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Forget Romance, It’s Time for Some Radical Love

By Ed Simon

…e. Diane Ackerman writes that love is an emotion that scares us more than cruelty, more than violence, more than hatred. We allow ourselves to be foiled by the vagueness of the word. After all, love requires the utmost vulnerability. But in our daily reality that is hardened by cruelty and selfishness (same as it ever was) the radicalism of love is that it admits to that powerlessness, to that vulnerability. Part of love is the conversation of wha…

A Truly Fearless Human Being: Rev. Howard Moody, 1921-2012

By Tom Davis

…pose the degradation, debasement and dehumanizing of persons. The dirtiest word in the English language is not ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’ in the mouth of a tragic shaman, but the word ‘NIGGER’ from the sneering lips of a Bull Connor. Obscenity ought to be much closer to the biblical definition of blasphemy against God and man. I have no doubt that there are young Moodys out there (or that he was a far more complex figure than hagiographies allow). Of course…

New Book Reveals How Faith is Like a Covert Operation for the Bush Family

By Frederick Clarkson

…nd what Their Influence Means for America (Bloomsbury Press, 2008). Author Russ Baker shows, among other things, that Poppy Bush’s well-known service as a Navy pilot in World War II was also part of his work for Naval Intelligence. This set the stage for an astonishing double life participating in covert operations of the Central Intelligence Agency throughout his career. The story of the reinvention of the religious identities of two presidents a…

Conservative Bishops Headed For Synod Victory?; Indonesian Sharia Official Says Gay Caning Law Meant To ‘Safeguard Human Dignity’; Slovenian Court OK’s Referendum on Marriage Equality Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ibes the challenges facing her advocacy in Hong Kong and mainland China. Russia: Six Vigilantes Get Jail Terms for Torturing Gay Youth Public conversation around Russia’s anti-gay “propaganda” law came with a wave of vigilante violence against gays, often bragged about on social media. Now the Sinarsky Disctrict Court Kamensk-Ural has reportedly sentenced six members of one neo-Nazi group, which called itself Occupy Pedophilia, to prison terms o…

India’s Elections and the “Doniger Affair”

By Murali Balaji

…tle, as until the Penguin India decision in February her work had not been breaking news in the academic study of Hinduism—The Hindus was the cap to an academic career rather than a bold new chapter. In fact, what makes the aftermath of this issue so ironic is that few scholars of religion have actually defended Doniger’s controversial scholarship or endorsed her methods. The board of the American Academy of Religion, in drafting their statement o…

Vatican Sexual Abuse Meeting Is Destined to Fail—To Stop the Problem or the Decline

By Mary E. Hunt

…ads of national bishops’ conferences are the last people needed for a constructive conversation on sexual abuse. Their collective inattention, coverups, and tepid excuses are a major source of the problem. Why are there no lay people involved in this meeting? Just one would make headlines. A meeting of lay people and clergy, victims and perpetrators, young people and elders, people of all genders and sexual orientations would signal seriousness of…

The Pope, Marxists, and the Koch Brothers

By Sarah Posner

…rancis is “promoting sin” by “promoting envy.” He even accuses the Pope of breaking the tenth commandment (prohibiting coveting your neighbor’s stuff). Meanwhile, Religion News Service’s David Gibson reports that the business school at the Catholic University of America (the only U.S. university that is “sponsored and partially funded by” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) has accepted a sizable donation from the Charles Koch Foundation, bec…

So You Want to Write an Article Deflecting All Blame From Christianity: A Handy Guide

By Robert Repino

…l that and trouble another diner with the same questions. In their minds, Trump voters must have been duped somehow. (They weren’t. Trump represents them just like they represent him.) There must be some coherent set of policy goals that Trump voters hope to achieve. (There aren’t. It’s all tribalism.) And there must be a way to reach them, to show them that they’re voting against their own interests! (There isn’t. Reason didn’t get them here, rea…

‘Almost Like Praying’: The Religious Work of ‘Hamilton’ Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda

By Spencer Dew

…ssed and neglected. Like another pop-musical political intervention making headlines—Eminem’s “The Storm”—Miranda’s piece, while rooted in words, reiterates a sense that language isn’t enough to convey the emotions at play. Eminem’s freestyle, meanwhile, folds back on itself in a series of attempts and frustrated verbal gestures that always fall short, such that it can end only with inchoate rage and a middle finger. Similarly, Miranda, weaving a…

When Religion Kills: The Narco-Traffickers of the Borderlands

By Luis Leon

…the just cause of God.” Numbers thirty-four through thirty-eight prohibit drugs, kidnapping, and mandate drug testing. Forty-three requires members to become cultured through learning. In forty-eight, their philosophy on divine justice is unpacked: “no one should kill for pleasure (gusto) nor money.” Each murder should be considered carefully to determine if there exists sufficient cause. Forty-nine reminds that their war is against both flesh and…