns, and these…

The Vatican v. Protestant Free Thinkers

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…her successes. Faith, as that Pope never tired of repeating, can never be promoted by force; truth’s power lies its truthfulness, nothing more. Now in a great many ethical and political matters, John Paul II was as anti-modern a Pope as the Church has seen in recent memory; his successor even more so. But on the devilish topic of religion, science and free enquiry, these same Popes have elected to stand emphatically on the side of the moderns. Th…