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Possible Heir to Dalai Lama Cleared of Corruption Charges

By Tsering Namgyal

…nd China could fire a cheap shot. The Indian government’s assertiveness vis-à-vis China is refreshing (though achieving it at the expense of refugees and Buddhist monks who fled China at 14 to get an education smacks of bad taste.) The affair has also unsettled the sentiments of those living in India’s predominantly Buddhist Himalayan region, which separates China from India. There were large protests in the capitals of both Ladakh and Sikkim, as…

Indonesian Clerics Issue Anti-Gay Fatwa; Anti-Civil Union Peruvian Lawmaker Cites Hitler; Is Christianity more ‘un-African’ than Homosexuality?; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…hinzo Abe, the prime minister, has pointed out that Article 24 of Japan’s (American-written) constitution refers to marriage as based on the mutual consent of “both sexes”. But as many people in the bars of Shinjuku wryly note, in other areas of policy, Mr Abe’s dearest wish is to rewrite the bits of the constitution that he finds archaic. US Territories: Behind the wave on marriage equality Puerto Rican Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla is reportedly…

Five Must-Reads on the “Nones”: A Tipping Point in American Religion and Spirituality

By Elizabeth Drescher

…. Schmidt set his original exploration of the nineteenth-century “spiritual-but-not-religious” set (Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, of course, but also lesser-studied figures such as John Wright Buckham, Sarah Farmer, and Margaret Fuller) in the context of a maturing, antebellum American democracy, arguing that the emphasis on the inward search among the Metaphysicals was closely tied to a progressive politics and praxis, including a renewed practi…

Ten Books to Read After You’ve Watched “Lemonade”

By Nyasha Junior

…rican Spirituality Theologian Diana Hayes traces the development of African-American spirituality within Protestant and Catholic traditions. She explores how faith traditions have served to nurture and sustain African-American communities. African American women’s spirituality is deeply rooted in a community of the born, the yet to be born, and those who have already passed over. Tracey E. Hucks Davidson College Yoruba Traditions and African Ameri…

Beinart’s Indictment And The Evangelical Right

By Sarah Posner

…litary Readiness.” (The event as a whole was designed to bring more African-American and Latino conservatives into the fold of the religious right, but racial justifications for the Israeli occupation abounded in the Israel session.) One common thread among all the speakers there: they had gone recently on a trip to Israel with one-time presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and the singer Pat Boone, had met with Israeli government officials, who so…

Tattoos, Cremation, Personal Spirituality: The Jewish World in Transformation

By Dana Evan Kaplan

…u feel about the cover? The cover is an American flag with alternating five- and six-pointed stars designed by Frances Baca for Columbia University Press. The drawing symbolizes the integration of Jewish values into American values as well as the reverse process of association of American values as Jewish values. I would love to claim some of the credit for thinking up the idea or sketching out the graphics, but unfortunately I had nothing to do w…

Russian Parliament Hosts U.S. Anti-Gay Activist Paul Cameron

By Chrissy Stroop

…f possibility—and you can bet Cameron knows it. Cameron is among those made-in-America anti-LGBT activists who are exporting the US culture wars (their cause clearly losing at home) to countries where their prejudices are widely accepted, anti-LGBT discrimination is already enshrined into law or could be, and the potential harm from their violent rhetoric is that much greater. For those who may not know the name, Cameron is the founder and head of…

The Collapse of the American Jewish Center

By Sarah Posner

…ion Protective Edge, particularly of women and children—coupled with minute-by-minute coverage on social and traditional media by reporters on the ground for major news outlets—have intensified the opposition. Jewish Voice for Peace, because of its rhetoric casting Israel as an aggressor, and because of its support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, has largely been vilified by Jewish organizations as not re…

No God but Country: The Religion of John McCain Has Something Important to Tell Us

By Kathryn Lofton

…discovery that celebrities are “just like US!” Even within this din of come-to-Jesus moments, McCain’s story is discordant, failing to supply some of the basic ingredients for a ritual confession of faith. It includes no mention of God (or Christ) as an actor in his life or even in that dirt-drawn moment. There are no searching first-person studies of his character, expelling moment of personal sin revealed, revelled, and renunciated. His reading…

The Sacred and the Dead: Truckin’ as a New American Pilgrimage

By Varun Soni

…lgrimage in the Grateful Dead experience than “Truckin’” from their classic 1970 album American Beauty. The song’s lyrics offer a framework for a road trip adventure by transforming the American concert landscape into sacred geography for Deadheads. Indeed, “Truckin’” references seven major American cities “involved in a typical daydream, and these cities were also regular stops on Grateful Dead tours. Accordingly, “Truckin’” lyrically provided a…