Religion Dispatches
…avail regardless of the degree of their religiosity. More interesting, the online community of ISIS supporters were quick to adopt him as their own. According to my research assistants who have been following jihadi-related Twitter feeds, there was online cheering minutes after the act. When the attacker’s identity was revealed, one tweet stated that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel must have been “a lone wolf that answered the call of jihad by attacking the kuf…
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…. What to make of these developments? First, these programs are the latest installment in a long history of US interventions in religious and political fields abroad. Second, the CVE agenda assumes that religion is the “cause” of various political outcomes, both good and bad. It is the job of the state, and other international authorities, to cultivate religious moderation and to sideline extremism. Third, this good/bad religion narrative distils…
Read More…for minorities.” China: Broadcast Officials Censor Gay Characters From TV, Online Streaming Chinese officials have moved to censor gay characters from television and online streaming, reports BuzzFeed. New government guidelines state, “No television drama shall show abnormal sexual relationships and behaviors, such as incest, same-sex relationships, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on.” Also banned are histo…
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…d technical bravado combine. Early Internet proponents explicitly rejected online commercialism, as evidenced by the backlash against the first commercial advertisement sent via e-mail in 1994. The tide of commercialism had been quietly rising since the 1980s, however, ushered in by corporate CEOs who imagined themselves as heroes in a libertarian novel by Ayn Rand. In the mid-1990s U.S. politicians caught the ideological wave, and a bipartisan ar…
Read More…d in the Southeast and the rotted-out portions of the Midwest, do a lot of online searching about God, the Antichrist, Heaven, Hell, the Rapture, and the Bible. But what Leonhardt and other commentators who are swooning over the soi-disant “apocalyptic” religion of the strugglers fail to mention is that poor peoples’ web searches related to physical distress and disease are even more frequent than those of the heaven/hell sort. Leave Jesus out of…
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…wood, white paint, and plants, which cover patches of the walls in living installations. Upon entering, visitors are invited to take off their shoes and make a cup of tea. Next to the check-in desk, MNDFL offers its merchandise, including $40 T-shirts and $32 tank tops. For $150, you can buy a special candle in a porcelain jar, and meditation cushions branded with MNDFL’s handsome heptagonal logo retail for $75. There are stacks of Rinzler’s book…
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…ve Board and its Global Advisory Board. From a press release: Alturi is an online platform that enables individuals from all walks of life to take a stand against the violence and discrimination confronting the international LGBTI community and provide direct help for LGBTI advocates around the world. With marriage equality secured at last in the United States, the LGBTI rights movement is turning its attention in new directions, and Alturi is com…
Read More…ifying the shooting, burning, hanging and drowning of LGBT people. Russia: Online LGBT support group targeted again A St. Petersburg court will hear a case on Monday charging an online group, Deti 404, with a violation of the country’s anti-gay propaganda law. It is not the first prosecution under the law for Deti 404 and administrator Elena Klimova. Kazakhstan: President expected to sign ‘propaganda’ law Amnesty International organized a protest…
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…ess, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness’.” According to Mambaonline, Olivier is himself gay. “It boils down to one thing – homophobia toward the gay community. That’s why they dismissed me at the end of the day. The church is not right. They should stop being homophobic and reach and out embrace people with love. At this stage it’s quite the opposite,” Olivier told Mambaonline. Colombia: Human Rights Leader Killed LGBT human rights a…
Read More…inners, but towards sin.” Mattingly also writes about a controversy raging online in in the U.S. Orthodox community: Ironically, Hilarion’s visit to the United States took place during a semi-public debate about this very issue, on a youth-ministry website operated by the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), which has Russian roots. At the center of the storm was an essay entitled “Never Changing Gospel; Ever Changing Culture” by Father Robert Arida….
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