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From Pastor to Harvard’s ‘Godless Church’ Planter

By Becky Garrison

…nnect with other clergy persons. Over the past 18 months, I’ve developed a number of relationships with people who contact me because they find themselves in a similar situation. They ask questions, I don’t push. I’m simply a listening ear…someone safe for them to talk to. What was the response to your coming out as an atheist? An enormous number of Christians have threatened to do physical harm to me. Many others have been kind in their response…

Conversion Story #643 (not a real number)

By Amina Wadud

These days, when ever you say you are Muslim by choice, you get people asking about your conversion. Mostly they want to know why. This curiosity comes equally from those who are already Muslim and those who are not. I used to tell the same basic steps—although I hardly think my own individual door lights up any bulbs of excitement. Maybe because no lightbulbs went off for me either. I was a seeker. I was raised in a loving Christian environment…

Are Muslims Nuts?

By Haroon Moghul

…stake tensions for incompatibilities or inherent opposition. I know a fair number of African Americans, Hispanics, and Muslims who once voted Republican. They no longer do—not because they disagree with the Republican Party, but because they feel it has no room for them. It seems opposed to their presence in America. A good number in the Muslim-majority world feel the same way about the place of Islam in the world: there is no room for it. It isn’…

The Religious Mourning of ‘Saint’ Kobe Bryant Continues

By Terry Shoemaker

…year’s All-Star game, one team wore Kobe’s number 24, while the other wore number 2, Gianna’s uniform number. The MVP award, given this year to Los Angeles Clippers’ star forward Kawhi Leonard, was renamed permanently for Kobe Bryant. Pregame and half-time shows centered on Kobe, his family, and his impact on the sport of basketball and society. The collective grief and bereavement displayed by fans and players alike not only demonstrate the power…

How (and Why) A Determined Sit-In Worked

By Daniel Schultz

…’ offices pretty much go directly in the trash. They pay more attention to phone calls and letters, but street protests don’t bother them at all, unless they’re on cable news, which they almost never are. Hashtags? Changing your Twitter avatar? Forget about it. Popular protest does play a supporting role in getting us to a point where something like the Congressional sit-in works. So do the organizations—including the religious groups—who sponsor…

When Auschwitz Becomes a Poké Stop

By Karen E. Park

…in the “real” physical environment of the player, as mediated through the phone’s camera. As one player told a reporter: “This is full on escapism, where I’m like ‘let me just go catch some Pokémon and ignore the news.’” What news is she talking about? The murders of Sterling and Castile and the Dallas police officers. She is referring to the news of death. But in a matter of days Pokemon Go has changed our relationship with death. This is new te…

Emanuel’s Pulse: A Plea for Black Church–LGBTIQ Solidarity

By J. Kameron Carter

Early Sunday morning I woke up, my phone abuzz with news. Reading about the shooting in Orlando, worry and fright overcame me. Still in a semi-wake, semi-sleep, semi-dream state, I thought it was Charleston all over again. Emanuel AME redux. My partner saw my face and asked what had happened. We turned on the television to learn that a man named Omar Mateen had entered a popular gay nightclub on its “Latin Night.” Using an AR-15 assault rifle and…

United Methodists Elect 1st Gay Bishop; Canadian Anglicans OK Same-Sex Marriage

By Peter Montgomery

…translation by Google] Juan Alberto Vazquez writes in Milenio.com that the number of cities in Mexico holding pride celebrations is booming, but that visibility and progress go hand-in-hand with continuing resistance, bullying, homophobia, and violence. Bosnia and Herzogovina: Anti-discrimination law protects LGBT and intersex people The House of People of the Parliamentary Assembly adopted amendments to the country’s anti-discrimination, includin…

Under Water: Waiting for the Flood (of Awareness) in Louisiana

By Drew Konow

…ion has a strange way of inspiring reflection on personal property. On the phone, I told my mom, “I love your house. It is so perfect for you.” And I do. I love her house not because I grew up there (I did not) or because I’ve spent much time there (I’ve only visited once) or because of anything to do with the way it looks. I love her house because of what it stands for. It’s a symbol of her freedom. Freedom from every man who raised a hand to her…

Secularist Activists Are Being Murdered in Bangladesh: An Ongoing Crisis Causes Many to Flee

By Michael De Dora

…s inspiration—a Wahhabi version of Islam fomented in the country’s growing number of fundamentalist religious schools—the victims are not necessarily homogenous in their religious beliefs. Attacks in Bangladesh have targeted atheists and apostates, yes, but what victims have generally shared is something more fundamental: a willingness to live according to the dictates of their own consciences, and to pursue an open, pluralistic, and democratic so…