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

By Sunita Viswanath

…ence against Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as many 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…

Duterte Cites Catholic Heritage in Opposing Marriage Equality, and More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ing that he did not take issue with anyone’s sexuality. Two of his brothers-in-law, and some of his cousins, are gay, he said. But he stressed: “Wherever God has placed you, stay there.” He noted that no one was empowered to “erase the great divide between a woman and a man.” Australia: Priest takes on ‘gay panic defense’; hate speech change debated The parliament of Queensland abolished the “gay panic” defense – a term for the theory that a strai…

Friending Pope Benedict on Facebook?

By Kate Childs Graham

…blog to explain the word of God. She asked ”the Holy Father to open a multi-language blog to shepherd today’s world: [a] daily scriptural verse with [a] simple reflection, brief text and plentiful images.” So, the question is, will the pope heed Lam’s advice and embark on the wonderful world of blogging? Will he use this twenty-first century means of communication to express obsolete ideology? Or would blogging help the pope realize that some of h…

DeMint Uses Christian Reconstructionist Mailing List To Raise Money For Angle

By Julie Ingersoll

…well as those of one of its most well-known associates, Gary North, the son-in-law of Christian Reconstructionist founder R.J. Rushdoony, and a supporter of Ron Paul whose economic writings have also influenced Rand Paul. The goal is to return America to its Biblical foundations “from Genesis to Revelation” (a postmillennial reading of Revelation, which holds that the Second Coming will occur after an era of Christian dominance). American Vision i…

The Latest to Botch Mormonism: Garry Wills

By Joanna Brooks

…regard, interpret, and apply the US Constitution. According to Wills, an 18-year-old Mormon student once told him that: “Like his fellow Mormons, he held that the Declaration of Independence is divinely inspired—in that sense, it is part of Mormon Scripture.” Except for the fact that it really isn’t part of Mormon scripture, either in doctrine or practice. Wills continues: The young man was learning Portuguese, to do his missionary year in Brazil,…

Trump, Islamophobia, and the Philly Pig’s Head Incident

By David Krueger

….” GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump wins the award for Islamophobe-in-chief for his statements that he would require Muslims in the U.S. to be registered in a database and stop Muslim immigrants from coming into the United States. Upping the ante on Tuesday, he made comparisons between his policies and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policy to place Japanese Americans in internment camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. All of this…

Jesus, Please Take Away These Feelings

By Nick Street

…addition to Paul’s prayerful struggle with his feelings for Carlos—the out-and-proud new kid at their high school in Texas—debates in an after-school Bible-study group and around a movement to start a gay-straight student alliance led by Angie, Paul’s girlfriend, are the main sources of the play’s energy and tension. And the tender, artfully drawn romance between Paul and Carlos provides heart. But just as the play itself has attracted a hoard of…

Forgiveness

By Amina Wadud

…or 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 decided that either Dr. Freud or Allah was at work about my complaining yesterday, and so today I do not fast. In my younger lither days I would have to persevere through out the day fasting without suhur, but not now, not at my age, so I am having my tea as I type. No need to lie about it, no…

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

By The Editors

…ren Haynes Lately I’ve noticed that many of the people I’ve known best face-to-face seem awfully hard to find. Our connection, once burning 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….

Seeing What They Wanna See: Religion Surveys Reflect Surveyors

By Nathan Schneider

…g score in the American religious marketplace, therefore, has become a free-for-all among privately-funded polls and studies, and sectarian concerns have always hovered nearby. America’s best known pollster, George Gallup, was a devoted Christian, as is George Barna, whose Barna Group specializes in religion polls. In recent years, large foundations with religious roots have entered the field, bankrolling surveys and publicizing the results, notab…