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African Religious leaders complain about Obama advocacy for LGBT rights; Ultra-Orthodox Man Stabs Jerusalem Pride Parade Marchers, Again; Struggles over sexuality in Islam, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican Churches; Global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ld view of other peoples,” Bishop Badejo concluded… Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila has noted that foreign aid given to the Philippines is oftentimes is linked to some measures that the receiving country is somehow forced to accept … some of the conditions for the aid seem to be an acceptance or a welcoming of some views regarding marriage, or sexuality, or what, which could be alien to the vision of the receiving country or culture.” We reported la…

Right-Wing Religion, Anti-Globalism, Authoritarian Rule: America Catches Up With the Rest of the World

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…the first notes congratulating Trump came from an enthusiastic Duterte in Manila who only weeks earlier called Barack Obama a “son of a whore.” Now that the have-nots have become the new haves, and the forgotten masses have claimed a voice, where does this leave us, the forebears of a globalized multicultural world? It probably leaves us where we always have been, even though we may not have realized it, as part of a privileged minority with a vi…

4 (or 5) American Muslims For Ben Carson to Interrogate

By Haroon Moghul

…Constitution, and score two points for Sharia? Isn’t the Captain’s jersey number, 33, some kind of Islamic numerology? Damning questions for sure, and worse yet, so far unanswered. No. 2: Muhammad Ali Sure he floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, but where’s he stand on theocracy? Just find five minutes to sit down with the Greatest, and be honest, Ben Carson, about why. “Mr. Ali, I’d like to know if Americans can really trust you.” “Was…

Global LGBT Recap: Mandela and Equality; Elton John Defies Russian Ban; Fake-Healing of AIDS

By Peter Montgomery

…man who was recently tortured and killed after he came out. US Embassy in Manila Issues First Fiancé Visa The US Embassy in the Philippines announced it had granted its first fiancé visa to a same-sex couple. Same-sex couples cannot get married in the Philippines, the announcement noted, but thanks to the Supreme Court ruling striking down the portion of the Defense of Marriage Act that limited federal recognition to marriage between a man and a…

Does the Inquisition Explain the Modern World?

By Gordon Haber

…urers were hired, and if the sentence were death, the prisoner would be “relaxed” into the authority of the executioner. The Inquisition’s fusion of cruelty and bureaucracy is nicely exemplified by the Dominican inquisitor Bernard Gui (1260 or 1261-1330). Gui’s legacy includes the first inquisitor’s manual, which provided interrogation tips, and his Liber Sententiarum, or “Book of Sentences.” This book was a kind of professional diary in which Gui…

Predicting the Future of Religion: A Thought Experiment

By Ed Simon

…re viewed with suspicion within the Curia. Expect the next Pope to be from Manila or Yaoundé and not from Boston or Chicago. Whether this will herald a more progressive church or a reactionary one is a matter of debate. Right now Pope Francis is attempting to extend his influence beyond the end of his papacy as much as possible by selecting the cardinals who will elect the next pope. As it stands now there are a few things that may happen upon Pop…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…ur audience. This oversize sample inadvertently gives away the credit card number of some eight-five million men, most of whom live in Egypt. ⬆ Earlier on this day, I saw a South Asian gentleman crossing an eight-lane highway while drinking a cup of tea out of a white ceramic mug. He took his time, pausing between lanes to let cars whiz by (at roughly 70 miles per hour) and took measured sips to pass the time, enjoying his hot and fresh caffeina…

“As Orthodox As They Come”: A Backstage Conversation With Rob Bell

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…re so fantastic—brought the idea that the whole thing is static. I think a number of people picked up over the past three hundred years that space is empty, we move things around in space, and there are levers and pulleys and buttons. I think for a number of people, atheism is simply the rejection of somebody sitting on a cloud somewhere with a beard who might intervene from time to time. I think quantum physics, the little I know, it just intuiti…

Lying About Our Religion, And Other Problems With Polling

By Michael Schulson

…But what CNN really meant was “When asked by a complete stranger, over the phone, to define their spiritual lives in a single phrase, one-third of those adults who responded to this poll (response rate: one in ten), and who fall within an arbitrarily-defined generational frame, declined to tell the aforementioned complete stranger that they were affiliated with any specific religious group.” These are not equivalent statements. For some reason, th…

The Faith that Faith Produced

By Haroon Moghul

…ou’ll read an excerpt below—has surprised me, too. I wish I could find my airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good way. (I would accept Lakers tickets in lieu of apologies, but I think that particular era is done.) This whole book is a result of a profound evolution, and needs to be seen as such. American Muslims have gone through a lot over the last few decades. We were never the caricature Islamophobes made us ou…