Religion Dispatches
…ah,” echoes Bourland. “In my heart, I just begin to pray, God, let this woman rise to this place that you want her to go,” said Mpofu. “Number one, she’s a Christian. Number two, she’s a woman.” Watch a short video montage of the conference here. —Ed….
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…number of occasions found that the likelihood of counter-events does not justify restricting citizens right to peaceful assembly. The regional police also asked for the ban, although it is they who are obliged to protect all citizens exercising their right to gather. Indonesia: Anti-Gay Islamists Continue Rhetorical War On LGBTs Weeks of escalating anti-gay rhetoric in Indonesia show no signs of stopping, according to an Associated Press report th…
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…“cultic.” The biggest megablock outside of the Catholic Church, and the fastest growing of all? The postdenominational block, 385 million strong by 2000. Wagner calls this block “neo-Apostolic.” It’s bigger now than in 2000, he says, and Wagner notes that it’s the only megablock growing faster than the earth’s population and faster than Islam. Wagner’s cell phone rings mid-lecture; a Hank Williams ringtone. The class laughs. In fact, it’s probabl…
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…ugh, 34% doesn’t seem quite so high. Really, Pew has asked an excellent question—a question that reveals the full tangle of ambiguities and inconsistencies that surround the topic of Jewish identity. First, some background: when the researchers at Pew set out to conduct this survey, they quickly ran into a problem that’s been under discussion for at least two thousand years. As Gregory Smith, the Director of U.S. Religion Surveys at Pew, explained…
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…, monks point out that they are increasingly treated as actors on the tourist stage. For example, the daily debate sessions in Lhasa’s large monasteries, one of the most important venues for monastic learning, must be convened at a time that is convenient for the local tourist industry. During the peak of the tourist season, busloads of tourists descend on the monasteries in the early afternoon, cameras in hand. It is not uncommon for tourists to…
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…In 2016, a “Reichsbürger” shot and killed a police officer. During a protest against Covid-19 restrictions in 2020, several people managed to enter the Reichstag building of the German parliament and hundreds with ties to the “Reichsbürger” were arrested. The terror group seems to have followed prominent QAnon beliefs of the “Deep State.” According to Lamberty, the timing of the attack is no coincidence: “Especially during the pandemic we could s…
Read More…history is an ambivalent and ambiguous and violent one. It has worked against justice as often as not. A War waged in part over the question of federalism, and in part over the questionable justice of human enslavement, ended in the drafting of a constitutional amendment intended to answer both questions, once and for all. And what happened? The protections intended for the people, real persons, especially persons who had not fully counted as pers…
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…ill go to Mina, etc. There is still no address for the hotels, but a local phone number. There is also information about processing customs at Jeddah, meeting the tour guide, and information that says “the group” will proceed to Makkah—which means the first will have to wait for the last person, which is the beginning of feeling like you are a group. They even include suggestions to “get to know” your fellow travelers. I still had no idea what wer…
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…s omnipresence. Herzog avoids the everday aspect of the net (and attendant statistics) looking instead for the colorful and odd individuals with stories to tell. As a result, Herzog has created a documentary which is highly suggestive, but doesn’t get to the center of the cultural importance of the internet. No one will confuse this documentary with the work of a sociologist like Sherry Turkle, but with Lo and Behold Herzog has given us a good sta…
Read More…g those days for at least half the month had nearly doubled between the first and last quarter of the year. Then-Governor Mike Pence signed the first iteration of Indiana’s RFRA on March 26, and then amended it a week later amid national backlash in an effort “clarify” that the law did not void existing non-discrimination protections. But the damage was already done. The study analyzed 2015 data reported by 21 states to the Centers for Disease Con…
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