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Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

By Michael Jerryson

…of Hindu Gods and Goddesses in Prof. Doniger’s books already grace the websites of some banefully anti-Hindu hate sites with their own varied agendas. A few months after it was released in India, the criticism gained a political edge. An 81-year old retired school teacher sued Penguin publishing house, arguing that the book violated Article 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which forbids “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious f…

US Archbishop and Vatican-Appointed “Overseer” Attends Annual Meeting of Women Religious

By Emily Baxter

…embly, the sisters officially called for gun control legislation and signed 800 postcards demanding Congress members to pass immigration reform. As LCWR past-president, Sr. Pat Farrell said to the Assembly, “Expressing what we really think and feel, with transparency and vulnerability, is for the brave of heart. It is, however, what we are being asked to do in our current conflict. All of a sudden the world is looking to us.” Like this story? You…

Normalization is Control: Telling Stories to Survive

By Mariam Durrani

…for myself, my family, and colleagues. So I’ve been trying to draft a short 800-word article for Religion Dispatches, as my attempt to make sense of this current moment, not because I chose this as an anthropological project, but here I am. Here I am listening to Trump’s transition team drop words like Muslim registry or that there is a precedent for internment camps in American history. The news that the KKK has been dropping their newsletter off…

The Burning Houses of Worship We Missed

By Gordon Haber

…g District of Western China, where officials have reportedly bulldozed over 800 mosques. Authorities have also detained hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in re-education camps. The scale of the suffering is difficult to imagine. In fairness, there’s been a lot of good reporting about the plight of the Uighurs. And yet I believe the outpouring of emotion for more recognizable places—especially Notre Dame—is instructive. Samuel Johnson defined sympat…

What To Do When Fred Phelps Arrives in Your Neighborhood

By Susan Henking

…le. Why? Because of this Supreme Court ruling and Fred Phelps. Yes, his website indicates that his “church” intends to picket Sergeant Snyder’s funeral. This is not the first time Fred Phelps has picketed, or threatened to picket, a funeral. He began with Matthew Shepard and has picketed over 400 funerals of soldiers over the years. Fred Phelps’ views (one hates to call them theology) are not limited to hating “fags.” Wikipedia, for example, cla…

Rep. Cleaver’s ‘Awoman’ Prayer Enrages Christian Nationalists Who Taste Their Own Medicine and Still Miss the Point

By Andrew L. Seidel

…hey are accustomed. But any prayer, even the prayer that strives, with the best of intentions, for inclusion, is going to be exclusionary. Government prayer will always be divisive in America. We are a pluralistic society made of people from many religious backgrounds and 80 million who are not religious at all. The Founding Fathers chose to keep state and church separate precisely because religion is divisive. It always has been and it always wil…

My God, David Brooks

By John Modern

…ier—you do not have to read Taylor after all! And here I must offer a requisite disclosure: I have read A Secular Age and I am on record as a critic of Taylor’s framing of modernity. Although I am fearless when I talk trash about Brooks at parties, I continue to struggle to pinpoint what, exactly, bothers me about A Secular Age—a book that is so rigorous, subtle, and for the most part, correct in its assessment of what lies behind and before our c…

Fox Makes Mockery Of Promise To Rein In Beck’s Anti-Semitism

By Sarah Posner

…rty” leaders, Glenn Beck is one of the most vitriolic, and – with more than 800 hours of on-air time a year – the most visible. His portrayal of Soros today as the “Puppet Master,” as the special was called, evokes anti-Semitic stereotypes from the “devaluer of many currencies” to “advocate for one world government” from “anti-American” to “thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us.” Beck’s words have consequences. They advance a world view that ult…

Boy Scout “Perversion Files” Raise Questions about Abuse in Mormon Contexts

By Joanna Brooks

…ims and accusers. In 1995, the Church established stronger guidelines and new protocols for reporting abuse, including a 1-800 number for local clergy. …

Colorado’s Personhood Initiative Fails—For Now

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

Colorado’s fetal personhood ballot initiative petition failed to get enough valid signatures, and so the measure will not appear on the ballot, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced this morning. According to the Denver Post, some of the signatures were deemed invalid, so the petition was found to have only 85,800 valid signatures—305 signatures short of the required 86,105. Jennifer Mason, speaking for Personhood Colorado, said tha…