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Forced Cremation of Covid Dead in Sri Lanka Further Marginalizes Muslim Community

By Andrea Malji and Amarnath Amarasingam

…, only Allah is allowed to punish with fire. Another hadith proclaims that breaking a bone of the dead is like breaking the bone of a living person—it is forbidden. Muslim scholars around the world have noted that certain practices, such as the ritual bathing of the body, can be modified during times of emergencies, including pandemics. Additionally, the number of people present at a Muslim funeral can also be reduced as long as the funeral prayer…

Global LGBT Recap: Promise and Peril in the New Year

By Peter Montgomery

…roject aimed at letting young people in Russia know that people around the world are aware of their struggles and support them. “You are beautiful,” is one message of the project’s launch video which includes voices from six continents. Jamaica: Two Faces of Christianity It Gets Better’s international affiliates page notes that a project for Jamaica is in the works and “coming soon.” The sooner the better – Religious Right figures like Peter LaBa…

Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…he story of Lazarus and the rich man. Daily, the rich man ignored poor Lazarus, but when Lazarus died he was taken to “heaven” or a place of eternal comfort. The rich man’s fate in Hades was terrible, however, as he begged Abraham to “send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” Abraham reminds rich man of how he treated the poor in his lifetime: “you received your good things, and Laza…

Gambian Leaders Portray Anti-Gay Law as Defense of Islam, Ugandan Politicians as ‘Christmas Gift’; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tified “corrosive, smelly liquid” that got on his hands, neck and clothes, news site Gazeta.ru reported Tuesday… The lawyer identified one of his assailants as Anatoly Artyukh, an activist from the Narodny Sobor conservative organization and aide to St. Petersburg municipal lawmaker Vitaly Milonov, who is known for his virulently anti-gay stance. In a related story, David Crary reported for the Associated Press that scores of Russian gays are seek…

Ten of Our Favorite Top Tens

By The Editors

…TV, we admit it. But we’ve watched enough to know that the list-makers at Beliefnet missed our favorite in this odd category. They forgot about reality television’s most charismatic Christian, ex-Run-DMC rap star, Reverend Run. In MTV’s Run’s House, the Rev lives with his big, blended family in New Jersey. It’s part hip-hop, part Brady Bunch. And he sermonizes from the bathtub. Bet he would have given a heck of an inaugural invocation too……

What Irish Marriage Vote Means for Catholic Church; The Lonely Fight for Equality in Belize; Progress and Backlash in Tunisia; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ssers-by scorn; a marked man at 30 paces. His weary face is on the evening news and in newspaper caricatures, which have depicted him in fishnets and heels. His name is now a label, one used to remind other gays that they are sinners and public offenders. Win or lose, Orozco’s fight for his fundamental rights and freedoms will follow him for the rest of his life. Americans and Europeans visit Belize for all the things that make “the Jewel” an idea…

The Suppression of Sin in Evangelical Abolitionism: The Wilberforce Problem

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…ust how widespread domestic trafficking is. Just this week, the website of CNN Freedom Project (CNN’s own initiative to end modern slavery) reported that Mexican police have arrested more than 1,000 people in a city on the Texas border in connection with “human trafficking and sexual exploitation.” According to Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (whose book, Half the Sky, has become the definitive work detailing the horrors of modern slavery and o…

London Calling: “Our Great War Is a Spiritual War”

By Elizabeth Drescher

…involvement in rioting that eventually prompted an anemic apology from the BBC after video of the interview spread from YouTube to Facebook to Twitter and so on around the world. Only vaguely satisfactory, but surely better than the connived executions of Wat Tyler, John Ball, and others who spoke on behalf of the 1381 insurgents. All Out of Opiates in England Setting the social tone aright has long involved encouraging religious piety—acts of dev…

Capricology Week 5: Fathers, Funerals, and the Ethics of Gaming

By Henry Jenkins

…e world beyond, about the connection being framed here between the virtual world and the underworld, and so forth. I am hoping the series gives us more opportunities to explore those issues. Salman Hameed___________________ I liked this episode, and Tamara’s character and her circumstances have a lot to do with that. Henry has brought up some fascinating points about the nature of games and gamers. However, what caught my attention was that Tama…

Five Flood Stories You Didn’t Know About

By Ingrid Lilly

…ural story?” Indeed, The Flood is one of the most ancient and oft recycled stories in world cultures. In looking at The Flood today, we participate in thousands of years of meaning-making. We connect ourselves to world literature, to ancient civilizations, and to a perennial story about a cataclysm that changed the world. Long before the Bible was written, The Flood was a blockbuster of the ancient Mesopotamian and Mediterranean worlds. It origina…