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Evolution ‘Doesn’t Make Any Sense’: A Scene From a Classroom

By Lauri Lebo

…g points of their parents. And so, the circle of life continues. The most frustrating part is that the students appear to have genuine confusion over evolution and are struggling to understand it. But the teacher, rather than address their misinformation and use his teaching skills to actually foster learning in the classroom, abdicates his responsibility and says, “How can I say to the student, your ideas are trash?” As if that would be his only…

Death of a Self-Proclaimed God-Man: Sai Baba’s Controversial Career

By Andrea R. Jain

…as an accessory to murder are impossible to ignore. If any one of these accusations is true it is difficult to consider Sai Baba a guru— assuming that term has something to do with ethical virtue. But the history of religions is tinged by religious exemplars with questionable ethics. By destabilizing popular assumptions about gurus, it becomes possible to adequately evaluate Sai Baba’s life and to bracket—and even denounce—his ethics while still a…

Will Sisters Save the Catholic Church?

By Mary E. Hunt

…though, being women, they will flap their white veils and make all things new, is equally unhelpful and unlikely. Rather, new models of Church need to emerge lest another small group—even women religious who have a long and proud history—be invested with the power and responsibility that belong to the whole community. I repeat, they don’t want it and neither do the rest of us. What we want is a democratic, participatory, egalitarian church. Some…

Vatican’s New Media Evangelizing Strategy Can’t Save it from All The Bad News

By Anthea Butler

…mmunications,with its theme “The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word,” and you begin to understand that the Roman Curia is really in its own world, a world that increasingly behaves like North Korea with its lauding of a corrupt system, and the treatment of those who have been harmed by ineffective, dodgy administration over abuse cases. In the fantasy world of Vatican City, you can tell priests th…

Top Ten Peacemakers in the Science-Religion Wars

By Paul Wallace

…a full-size, all-wood Ark, which should become the largest timber-frame structure in the USA.” All year, I have been watching the fundraising thermometer at the Ark Park blog. It’s been moving really slowly. I wish I had recorded the data as the months rolled by, but it seems safe to say that, at current rates, it will take another five years to meet the $24.5 million goal set by the Ark Encounter masterminds (this is a small fraction of the proj…

Cue the Kool-Aid: Watching Jonestown Docs in the ‘Fake News’ Era

By Rebecca Moore

…s could well understand the concern that locals had about the influx of thousands of newcomers, but they could also appreciate the frustration the Rajneeshees experienced as they attempted to construct a large religious community in a sparsely populated area. In addition, the difference between re-enactments and reality footage was crystal clear. The Way brothers utilized animated sequences to portray discussions for which they had no film. There…

Indonesian Clerics Issue Anti-Gay Fatwa; Anti-Civil Union Peruvian Lawmaker Cites Hitler; Is Christianity more ‘un-African’ than Homosexuality?; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…rch’s conservative partners are disappointed by its softened position. The New York Times reported last week that the Southern Baptist Convention and the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops have parted ways with the LDS Church because of the Utah legislation…. While conservatives think the Church has gone too far, liberals and some LGBT activists have criticized the bill for not going far enough. It doesn’t address whether businesses have to serve gay…

Purpose Driven Politics: Rick Warren’s Civil Service

By Bill Berkowitz

…here at about the same time; from Africa to Washington, DC, from Europe to New York City, from YouTube to iTunes. Over the years, he has spoken at the United Nations, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the African Union, the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, TIME’s Global Health Summit, and numerous congresses around the world. In late-May, according to a press release posted on Christian Newswire, “Over 1,700 l…

No Such Thing as a Great 9/11 Work of Art

By Hussein Rashid

…g an important impact on American popular culture. His play, The Domestic Crusaders, is about a multi-generational household. The family happens to be from Pakistan and they happen to be Muslim. As I write in an earlier review, “their stories can belong to anyone. That is the power of Domestic Crusaders. It is billed as an immigrant, Pakistani, Muslim experience, but it is the story of any community that is trying to preserve a unique identity aga…

Walking Dead and Zombie Ethics, or “Don’t Fight the Zombies. You Can’t Win”

By Kelly J. Baker

…is no shortage of theories. David Denby, writing about World War Z for the New Yorker, notes, “The zombies aren’t like us; they are us, just degraded a little.” But what do zombies symbolize really? Are they us or aren’t they? Or are they symbolic of larger themes like consumerism, terrorism, neoliberalism, or epidemics? And how did these monsters become representative of our current moment? Much of this ambiguity comes from the nature of the zomb…