Religion Dispatches
…r). To take a somewhat parallel case, Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has promoted an appreciation for Jesus, but not for the Christian theology writ large. After all, a Buddhist would rightly be critical of a system that posits a belief in an essential soul. But where some Catholic voices (and Protestant ones as well) go out of their way to disparage yoga, Thich Nhat Hanh never uses incendiary rhetoric to tell his audience not to become Christia…
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…ama Administration’s game plan is this: To call for a cease-fire that will freeze in place Israel’s commanding military position in the West Bank and Gaza—after allowing Israel some more time to finish wiping out Hamas operatives in Gaza—then hope that the military success will strengthen Ehud Barak (head of the Israeli Labor Party) and Tzipi Livni (head of Olmert’s Kadima party) in the February elections, and that these two will form a government…
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…nya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa in Africa; and, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines in Asia. Each study in the project addresses the extent to which evangelicalism, a religious movement based on biblical orthodoxy, has helped or hindered the inauguration and consolidation of the democratic movement in the global South. This newest volume, on Africa, is edited by Oxford emeritus Terence O. Ranger, and it co…
Read More…s persecution and discrimination, and ensure greater respect for religious freedom for all.” Given the Trump Administration’s recent actions on defining religious freedom, it’s probably laughable to think that Pompeo meant that the United States was embracing pluralism as a pillar of its foreign policy. Instead, it’s probably more appropriate to think of this latest rollout as an extension of the administration’s narrative—driven in large part by…
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…e crucifixion of 17 young men in 48 hour period. In addition, the Times of India reported on Tuesday that the United Nations was warning about a new wave of violence targeting “educated women.” Ireland: Marriage Referendum Language Set; Health Minister Comes Out The language of May’s marriage equality referendum was announced this week: It proposes to add to the Constitution a declaration that “marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by…
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…the world’s Muslims live in democracies: Mali, Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia, among other countries, with 700 million Muslims; more than half the planetary total. Other millions of Muslims live in majority non-Muslim dictatorships, such as Russia and China. But the best proof of Islam’s allergy to liberty is found in democratic Senegal. Independent in 1960, this 90%-Muslim country proceeded to elect a Presi…
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…s noteworthy for affirming a positive “Right to a Religion”—in contrast to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, the standard in accepted international instruments. Here again, the Declaration cites the UDHR but omits its crucial inclusion of the “freedom to change” belief and highlights “the right of parents to guide the moral and religious education of their children.” Thus, it exemplifies one conservative response to the challenge of ch…
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…wn Planet Probably a third of the world’s Muslims live in or come from the Indian subcontinent, such as this writer, descended from the steamy plains of the Punjab but raised in gelid New England. And South Asia’s a part of the world we never stop hearing about. Of course, most of this attention is directed to Pakistan, so let’s start there. In Silent Waters, we follow a young man from a small village impressed by the Islamist message coming from…
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…lar, the knowledge of the early Islamic world, especially as it is used to promote proper behavior, remains in the anecdotal, atomized form, and should only be put into narrative history by those qualified to do so, the educated, religious elite. The first attempt to write a full narrative biography of Muhammad was begun toward the end of the first Islamic century and completed shortly after the centenary of Muhammad’s death (632 C.E.). The author…
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…e wants to hug the limelight and show off their effectiveness.” Studies in India show that declaring a state of emergency after a disaster can give politicians a boost in the polls during election years—but only during election years. The public forgets quickly, which means that there’s little incentive to create best practice plans and mechanisms for reducing the scale of disasters, since by election time no one is likely to remember. “Voters rew…
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