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How Do We Break the Cycle of Religious Violence in South Asia?

By Sunita Viswanath

…religiously-motivated pogroms afterwards. A few weeks ago, I spoke on the phone with a leader of New York City’s Bangladeshi Hindu community, who was extremely resistant to making the connection between the persecution of his fellow Hindus in Bangladesh and the persecution of Muslims in India. He insisted, “Please don’t tell me about India. I only want to focus on my people, Hindus in Bangladesh.” I suggested that there was folly in focusing on t…

Angry Voters, Right-Wing Populism, & Racial Violence: People of Faith Can Help Break the Linkages

By Chip Berlet

…election, but we didn’t automatically win any of the policy and structural changes we were working for. Did some progressives really think everything was going to get fixed in Washington? This never happens! Our present situation compels a reexamination of how we do longer-term political organizing in our country,” suggests Ostendorf. When I spoke with Gaddy last Fall, I was visiting states like Idaho, Montana, and Washington to research the expan…

Can You Make a Comedy About UFO Cult Mass Suicide?

By Joseph Laycock

…, church. So we’ll get bored someplace else every Sunday. Does this really change our everyday lives?” I met with filmmaker David Jones at a south Austin cafe to discuss his project as well as our public conversation about new religious movements. Jones explained that his fictional cult not directly based on Heaven’s Gate, but is inspired by it. Much like Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012), The Away Team is a fictional story that takes its c…

The Many, Not the Few: An Anthem for Occupy

By Elizabeth Drescher

…e prohibition on cell phones, because Makana’s guitar is tuned with a smartphone app. Or, reporters are interested in how Obama, his guests, and security detail responded—or didn’t, as it turned out. But this misses the heart of the story, as Makana’s set at the APEC dinner was less dissenting performance than performative utterance—the songs he played, the protest t-shirt hidden beneath the complaint dinner musician’s suit, and the secretive cell…

Friending Pope Benedict on Facebook?

By Kate Childs Graham

…n Paul II, Pope Benedict sent the following text message to Italian mobile phone users: “Let us go forth in the joy of the risen Lord and trusting in his permanent help.” JPII had been texting Italians with a “thought of the day” while he was still alive, so Benedict was simply carrying on this tradition. Pope Benedict has more recently used text messaging to communicate with attendees throughout this year’s World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. H…

Obama’s Pastor “Dream Team”

By Peter Laarman

…and tempers taking turns providing spiritual support, and mainly over the phone. Because Goodstein’s piece was essentially unsourced, some caution is in order as to even believing that Obama accepts rotating support and counsel from Jim Wallis, Joel Hunter, Otis Moss Jr., Kirbyjon Caldwell, and T.D. Jakes. This crew struck me as a little too Dream Teamy in respect to the political and cultural stances and demographic constituencies of the disting…

Seeing What They Wanna See: Religion Surveys Reflect Surveyors

By Nathan Schneider

…up from 8.2% in 1990 and 14.1% in 2001. Nothing like the previous decade’s change, but not too slouchy. The lion’s share of the headlines declared that religion is losing its grip on Americans. Some mourned, some celebrated, and many were surprised. Wasn’t this, after all, the decade of the values-voter and a new Great Awakening? Perhaps it no coincidence that the pair who produced this survey are also directors of an Institute for the Study of Se…

The Sacred and the Dead: Ten Writers on the End of an American Adventure

By The Editors

…with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. #5 : Three Ways to American Beauty by Aaron K. Kerr At the height of secular modernity, when Catholics were opening the windows of Vatican…

Forgiveness

By Amina Wadud

…o attend the prayer in the mosque might have to travel to get there? So, I changed the alarm time again. I still do not know what time I changed it to, because it did not go off in time for suhur. When I woke up it was already past time for the beginning of fajr, and therefore well past time for suhur. Some times when you sleep a little bit late you can do a suhur-in-5-minutes thing, but not this morning. I had one moment of panic, and then just d…

The Wounded People of God

By Anthea Butler

…st, diocese, or bishop. I’ve received invitations to come and join the Episcopal Church (are you listening, Father Balmer?) but I am not quite “there” yet. Yet there are others, who either feel that I am not giving the church a fair shake, or that my manner of writing about the scandal was rather inflammatory, for want of a better word. It is to that audience that I want to address these remarks, although I suspect it will serve as a balance to wh…