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Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

By Sarah Posner

…e for Peace, on whose Rabbinical Council he serves. (Compared to J Street’s 800-plus-member Rabbinic Cabinet, JVP’s two-year-old Rabbinic Council has just 50.) Rosen told me he was not forced out, but that his decision to step down was driven by “stress between individual congregants and me,” and was made “for my congregation’s well-being and my own well-being.” Rosen described Israel’s 2009 war in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, as the “breaking point…

Lifestyles of the Rich and Pious

By Patricia Miller

CNN’s Belief Blog has a great rundown of the lavish homes of American archbishops who haven’t gotten the memo from Pope Francis about a “church which is poor and for the poor.” CNN reports that “10 of the 34 active archbishops in the United States live in buildings worth more than $1 million.” The median home value in the U.S. is $174,200. Not surprisingly, that list includes some of the nation’s most outspoken conservative bishops—and allies of…

Violent, Genocidal Anti-Palestinian Rhetoric Moving to US?

By David Sheen

…in Israel and the US, are legendary. The former Chief Rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of many Middle Eastern Jews, said, among other things, that Palestinians “should perish from the world” and that “it is forbidden to be merciful to them”; of non-Jews in general, he declared that “Goyim were born only to serve us.” Despite comments like these, his funeral last October was the largest in the country’s history, with 800,000 Israelis attending…

Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

By Gordon Haber

While sanctimonious conservatives and godless liberals alike await the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, two more suits with serious church and state implications are quietly making their way through the system. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is a group of “atheists, agnostics and skeptics” with a Scientology-esque fondness for litigation. Recently the FFRF has gone after the so-called “parsonage exemption,” which allow…

Racist Remarks by popular BYU Religion Professor Spark Controversy

By Joanna Brooks

…missionaries, to as many as 3,000 students a year. This semester, more than 800 students are registered in Professor Bott’s classes. (Eleven are registered for BYU’s African-American history course this semester.) Professors at BYU routinely find themselves having to address racist and sexist content taught in Bott’s classes, and many are outraged and embarrassed by his rogue remarks to the Washington Post, say sources at the university. “Dr. Bott…

Vatican Reverses Anti-Liberation Policies in Mexico

By Ruth Chojnacki and Jennifer Scheper Hughes

…ate, an ancient institution revived by Vatican II. In 2000, 341 of Mexico’s 800 deacons served the Diocese of San Cristobal, the largest number of deacons in any Catholic diocese in the world. Vatican suspicion of Bishop Ruiz’s liberationist pastoral strategy resulted in a failed attempt to remove him in 1993. The deacon program came under particular scrutiny after the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, with reports that Maya catechists defied th…

Catholic Church Ordained Women Before, Can Do it Again

By Phyllis Zagano

…e trajectory of deacon-priest-bishop is relatively recent—only about 700 or 800 years in the long history of the Church. In fact, the earlier understanding is that the deacon would become a bishop! I sometimes wonder if the naysayers are more afraid of women bishops than of women priests. But, in modern times, we have reestablished the tradition of a diaconate lived permanently. All priests are also ordained deacons, and in the most formal of litu…

Did the Pope Embrace the Prosperity Gospel?

By Sarah Posner

…f declared that “the miracle of unity has begun.” “Let’s give each other a spiritual hug and let God complete the work that He has begun,” said Francis. The Trinity Foundation, the Dallas, Texas-based Christian watchdog group that monitors and investigates televangelism fraud, has questions, asking why the Pope would meet with religious leaders “who engage in the same kind of excesses he’s been preaching against.” In a statement, the Trinity Found…

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

By Joanna Brooks

Yesterday’s release of previously confidential files on child sexual abuse perpetrators maintained by the Boy Scouts of America from 1959 to 1985 are raising new questions about the relationship between the LDS Church and the BSA. Since 1918, the Church has partnered with the BSA, hosting scout troops in most of its United States congregations. (The New York Times profiled the LDS-BSA relationship—including the experience of gay LDS Boy Scouts im…

My God, David Brooks

By John Modern

…and cliché! We are, instead, moving toward what [Taylor] calls a galloping spiritual pluralism. People in search of fullness are able to harvest the intellectual, cultural and spiritual gains of the past 500 years. Poetry and music can alert people to the realms beyond the ordinary . . . We are not moving to a spiritually dead wasteland . . . Advances in human understanding — not only in science but also in art, literature, manners, philosophy and…