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Mormon-Born Daya Mata Typifies American Yoga

By Andrea R. Jain

…n encouraging members of the Self-Realization Fellowship to enter into a guru-disciple relationship with the official gurus of the tradition, including Babaji, Krishna, and Jesus, as well as Yogananda himself. She taught that the gurus, having attained loving union with God, could help their disciples attain that same goal. Having taken the vow of renunciation, Daya Mata prescribed that path for those who, like her, wanted to devote their entire l…

Pressure Grows on Obama to Reject Anti-LGBT Religious Exemption

By Sarah Posner

…rates calls made since 2011 for Obama to rescind the Bush executive order. Today’s letter, in contrast to yesterday’s letter from over 50 legal scholars, is more focused on framing religious freedom as a core American value that is protected, rather than endangered, by rejecting the religious exemption. The legal scholars focused more on constitutional law and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in making the case that neither Free Exercise Clau…

Religious Freedom Gets Hollywood Treatment

By Daniel Ramirez

…rch’s stance against modernity (e.g., public schools without religious instruction, civil marriages, etc.). The rapprochement between longtime dictator Porﬁrio Díaz’s creaky regime and the Catholic Church united liberals, Masons, anarchists, Protestants, and Catholics (the vast majority of revolutionaries were Catholic) in opposition to the dictator’s perennial re-election, and heightened their distrust of the prelates and their uneven application…

The Tragedy of Religious Freedom

By Patrick Hornbeck

…ation, it would be unfair for civil courts to allow the Episcopal Church’s rules to trump state law. The breakaway diocese has appealed to the Supreme Court, which recently asked the national church to reply. In a word, all these cases are about self-determination—the capacity of a religious institution to decide for itself what it means to be complicit in what it views as sin, to legally identify as a religious institution, or to retain property…

A Writer’s Murder Raises Fears of Death-by-Decree

By Shalom Goldman

…probate who insulted the Prophet to hell.” And one of the official Iranian newspapers wrote approvingly that “Azerbaijan’s Salman Rushdie is dead.” As 70% of Azerbaijanis are Shia with allegiances to the Iranian clergy, it did not prove difficult to incite someone to murder Rafiq Tagi. In December seven prominent intellectuals called on the European Union to investigate the circumstances of Tagi’s death. Among them were Taslima Nasrin, Richard Daw…

Better Dead Than ‘Fed’: Behind Palin’s Dig at ‘Unbiblical’ Fed

By Julie Ingersoll

…ivil government to punishing “evildoers” and providing for defense. Reconstructionist theocracy, based on the Reconstructionists’ reading of the Bible, gives coercive authority to families and churches to organize other aspects of life. In this view—one that also meshes with Tea Party rhetoric—the Fed’s control of monetary policy is a prime example of federal government “tyranny.” North argues that the Federal Reserve is unbiblical because it usur…

Eyes on the Prize, Rainbow People! A Post-DOMA Challenge

By Peter Laarman

…ommunity and those in solidarity with the still-unfinished Black freedom struggle would feel under the weight of two body blows in a single week. In her powerful dissent on the Voting Rights case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited Dr. King on the “arc of the moral universe,” adding that it only bends toward justice through steadfast commitment—and that that commitment had been “disserved” by the Court majority. Many Black writers have been quoting…

Updated: My Work on Confederate Monuments Leaves This Christian Ethicist Distrustful of Calls for Reconciliation and Healing

By Ryan Andrew Newson

…o not seem as popular among those who’ve been on the receiving end of the Trump administration’s more destructive, racist, draconian policies. I don’t see immigration lawyers and activists, especially among the Latinx community, clamoring for unity. Nor are my Muslim friends, who’ve dealt with rampant Islamophobia within the Trump administration. Nor are climate change scientists who have watched the Republican party deny the very existence of glo…

The Tense History Behind Jimmy Carter’s Liberty U. Commencement Address

By John Fea

…e decide whether we tell the truth, or benefit from telling lies. We decide, do I hate, or am I filled with love? We’re the ones who decide: do I think only about myself or do I care for others?” Carter delivered a gentle, yet powerful, exhortation to a Christian university run by one of Donald Trump’s chief evangelical surrogates. At one point during his address he identified himself as an “evangelical Christian.” At ninety-three years old, he is…

The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

By Paul Wallace

…c idea, is quickly discarded because it does not speak the truth about the world. A true myth survives because it resonates deeply with lived human experience. A true myth brings one face-to-face with reality and has nothing to do with literalism or the ignoring of scientific evidence. To get to my point: There is found in each of these excerpts, a disconnect between the author’s idea of Christianity and what Christianity actually is. Admittedly,…