Religion Dispatches
…reactions from the Catholic hierarchy in various aggrieved countries—from Germany and Belgium, to England and Wales (but not Ireland), to the US and Australia—has been positive. Greater clarity in the relevant Norms and greater transparency in the evaluative procedures are thought to be the first and most important steps toward establishing a more meaningful sense that this Papacy understands the gravity of the crimes over which it stands in judg…
Read More…e used by the plotters of the 9/11 attack has been closed down in Hamburg, Germany. Muslims in Britain held al-Hidayah 2010, a three-day anti-terrorism camp for young people. A New Jersey school district will observe Eid al-Fitr, the day marking the end of the month of fasting, along with Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice and the Hindu new year holiday, Diwali. Some parents fear that kids are getting too many days off. More atheist billbo…
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…le Americans celebrate Labor Day with picnics, BBQs, and weekend getaways, Germany-based FIAA GmbH is releasing the beta version of The Bible Online: Heroes, the first installment of a projected series of MMORTS (massively multiplayer online real-time strategy) “games” based on the Bible. MMORTS games take place in a world that continues to exist and evolve even while any given player isn’t playing. According to the press release, there is an RPG…
Read More…e church. The inscription beneath his stone image reads “God is great.” In Germany, a team of researchers have built digital models of synagogues destroyed by Nazis on Kristallnacht in 1938. Anglican vicar Alex Brown was convicted of performing 360 sham weddings for immigrants trying to stay in the UK. Vandalism against mosques and Islamic centers continues: There’s the vandalism in Madera, California and Hudson Valley, New York. Meanwhile, federa…
Read More…ld a ban on religious Christmas carols in a New Jersey school district. In Germany, a group of Catholics want to take the Santa out of Christmas. They want to replace the consumerist Claus with the selfless St. Nicholas. Druidry is now recognized as a religion by Great Britain. That only took a few thousand years. A priest at St. Vincent College in Pennsylvania was fired when pornography was discovered on his computer. The story takes an interesti…
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…0 people in the Facebook group “Chilean Miners,” for instance (people from Germany, Ireland, Argentina, Canada, Ohio, Wyoming, and so on) were watching the live feed from the mine in their homes, workplaces, cafes and other distributed locales, but praying together for the miners, sharing news from their parts of the world, and, in general, witnessing and ministering to one another throughout the day. It’s hard to tell where all this might lead. P…
Read More…ing Nazi abuse of people in the name of science were going on in post-WWII Germany, the United States Public Health Service was intentionally exposing Guatemalans to the bacterium that causes syphilis, so that different therapies for the disease could then be tested on them. First, infected prostitutes were identified and made freely accessible to ‘volunteer’ prisoners for sex. When this didn’t work so well, attempts were made to infect patients i…
Read More…eproof in the video; for the roots of that film, read Julie’s feature, out today, on a Christian dominionist film festival, where that film won an award.) Don Wildmon, then the president of the American Family Association, was one of the only religious right leaders to offer an early endorsement of Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign, back when Huckabee was complaining about the others much like he is complaining about Rove now. Huckabee earned…
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…know from discussing the topic with former Mormons from England, Belgium, Germany, and South Africa, the rupture can be harrowing even for people who have never set foot in Utah and are one of only a handful of Latter-day Saints in their community. In The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi states, “Changing moral codes is always costly; all heretics, apostates, and dissidents know this.” Mormons who leave the church face dire consequences: damnati…
Read More…nation in films of racist hate rallies, whether in anti-Semitic rallies in Germany in the 1930s, in Alabama in the 1960s, or in Yorba Linda this February. What kind of “cooperation” does King want? In reporting instances of planned violence, Muslims have been not just cooperative, but proactive. The Nigerian would-be airplane bomber was reported by his own father. The attempted Times Square bomber was first identified by a Muslim street vendor. Wo…
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