Religion Dispatches
…tions also contribute to the formation of such views. Militant Islamist websites and print literature reinforce such ideas. More sophisticated and/or sympathetic sources will often refer to the “greater” and “lesser” jihad—or the spiritual versus the physical jihad—and the greater importance of the former. However, the assertion that Muslims as a collectivity must continue to wage a military jihad against non-Muslims in order to expand Muslim real…
Read More…he San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. The festival features a number of religion-themed films not likely to be endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In fact, there are 22 films tagged by festival organizers as having religious or spiritual themes. Among them: Joy: Portrait of a Nun profiles Sister Missionary P. Delight and other members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the San Francisco-based performance art / po…
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…+ [sic] and straight students to grow and learn.” (A few CCCU schools have officially recognized student clubs for gay students and allies, such as Eastern Mennonite University’s Safe Space.) In his interview, Dr. Le Roy stated, “We have gay and lesbian students here. I have met with them. I have talked with them. They are Christians and they are trying to figure out, ‘What does this mean?’ ‘How do I live?’” He then added, “The Scripture that I ne…
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…ing to set alarm bells ringing is the stated aim of “institutionalizing an official U.S. commitment to globalize religious freedom.” Alarms are set off once again when I read of the stated intention to “advance American’s vision and values.” I have no objection to religious freedom. Religion should be a matter of conscience not coercion; liberty is a watchword. What worries me are attempts to advance it which assume there’s only one possible model…
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…d. As for expecting synagogues to adopt “syncretistic practices,” the opposite is true. Interfaith children want access to an inspiring Judaism, whether they choose Judaism, or whether they continue to draw from both religions. It remains essential, for the world and for interfaith children, to preserve the specificity and particularity of each religion. At the same time, I agree with Orthodox rabbi Brad Hirschfield, who wrote a recent essay poi…
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…n religion. The office of religious engagement arose from the efforts of a number of State Department employees including the former policy staffer Judd Birdsall, who in 2009 started an informal discussion forum that was to become known as the Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group. Last October, the working group submitted a white paper (posted by working group member Chris Seiple) proposing a permanent institution housed at State. “In many pl…
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…urplus to keep every single current inmate locked up, albeit not in the 33 official state prisons. Never mind that California voters passed Prop 30 to restore cuts to schools and colleges, not to fund yet more incarceration. Part of Brown’s devilish deal involves making use of a private prison facility, one owned by notorious Corrections Corporation of America, but with unionized state prison guards getting the custody jobs. Even in this deep blue…
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…mption But the common experience is in the existence of a really real that official discourse is obscuring, and that the intrepid blogger or diligent exegete can tell us what’s really going on. And so the endless apocalyptic rears up once again, on self-recorded Youtube uploads, on niche cable programming, in a hyperlinked world of insistence: Damascus is, we are reminded, geographically central to the projected Second Coming of Christ. This mode…
Read More…e military takeover (a position he subsequently denied having taken on his official website). The governments of conservative Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf countries, have supported the coup as well, anxious as they are about the democratic “contagion” spreading to their realms. The Gulf countries’ embrace of the avowedly secular Egyptian military and the Azhar elite’s support of the military coup unhinges the usual a…
Read More…rum—a development some trace to the March 2013 launch of Ordain Women’s website featuring pictures and testimonials from rank-and-file Mormons who support ordination and a more equitable role for women in LDS Church leadership and service. Today, the global operations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are governed and directed by an all-male organizational chain of command. Mormon women may participate in some decision-making at…
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