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How to Choose a Tour Company for Your Hajj

By Amina Wadud

…y pre-travel preparations need to be complete. It all feels rather last-minute to me. But then, maybe that’s the way it goes. No, if I had my way I would call this entry: how not to choose a tour company. Really. The choice of the company I am working this out with is the result of one of those eeny-meeny-miny-mo Internet searches. It’s a business, after all, this: getting people to and from hajj. A simple Google search produces lots of choices. B…

Conservative Bishops Unhappy At Synod, But Ignore Walkout Call; Australian Religious Leaders Step Up Marriage Equality Opposition; Italy Debates Civil Unions; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…s compassion for gay Catholics and the divorced and remarried, ‘mercy without truth is a comfortable form of lying.’ ” ‘The central issue is, do we and they want Jesus Christ on his terms or on ours? If we can’t in principle accept the possibility of discomfort, suffering and even martyrdom, then we’re not disciples. We can’t rewrite or overlook what Jesus requires in order to follow him.’ Australia: Conservative Christian Leaders Step Up Oppositi…

South Asian Religious Leaders Challenged to Take on Stigma and Discrimination: Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Costa Ricans. TCRN reports that 69% professed to being active Catholics, but only 4 out of 10 go to church. On homosexuality, 36.5% of respondents believed that churches should advise and support those people to not be homosexual, 34% believed that churches should educate believers on sexual diversity and 28.2% say that churches should not be involved in people’s sexual preference. According to the study there are more women than men who admit to…

Death Penalty, Debated (Dedicated to the Memory of Sarah Horowitz)

By Bill Berkowitz

…nalty which seeks “to end the death penalty in Texas,” will have its work cut out for it since Texas has already scheduled eleven executions for the first three months of 2009. “Despite continued concerns about the flaws and failures of the Texas death penalty system—and growing public awareness of its fallibility—the ‘conveyor belt to death’ continues to operate on high gear,” said Kristin Houle. “TCADP urges all elected officials to take a hard…

Who Is “Sam Bacile?”

By Sarah Posner

…k for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.” Klein also tells Goldberg that he doubts “Bacile” is Jewish, and that the claims he is were a “disinformation campaign.” He added, about the people involved in the film, “Some are Copts but the vast majority are Evangelical.” Final update of the day: US officials say that the Libya attack that killed t…

Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…r in public assistance money.” The Grim’s data may also raise questions about the future. Plenty of commentators have fretted over the rise of the so-called Nones—Americans who decline to affiliate with a particular religious group—but few have speculated that religious disaffiliation could make ripples in the economy. “Is this economy endangered with people being less religiously affiliated, given that religion is such a positive contributor to o…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…oncern with money and power (51%). But do such data really tell us much about American religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice. Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the…

Students at Conservative Catholic College Speak After Sudden Cancellation of Pro-Gay Speaker

By Rob Shryock

…informed in advance of the “general content” of any lectures held in the future. Providence’s student body has reacted with outrage. On Thursday, students flooded Providence College’s ’64 center for an open-forum/protest called “Fighting for Academic Freedom.” At the meeting, a number of LGBT students made clear that they were profoundly upset by the administration’s decision. One student noted that the college’s actions had “further alienated t…

Dirty Money in the Appalachian Church: Six Years After Deadly Coal Mine Disaster, Where Are We Now?

By Michael J. Iafrate

…e to be in a calm mood to participate in conversations about the region’s future.” But what is the value of an official statement if it is not made public? It is curious, too, which “folks in the coalfields” the Diocese chooses to stand with in this case. What of those coalfield residents who have to deal with the effects of mountaintop removal day after day, knowing all too well the systemic causes of poverty, joblessness and ecological devastati…

It’s Not Raining Eligible Muslim Men

By Shabana Mir

…ds, in-laws, and sons. Single women who remained single were not unknown, but were not large in number and remained an anomaly. Wealthy and middle-class or educated single women could hold their own. In the diaspora, professional single women, outside of a traditional Muslim context, will inevitably change the face of the community. Traditional, conservative Muslims may have much to fear from these changes, but they must be faced. Growing numbers…