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Forget the Pope—We Need a New Caliph!

By Haroon Moghul

…s the quintessential reformed bad boy. He married British Jewish heiress Jemima Goldsmith, which proves he isn’t anti-Semitic. Plus, the way things are going, soon half the world’s Muslims will be Pakistani. The Bad: Muslims need winners and so far Khan has been a loser as a political candidate. His political party, Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf, has yet to win any major political seats (although that could change with the upcoming May elections.) Also,…

Exodus “Ex-Gay” Ministry Closes Up Shop

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ognize our beliefs are not a trump card,” Rodgers explained. “We realize many, many churches hold a more liberal view on this issue and we believe it’s time for us to come to the table and value one another in the midst of our differing beliefs.” Rodgers also noted that the new organization would probably not seek to change other ex-gay ministries that continue to use “reparative therapy” or other harmful “treatments” on LGBT people. “We’re not i…

Time for Jews to Abandon the Old Foundation Myth of Israel?

By Ira Chernus

…n payment to fulfilling that pledge, provoking Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise to work toward “two free peoples living side by side,” marking a real change in the narrative structure of the situation. We no longer have to deal with two competing narratives, one about Israel holding on to the Occupied Territories and the other about Israel ending the occupation; the story of the two-state solution has triumphed. So there is no l…

Trump’s Fear and Loathing Won’t Silence The Nation’s Sole LGBT Muslim Organization

By Omar Sarwar

…h, Clinton, Bush senior, Reagan administrations, and beyond. Racism is not new. Misogyny is not new. Xenophobia is not new. Our government’s continued alliances with fascists and theocrats? Not new. The things marginalized people are fighting today are frightening because their consequences are in our present and we can foresee further harm—but we must remember our past. I have spent a lot of time since November talking with people who grew up dur…

The Political Strategist’s Conversion that Led to Ron Paul’s New Faithiness

By Sarah Posner

…a favorite of homeschoolers, a student of Christian Reconstructionist economics, and a committed foe of legal abortion, has never really played the religion card like a good, lock-step Republican. But recently he brought on Doug Wead as a senior advisor to his campaign. Wead told me that he encouraged Paul to dust off a 2007 “Statement of Faith” after a meeting with David Lane, the evangelical organizer who is a big player in the Rick Perry prayer…

Chris Caldwell Sees Muslim Bogeymen. Again.

By Bruce B. Lawrence

…s. It depends on the embassies of majority Muslim countries from which the new immigrants come. They must organize the building of mosques, the training of imams and other requirements of Muslim public ritual. They do this not out of altruism but because they are concerned with maintaining their own ties to their former countrymen. But the European host countries also are invested in a positive Muslim future, and they play a different, complementa…

New Southern Baptist Curriculum Bashes Gays

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ul and bullying lesson. The angry tone of this unit undercuts the wisdom of another unit that concludes with a quote from renowned religion scholar Robert Bellah: “We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a culture may be changed when two percent of its people have a new vision.” Hopefully, some of these SBC teens will come to understand that demoniza…

Krapp’s Last Tweet: The Rise (and Fall?) of Privilege in the Digital Economy

By Kevin Healey

…ward pressure that social media places on the quality of online content, a number of news articles did manage to connect the dots between Ferguson and the discriminatory housing policies put in place after World War II. As I have argued before, new technologies tend to augment existing systems of privilege. Yet there is reason to hope that digital media may yet catalyze a more just future. Dear Prudence Before jumping from his capsule, with all ey…

Global LGBT Recap: Religious Leaders Support Persecution as Countries Vie in Homophobia Olympics

By Peter Montgomery

…are consensual and done in private no one has business to get bothered.” Kenya: Prominent Author Comes Out Binyavanga Wainaina, an award-winning Kenyan author best known abroad for his satirical “How to Write About Africa,” came out publicly this week by publishing an article online called, “I am a homosexual, Mum.” It is presented as a “lost chapter” from his 2011 memoir, One Day I Will Write About This Place. As the Global Post’s Tristan McConne…

Fragments of Secular Sanctity

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…riginally rehabilitated by Pope John Paul II in 1992. And in times of economic crisis, any way to create a new pilgrimage site provides a welcome boost to the local economy, whether in Poland or in Tuscany. But the Church is not doing it, this time; a museum of modern science is. Galileo’s relics are to be housed, not in a cathedral, but in a public museum. That is why I am not sure whether this is a story about religion, or about science, or abou…