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A Catholic Sister, a Buddhist Nun, and Two Rabbis: Friendship That Goes Beyond “Interfaith”

By Matthew Gindin

…om, who attended a Reform synagogue in Hightown, New York, would enjoy the service and returned with her. Her mom loved it. “I probably wouldn’t have attended the synagogue so regularly or become a member if it hadn’t been for the clear joy that it gives my mother. At the same time, it is a very rich and multi-layered experience for me.” She now attends services about twice a month as well as Torah study classes. “Often,” she says, “when doing som…

There’s No Business Like the Bible Business: 200 Years of the ABS

By Paul Harvey

…er; millions and millions through the course of the twentieth century. The numbers document the stunning capacity of the ABS to flood the zone with Scriptures. Through the book, the ABS accomplished exactly that on the western frontier in the early nineteenth century, Union soldiers’ camps during the Civil War, the Levant in the early twentieth century, Japan after World War Two, and with contemporary translations such as the Good News Bible in th…

Battle of Antisemitism Definitions is Actually a Proxy War For Criticism of Israel

By Joshua Shanes

…fact, the JDA is committed to fighting antisemitism while also preserving free discourse about Israel/Palestine, arguing that its clearer language accomplishes both more successfully. It lowers the ability of activists and lawmakers to silence political voices favoring Palestinian rights while also raising the ability of Jews to build critical alliances with other vulnerable minorities. While advocates of the JDA hold a wide variety of beliefs ab…

US Offers Help For Investigation of Bangladesh Killings

By Peter Montgomery

…taboo-busting gay bar attracts diverse crowd Eitan Arom at the Jewish News Service profiles Jerusalem’s only remaining gay bar: If any city needs a nonjudgmental space, it’s Jerusalem. Both sides of Israel’s capital—the Muslim eastern half and the Jewish western half—have in common large numbers of socially conservative residents who look down on homosexuality. “In the west, you have Orthodox Jews, and in the east you have Arabs—and the Arabs are…

The Problem with Christian Gentlemen: A Short Goodbye to Ted Cruz, the “Mr. Pecksniff” of Presidential Politics

By Peter Laarman

…d self-congratulation. Dickens makes the most of Pecksniff by giving him a number of interior monologues, as here when Pecksniff is rationalizing his decision to pimp out his younger daughter at a rather cheap dowry price to a rich but grotesquely uncouth suitor: All his life long he had been walking up and down the narrow ways and by-places, with a hook in one hand and a crook in the other, scraping all sorts of valuable odds and ends into his po…

Who Will Catholic Bishops Turn to in Trump Era?

By Patricia Miller

…ed Cruz, finding commonality in their shared right-wing views on religious freedom and hardline posture on abortion rights. But there’s little to suggest they could find any common ground with Trump or that he would court and defer to them they way that Bush did. After all, this is a man who has refused to defer to the uber-bishop, Pope Francis. Trump’s stance on immigrants and immigration directly contradicts the bishops’ left-leaning position th…

“Excruciatingly Different” Mississippi Religious Lib Law Specifies Beliefs

By Stephanie Russell-Kraft

…at birth), is “excruciatingly different” from most generic state religious freedom laws, according to Andrew Seidel, constitutional attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. “They’ve actually chosen which religious beliefs they’re going to exempt, and that’s a big problem under the Establishment Clause,” Seidel said. Most of the religious freedom laws privilege religion over non-religion, but the Mississippi law also privileges religi…

Women Are Leaving Church, And the Reason Seems Clear

By Patricia Miller

…f religiosity as measured by church attendance. One is the increase in the number of women in the workforce, which could theoretically decrease their leisure time and force them to cut back on activities like church. But as McClendon himself notes, “the fastest increase in women’s full-time employment” actually “occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during which time the gender gap on religious service attendance actually widened somewhat.”…

Same-Sex Marriage May Lead to Polygamy, But So What?

By William E. Smith

…o apply to non-religious LGBT people since they surely have rights to the “freedom of conscience” that Sprigg ties to freedom of religion as well? Do not polyamorist and polygamists, furthermore, have such legal rights too? Is not marriage—including polygamy—a way to live one’s life in accordance with a person’s religion? Many non-LDS Mormons and some Muslims (among others) certainly seem to think so. Why does their religious liberty not matter? W…

Indonesia Allows Abusive Sharia Laws to Stand; Kenyan Priest Joins Challenge to Anti-LGBT Laws; Dominican Republic Bishop Slams ‘Gender Ideology’ at OAS; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…LGBT people will remain vulnerable to violations of their basic rights and freedoms. Kenya: Anglican priest joins legal challenge to discriminatory laws Fredrick Nzwili reported for Religion News Service that Rev. Mark Odhiambo, an Anglican priest, earlier this month joined a legal challenge by two gay men and two lesbians to discriminatory laws in the country. “I serve in the city and I have seen many of them facing serious challenges because the…