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Does It Matter If Islam Is A Religion? An American Ahmadi Explains The Effects Of Religious Discrimination

By Daniel Schultz

…logy than a complex, diverse, global religion. That assessment echoes a common view among right-wing nationalists, including administration figures like former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and senior political advisor Steve Bannon. It’s worth noting that the US government already does make de facto decisions about what counts as a religion and what doesn’t. The tax code makes implicit judgments about religious legitimacy in parceling ou…

Why Are We Drawn to Horror?

By Mathias Clasen

…r It Follows. Or The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, one of the most disturbing haunted house stories of all time. Or one of Robert McCammon’s horror novels from the 1980s, maybe The Wolf’s Hour or Mystery Walk. I’m currently reading my way through his oeuvre. McCammon’s horror writing is brilliant—evocative and touching and sometimes deeply disturbing, sometimes utterly awe-inspiring. I would’ve loved to have included an interpretive c…

William Barber And The Religious Left Join Forces. Will It Work?

By Daniel Schultz

…uch of lately. I’ve been wondering when someone would try to roll out the “Moral Mondays” model nationally. This might be it. But the parts highlighted above are really the ones worth further discussion. Let me say at the outset that I have no issue with faith communities organizing to fight the AHCA, surely one of the most heartless bills to come out of Congress in recent years—and that’s saying something. If Faith in Public Life and its associat…

The “Marginalization” of Tim Keller: When Anything Short of Adulation Is Oppression

By Anita Little

…deal with as the younger generations entering their hallowed halls become more and more social justice-oriented. These increasingly progressive cohorts often force their colleges and seminaries to reconcile their egalitarian missions with oppressive pasts. In honoring Keller for his “urban mission,” it’s easy to forget the work of not-as-visible clergy, activists and scholars—many of them women or people of color or queer—who have been active in…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…hin the Commonwealth, which writer John Ibbitson calls ”one of the world’s most homophobic institutions.” Thirty-six of the Commonwealth’s 52 nations, representing two billion people, criminalize homosexual activity. Penalties range from jail time to execution. Even in countries where the laws aren’t strictly enforced, just having them on the books encourages a climate of violence, including murder—which often goes unpunished—and “corrective rape….

Maybe The Question Is: Should Shabbat Be The New Yoga?

By Michael Schulson

…is reckoning with that (often inconvenient) context. And even when given a modern spin, the sabbath tradition can be harnessed toward more radical ends. The great 20th century rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explicitly presented Shabbat as a critique of industrial civilization, and his writings about Shabbat practice chafe against modern notions of time, ownership, and labor. In the early 20th century, Jewish activists drew on Shabbat to challenge la…

Southern Baptist Convention Kicks Out Gay Attendees, Waffles on White Supremacists

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ctivists who tell RD they were “forcibly removed” from the convention this morning in Phoenix, Arizona. All told, five people were removed and had their conference registrations revoked, allegedly without formal explanation. All of those removed are affiliated with Faith in America (FIA), a progressive nonprofit dedicated to “[moving] the needle forward on LGBTQ equality in the pews and in our legislation.” Brandan Robertson, a 24-year-old bisexua…

Eclipseville, USA: The Birthplace of ‘Little Green Men’ Proudly Hosts The Point of Greatest Eclipse

By Matthew Bowman

…rdness of things like the eclipse hasn’t stopped Hopkinsville from trying. More than a half-century ago, on Monday, August 22, 1955, news media around the country reported that the previous night, several Hopkinsville residents reported that aliens had besieged their farmhouse. At seven o’clock in the evening on August 21st, a young man named Billy Ray Taylor sprinted to the back door of a farmhouse a few miles north of Hopkinsville in the small t…

U.S. Religious Right Groups Support Move Toward ‘Illiberalism’ of Hungary and Poland; and More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…atra, where Islamic law is enforced and two men were publicly flogged last month for gay sex, homosexuality is legal in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population. … Activists say police targeting of consensual gay sex has shone a light on discrimination and harassment in the world’s third-largest democracy. Egypt: Backlash to Rainbow Flag Intensifies We reported last week on an anti-gay backlash spurred by social media reaction to v…

‘Rising Global Tide’ Of Anti-Gay Crackdowns; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…out homosexuality is a ‘Western’ fad. New Zealand: New Prime Minister left Mormon Church over anti-gay doctrines Jacinda Ardnern, the country’s new 37-year-old prime minister, is a former Mormon who left the church when she was in her 20s, “mostly as a consequence of its anti-homosexual stance.” From the New Zealand Herald: “For a lot of years, I put it to the back of my mind. I think it was too unsettling. If something like religion is part of yo…