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Can the Catholic Church Survive Trump?

By Patricia Miller

…administration and the mandate. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of white Catholics who said the Obama administration was “unfriendly to religion” more than doubled from 17 percent to 36 percent between 2009 and 2014. And starting around 2012, white Catholics broke for the GOP by historic margins. It’s also worth noting, as Michael Sean Winters has, that this occurred around the time the administrative staff of the bishops’ confer…

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…rch team they assembled; and while Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens are all susceptible to the same critique, in these pages I’ll confine myself to Religulous.) This is the kind of thing a fair number of my students, raised in the Protestant-dominated United States (even Catholics and Jews have assimilated this definition), come to university thinking about religion; the two key components of which are “belief” and “God.” Religion is some cryptic int…

Hajj Journal: Door Number 89: The Door with No Name

By Amina Wadud

…d inside the mosque one day, I came across Bab raqm tis’wa thamanin, “door number 89,” literally. The door with no name. Facing the mosque at door number one, bab maalik ’abd-al-’Aziz, this door is off to the left. Looking at the mosque floor plan, this is where the building structure of the mosque is deepest. This is “the women’s section.” I noticed as I was walking through the first floor toward door number one, the kings’ door, on my way out af…

Should NASA Have Given $1.1 Million to a Theology Institute?

By Michael Schulson

…ohort, said his job will be “to keep science front and center in all our discussions” while he works on a few scientific projects and oversees his lab. Lovin emphasized that the scholars will focus on “the way the science relates to society, the humanities, and religious questions.” Lovin emphasized that the inquiry was more concerned with questions of science and society than with specifically religious concerns. “What we want to encourage is the…

Godly Game or Godless Satire? Countering Biblical Ignorance with Heretical Humor

By Betsy Shirley

…the Old Testament because they’re long and boring…” Here pauses. “Granted, Numbers is like…” “I like Numbers, but anyway…” mumbles Caleb. “The real impetus for the game,” Thomas resumes, “is to get people to engage in Scripture and read stories they’ve never read before. When a concubine is cut up into twelve pieces, that imagery is really offensive. But a lot of people didn’t even know that story existed in the Bible.” I suspect they’re right; re…

Rage or Courage?: YouTube Terrorism Take Two

By Bruce B. Lawrence

…commentators, the Arab Spring has turned into a Summer, and now Fall, of discontent. “Rage” remains the favorite descriptor, not just for Lewis and his ilk, but for all those who want to argue that freedom must be tolerated and defended by free societies. The reverse is also true, in their view: that the apparent rejection of free speech by Muslims and offended others demonstrates that their minds, as well as their bodies and their polities, are s…

A Tale of Religious Tolerance… On Reddit

By Joanna Piacenza

…iged and smiled for the camera. She then gently, with the patience of a preschool instructor teaching her students how to share, briefly describes Sikh beliefs that reject vanity in place of creating positive change: When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I…

Will Catholic Voters Support LGBT Rights in Washington State?

By Joanna Brooks

…the decision will be made. We are participating in a Catholic-to-Catholic phone bank that Washington United for Marriage has set up on Wednesday nights and we assist with the larger phone bank at the Jewish synagogue downtown. A great deal of our work is communicating with Catholics on our email list and Facebook. As a Catholic, how does your faith shape your views on marriage for LGBT people? My faith blossomed in the 1960s after Vatican II. I h…

Is It OK To Use a Cellphone in Church? Pew Surveys the New Etiquette

By Michael Schulson

…wondered whether your fellow Americans are judging you for talking on your phone in public, or checking baseball scores during a party, or texting in a movie theater, then this report has the answers you crave. Pew surveyed more than 3,000 adults about their cellphone behavior (stuff like “How often do you carry your cellphone with you?”), and about their feelings toward the behavior of their fellow citizens (for example, “How often do you encount…

Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…n the internet. Police reportedly detained the pair at a bus stop and confiscated Mr. Cole’s phone. They then used images they found on the phone as evidence to arrest and convict Mr. Cole for homosexuality. Homosexuality is a criminal offense in Morocco, and relations outside of marriage can also be punishable by law. Italy: Mayors Resisting National Govt on Registering Gay Couples Several mayors are pledging to disobey the Interior Minister’s an…