Religion Dispatches
…r evangelical opponents of yoga, part of the problem is that it comes from India. In discussing yoga’s roots in India, he characterizes it as “almost manically syncretistic.” Mohler warns that if that syncretism is allowed to further infect the United States, we will end up living in the unthinkable: a “post-Christian” nation. But this attempt to produce a monolithic vision of yoga ignores the fact that it, like religion itself, is anything but a…
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…gious relationships, so much of that ended when I announced I was going to India. They couldn’t believe I was trading in my white Jesus card for yoga,” says Rogers. “I started a new spiritual journey of understanding what it means to be a woman of color and the divinity in that. I just don’t believe in rule books anymore.” When she returned to the U.S., she found yoga classes here to be lacking spiritual resonance. “I went to the mountaintop, I le…
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…emarkable book of essays, Utopias in Conflict: Religion and Nationalism in India (University of California Press, 1990), Embree showed how secular and religious visions of the Indian nation were fundamentally in competition, though he understood that the religious versions had their own political motivations. In a separate essay, he ruminated over the partition of India in 1948 and the creation of Pakistan. Though ostensibly an attempt to keep Mus…
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…e early history of modern yoga as a response to Orientalist stereotypes of India as despotic, unscientific, mystical, effeminate, and in need of Western domination, science, reason, and masculinity. Yoga became a means through which Hindu nationalists could display Indian strength and independence in response to these Orientalist representations, which were used to support the colonial project. Nevertheless, the story of yoga’s popularization does…
Read More…ent Hinduism or Buddhism, but certainly influence the issue of violence in Indian society. Indeed, if the demand is to quote a prominent public figure who can credibly speak for Buddhists on the topic of violence in India today, then only the Dalai Lama would suffice. (For the curious, his comments are here.) Another commenter noted “the Kakacupama Sutta was not a teaching given to young laywomen.” This is true. Buddhism’s historical emphasis on m…
Read More…neglects to look at the discrimination harbored within its own walls. The Indian bishops are looking inward. In 1992, the CBCI General Assembly stated: “With a sense of sorrow we must admit that women feel discriminated against, even in the Church.” The Indian bishops recognize that no matter how much work is done on ending discrimination against women in the world, this work does not make much difference without ending discrimination in the Chur…
Read More…cerns [the march] would provoke clashes between gays and their opponents”. India: Census Documents Nearly 500,000 Hijra We reported in May that India’s Supreme Court had ruled in favor of allowing transgender people to identify themselves as a “third gender” on official documents. Less than 30,000 people used that designation in registering for the recent general election, but data released from last year’s national census – which included a third…
Read More…egically At least two gatherings in the past week focused on the strategic promotion of LGBT equality abroad. On Friday, December 6, in Washington, D.C., the Center for Transatlantic Relations, which is part of the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, hosted a presentation called “LGBT Rights: A Geostrategic Issue for Democracies.” The panel, part of a series of discussions on the topic, featured Elizabe…
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…hey oppose the distribution of condoms in prisons on the grounds that this promotes homosexuality. Supported by the churches, the prison service promotes abstinence as its main prevention approach. Lithuania: Conservative manifesto calls LGBT movement tyrannical A coalition of religious and intellectual leaders released a manifesto that condemned the 2016 Baltic Pride celebration “as an attack on human nature and the public good that follows in th…
Read More…leader in the capital Baku died in an apparent suicide earlier this year. India: Cabinet Moves Against LGBT Adoption India’s cabinet has reportedly moved to block same-sex couples from adopting children, a move that could also bar single LGBT individuals from becoming adoptive parents. According to Live Mint, The cabinet took the decision on Wednesday while considering amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000…
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