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Six Overlooked Gems from the Future of World Religions Report

By Timothy King

…e global population by 2050. Similarly, if China turns out to be more like Japan—a deeply secular nation that is likely to grow increasingly more so—the Christian population worldwide would dip slightly, to 30.9%. But if China is more like South Korea—another largely secular society but one that is seeing an increase in religious affiliation—then Christians would make up closer to 35.3% of the global village. What if everyone in China who is curre…

Baby Dolls, Sex Dolls, and Ritual Objects

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…article in the New York Times Magazine, Lisa Katayama tells the story of a Japanese man called Nisan who has a body-pillow with a sexy, young, animated girl printed on the cover. “Her” name (meaning, the pillow’s name) is Nemutan, and Nisan carries her everywhere: to work, to restaurants, even out for karaoke night. He knows she is not real, but he loves her anyway. He says he has “real feelings for her.” Nisan is known as a “2-D lover,” the desig…

Monks With Guns: Discovering Buddhist Violence

By Michael Jerryson

…ys that illustrate the violent history of Buddhism across Mongolia, Tibet, Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India. Our intention is not to argue that Buddhists are angry, violent people—but rather that Buddhists are people, and thus share the same human spectrum of emotions, which includes the penchant for violence. Although the book only arrived at bookstores last month, it apparently touched some nerves in the academic community bef…

Can Poetry Heal the Planet?

By Gary Gach

…umankind’s earliest rain-bringers and tribal healers. In the Edo period of Japan, for instance, Kikaku, a close disciple of Zen haiku master Basho, reputedly ended drought by reciting poetry. The flipside of drought is water, and the book continues elementally, in sections which I take to pertain to earth (incarnation), air (devotion), fire (death and dying), and the human (teachers along the path). To appreciate the grace with which the poet trea…

The ADL is Correct that Antisemitism is Rising — But the Main (and Most Dangerous) Source Isn’t the Left, It’s Always Been the Right

By Shane Burley

…tism function as a centerpiece of the Right’s political project, either in coded forms through ideas like the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, or in explicit forms found amongst neo-Nazis. “We find overt antisemitic attitudes are rare on the left but common on the right,” wrote Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden in their 2023 study analyzing antisemitism “across the ideological spectrum.” This is consistent with the findings of just about every ot…

Christian Media Battle Over Controversial Figure

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…okuto Ide, a reporter for Christian Today—a Jang-affiliated publication in Japan not to be confused with Christianity Today—describes CT’s articles as “predatory efforts by those with commercial interests,” and suggests they’re motivated by “trying to break Olivet’s deal to purchase [the] Glorieta [Conference Center].” I asked Jonathan Park via email why he thought Christianity Today put so much time and effort—not to mention pages—into reporting…

At the UN, Conservative Christian Agenda Cloaked in Human Rights Language

By Austin Dacey

…use. Slater’s Family Watch International (FWI) has been deeply involved in promoting abstinence-and fidelity-only initiatives in Uganda and has praised Nigeria—where same-sex couples can face up to 14 years in prison or stoning at the hands of Sharia courts—as “a strong role model” for other regional governments “on how to hold on to their family values despite intense international pressure.” The Human Rights Campaign has reported that FWI’s annu…

The Mystic in the Rye: JD Salinger’s Religious Fiction

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…and Walker were, respectively, an accidental casualty of the occupation of Japan and a Jesuit priest working in South America. Zooey (Zachary Martin Glass) was an aspiring actor in 1955, and the youngest daughter, Franny, was on leave from her college due to a spiritual malaise that brought her to the brink of a nervous breakdown. An intensely neurotic family. Also intensely brilliant, intensely attuned, and intensely committed to one another. Wha…

World Congress of Families Blessed By Georgian Orthodox Patriarch and George W. Bush; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…who have waged an execution campaign against gay men in Syria. The competition’s winner says his boyfriend was beheaded by ISIS. The article is accompanied by photos by Bradley Secker. Japan: Diplomats Join Pride Celebration US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and other diplomats spoke at the Tokyo Rainbow Pride Parade last Sunday. …

When Words Kill: A Health Care Glossary

By Ann Neumann

…Washington, and Montana (and, in some form, in Belgium, Columbia, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and Great Britain) advocates resist use of “suicide” and prefer “aid in dying” or “Death with Dignity,” the names of the bills in Oregon and Washington (Montana’s law was established by the court and not by vote, and is currently being challenged). As one affiliate of Compassion & Choices, the country’s largest end-of-life advocacy organization, told me,…