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Ten Religion Stories That Went (Mostly) Missing in 2015

By Peter Laarman

…e not shy about showing contempt for the pastors. This is not just a story about intergenerational conflict; it’s about different visions of what a healthy African American response to white supremacy looks like in the 21st century. 3. Christianity’s obvious capacity to generate paranoia and hate. This tends to get a pass in mainstream media. Reporters tend to believe faith leaders who simply repeat the mantra, “all religion is about peace and jus…

Is Religion Wrecking Our Air?

By Jay Wexler

…problem in the early 1990s and started considering whether to do anything about it. The agency has several statutes that it could have used to regulate the ritual use of mercury inside homes, most importantly the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, which allows the agency to take a wide variety of regulatory actions against substances that pose an unreasonable risk to the environment or public health. To look into the issue, the EPA establishe…

Malawi Catholic Bishops Call For Enforcement of Sodomy Law; Ukrainian Thugs Disrupt Equality Festival Opposed by Orthodox Church; Indonesian Islamists Continue Rhetorical War on LGBTs; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…with a bomb threat. The Guardian reports that “the venue was surrounded by about 200 members of far-right groups shouting “kill, kill, kill.” There seems to have been resistance from a number of quarters to the planned event, including from the Lviv Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. It was probably unfortunate timing that the festival was planned during Lent, however Bishop Filaret’s strong language about ‘sin…

Is Islamic Homophobia a Western Import?

By Omar Sarwar

…cticed), India (where Hinduism is most widely practiced), Singapore (where Buddhism is most widely practiced), and Zambia (where Christianity is most widely practiced) all still have variations on the same British anti-gay penal code. Yet, although EHT might explain the infiltration of law and official politics in colonized Muslim societies, it doesn’t explain precisely how colonial homophobia transformed the everyday cultures of ordinary Muslims….

Do Psychedelics Offer a Path To The “God Within”?

By Hollis Phelps

…lued state of spiritual awareness, such as samadhi in Hinduism, nirvana in Buddhism, sekhel mufla in Judaism, the beatific vision in Christianity, baqá wa faná in Islam, and wu wei in Taoism.” As Richards relates, his first personal experience with psychedelics, which he recounts in the Preface, occurred while he was a graduate student in theology and psychiatry at the University of Göttigen in the 1960s. Viewing his own mind as a “psychological l…

David Bowie’s “Heroes,” the Soundtrack of a Spiritual Libertine

By Ed Simon

…or album as the absolute greatest, but “Heroes” exemplifies what precisely about Bowie so many of us loved. Composed while Bowie was kicking his drug habit and recorded in West Berlin just a few hundred miles from the Wall, he claimed to have been inspired by an anonymous couple he saw from his window. Beneath a triumphant Wall of Sound the singer tells us about this pair of nameless lovers who meet for trysts next to that other Wall, this symbol…

Beyond Tolerance: Helping Religions “Come Out”

By Mychal Copeland

…heir identities over many years or even a lifetime. A parent first hearing about a child’s LGBTQI identity undergoes a process of “coming out” as well, integrating this information and often talking to people about it in stages. Perhaps we need to allow our religious institutions the same leeway, voicing our urgent need for them to change while acknowledging that they are each following their own trajectories toward “coming out” as inclusive of LG…

Is It the Job of Religion Journalists to Define “Religion”?

By Ann Taves

…eaders are “resistant to any public use of spiritual or religious language about their work.” And finally, as a journalist writing about research conducted at Harvard Divinity School by two (apparently) non-affiliated students preparing for ministry to other disaffiliated millennials and other non-religious people, Oppenheimer reflects on the difficulties inherent in defining religion—supported by scholars, such as Joseph Price, who have focused o…

The Blasphemy of ISIS: A 7-Point Pro-Guide to Islam(ism)

By Haroon Moghul

…se an ISIS propagandist can quote text after text means absolutely nothing about his ‘Islamicity.’ In ignoring contrary evidence, he is being dishonest. In imposing his (grievously wrong) opinion, he is arrogating to himself the place only the Prophet can occupy. This is beyond questions of Islamicity, and veers into far more dangerous territory, not just morally and metaphysically. After all, creationists can produce one scientific tidbit after a…

UNESCO on Religion, Culture and SOGI in Asia; Orthodox Family Sues to Stop Cremation of Israeli Trans Woman; Struggles of Iraqi Queer Activists; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ptism of children of gay couples. Organizers told Reuters last Sunday that about 1,500 people had resigned. Church officials urged people to think twice. A Church spokesman said: “We don’t want to see anyone leave the Church, especially people who have been struggling with any aspect of their life. “It’s extremely important that our members read what leaders have said, and do not rely on other sources or interpretations or what people think they h…