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Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

By Paul Berger

…oo, has become an increasingly talked about issue within the Orthodox world. Just a couple of months ago, two of the country’s largest and most influential Orthodox organizations, the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union, co-sponsored America’s first National Jewish Child Abuse Prevention Week. There’s nothing to suggest that sexual abuse is any more or less prevalent in the Orthodox community than anywhere else; but there are a nu…

An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church Self-Destructing?

By Anne Eggebroten

…k is unprecedented in the two-thousand-year history of the Christian Church. Instead of focusing on the last week of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, Christians are listening to horrific accounts of priestly sexual abuse of children and wondering whether Pope Benedict XVI will take decisive action to cleanse the Church. Probably he will not. After more than half a century of living and working in an all-male club he just doesn’t get it. His focus…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…European states in 2011. It’s the best place in the world to be a secularist. Several years ago I co-authored an article in Free Inquiry magazine, entitled “Atheism is not a Civil Rights Issue,” criticizing atheist activists in the U.S. for comparing their struggles to the struggles of women, African Americans, and GLBTQ citizens. On a global scale, however, secularism most certainly is an issue of civil rights and of human rights. And it’s impo…

My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

By Howard M. Friedman

…believe differently while sharing the joy we have received from Jesus Christ. A Corporation as Alter Ego of its Owners Whether a corporation can be seen as having non-economic rights—whether it is to be considered fully a “person” under the law—is not a new question. In the 18th century, the Lord Chancellor of England famously scoffed at the claim, asking, “Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned a…

Dear White Evangelicals: A Black Square Ain’t Gonna Cut It

By Jhas Williams

…le in both literal and proverbial chains, will be as fake as it is antagonistic. The acknowledgment that Black lives matter must be more than a moment in history, not a marketing ploy or an opportunity for fraudulent inclusivity via corporate statements. Keep that. The dismantling of white supremacy has to extend far beyond “Blackout Tuesday” or it will never work. So what does genuine change look like? Truthfully, no Black person should ever be e…

Jesus Christ and Super Stars: How The Holy Rolled Mainstream in Pop Music

By Alana Massey

…unnecessary. We have the greatest healer of all and his name is Jesus Christ. And he really heals. This is it. It’s time that we all share our voice. Whatever you believe. Share it. I’m at a point where I’m not going to hold this in. This is not the decorative Christianity of a cross-wearing boy band member or the God-thanking pop star at the VMA podium—or even the theological hollowness of Creed’s frontman spreading his arms wide to ostensibly i…

Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

By Patricia Miller

…who feels less horrible about the church than in the darkest days of the U.S. clerical sex abuse scandal, which had Boston at its epicenter. That’s a pretty low bar, but of course no one denies that Francis is a change for the better. As Jon O’Brien, head of Catholics for Choice, told The Guardian, Francis isn’t so much “a breath of fresh air as someone who has gone into the Vatican with an oxygen tank strapped to his back. He’s got the church ou…

8: The Mormon Proposition Gets It Right

By Joanna Brooks

…deeply familiar with the Proposition 8 campaign is that the film gets it mostly right. [See also Holly Welker’s review here. – Eds] Some take exception to editing choices that sequence events out of context for dramatic effect; others wish that the filmmakers had not been so cartoonish in their depictions of anti-gay-marriage standpoints, using only notorious bigots like Utah Representative Chris Buttars. But most of the Mormon folks I’m hearing…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…cans were religious.” What planet do these Americans live on? Here in the U.S., religious fervor is at the center of a 30-year culture war that has debased civic discourse and rendered our nation ungovernable. Worldwide, religious sentiments have been mobilized to torture and murder. I understand that religion itself is not to blame; followers can distort religious teachings and politicians can cloak ethnic hostilities and turf wars in religious l…

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…war against the government, and initiating a final battle with the Antichrist. It appears they planned to kill local police officers with hopes this would bring others to the violent religious war. What do the Christians believe? We are witnessing what could be one of the most destructive scandals ever in the Catholic Church. A flurry of reports and allegations have been in the news recently of institutional authorities covering up or taking light…