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Rage Against the New Age Machine: Three Days at the Osho International Meditation Resort

By Diane Winston

…uit of happiness. Labeled the “sex guru” for what were liberal attitudes in 1960s India, Rajneesh, as Osho was known then, was equally contrarian on politics, economics, and religion. A fervent capitalist, he hailed science, denounced institutional Hinduism and encouraged followers to leaven their asceticism with sensual pleasure and material comfort. (His vision of the enlightened man was “Zorba the Buddha.”) In 1974, when he opened a center in P…

God May Weep For Church Sexual Abuse, But Bishop Chaput Prefers to Bark

By Anthea Butler

…d the statute was introduced by Representative Mark Rozzi, who was raped at 13 years of age. The rapist, Rev. Edward Graff, was moved to several churches until he was arrested in Texas and died in custody. So when Archbishop Chaput callously says that we should all “get over” wanting to go back and blame, read that statement in the context of current lobbying by the Catholic Church not to extend the statute of limitations. The Archbishop isn’t new…

Mark Driscoll Hate-Tweets as Pope Benedict Flip-Flops: This Week in Religion and Social Media

By Elizabeth Drescher

…went on to a universal authority for his teaching. Benedict’s way more than 140-characters of something other than “wise and balanced” rhetoric in the World Peace Day message is worth our attention: Those who insufficiently value human life and, in consequence, support among other things the liberalization of abortion, perhaps do not realize that in this way they are proposing the pursuit of a false peace. The flight from responsibility, which deg…

Is The Episcopal Church Driving Drunk?

By J. Terry Todd

…ld-line denomination, right-wing detractors are correct in noting that the numbers are grim and the future far from bright. The question is, why? Why has this once-powerful church, with unmatched cultural capital and an impressive treasury, become so anemic? The answer is surely more complicated than the simple right-wing Anglican formula that liberalism = death. But let’s face it: this has been a tough few months for the Episcopal Church, and the…

Passover with Mohammed: A Jewish Journalist in Yemen

By Sam Kestenbaum

…ut already has a thick goatee. When I tell him I’m a Jew he takes out his iPhone and wants to play me a song. Hebrew lettering appears on the bottom of the screen and a yarmulke-clad singer stands on a stage, microphone in hand. When he begins singing, in Arabic, Ahmed knows every word. He sings about chewing qat, about falling in love. “Most of the Jews here went to Israel, but they stayed Yemeni—listen to his accent! He’s a perfect Sana’ani. He…

An Architect Reimagines the Synagogue as Ark, Shelter, Floating Fortress

By Kathryn Joyce

…from his participation in the City Council of Glen Cove at the time of the 1990 Avianca airline crash in the nearby Long Island town of Cove Neck—a flight from Columbia to New York that ran out of fuel as it was held circling JFK airport awaiting permission to land, killing 73. In the midst of a subsequent council meeting, the mayor of Glen Cove sequentially cited the heroics of local emergency workers for responding to the crash, and then lament…

Global LGBT Recap: Nigeria Jails Gays, Russian Orthodox Spox Calls for Criminalization Referendum

By Peter Montgomery

…this week from his job as creative director of the country’s largest cell phone retailer after more than 15 LGBT organizations teamed up to urge Apple CEO Tim Cook to cut ties with Euroset. He did so defiantly, saying he would never change his position that “Sodom and Gomorrah must be destroyed!” Journalist and LGBT activist Masha Gessen, who has dual Russian and American citizenship, has left Russia with her partner and three children under the…

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…

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

By Bill Berkowitz

…n 2008. “Seven of those executed had been convicted in Dallas County.” The number of executions nationwide dropped to 37 in 2008, a 14-year low. According to USA Today, “The Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment and compiles annual statistics, reports that for the most part only Southern states resumed executions. Ohio, which carried out two, was the only state outside the South to impose the death penalty in 2008.” (S…

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

…ong after, the former acquaintance called to threaten Subhi from a Turkish phone number. Power noted that Subhi spoke at a recent UN Security Council Session, the first-ever dedicated to LGBT rights, which she said was an important precedent to set: But also, it allowed us to convey, in a single voice, and with the authority of the Security Council – which is the premiere global enforcement body for peace and security – it allowed us to convey tha…