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Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

By Paul Berger

…ually have a single beth din while larger communities, like those found in New York and New Jersey, may have many. These include beth dins that specialize in sexual abuse, though they are few; Rabbi Basil Herring, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America, says there are probably no more than two or three in the country. Perhaps unsurprisingly, beth din rabbis are often reluctant to speak about their work. Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Wein…

A Whole New Ball Game: New Book Rethinks the History of Religion in Sport

By Daniel Grano

What inspired you to write The Eternal Present of Sport: Rethinking Sport and Religion? A recurring argument in sport studies (and popular commentaries as well) is that sport is a form of “civil religion” that creates social cohesion around shared values and rituals. There’s this constant image of fans transcending political differences as games transport them from “profane” to “sacred” time. That image has been criticized effectively by scholars…

Conservative Catholics Unhappy About New Book on LGBTs and The Church; and More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…lled the paper’s staff “enemies of our faith and of our country.” In other news, Pink News reports that bloggers using the Live Journal platform are being forced to abide by Russia’s anti-gay “propaganda” law now that its servers have been transferred to Russia; a Russian media company acquired the service in 2007. Indonesia: Court shields local Sharia regulations; men face public lashing for homosexuality The Constitution Court ruled that the nat…

Carter, Gore, and the New Baptist Covenant

By Bruce Prescott

…erty (BJC), a watchdog agency for the First Amendment that helped to found Americans United for Separation of Church and State, was de-funded. A new Washington DC-based right-wing lobbying organization called the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) was established. By 2000, Richard Land, head of the ERLC, was a weekly participant in conference calls with the White House. Three years later, Land was the leading apologist among American e…

The Revelation of Kurt Andersen: With ‘Evil Geniuses’ a Media Mandarin Discovers Plutocracy

By Peter Laarman

…st ambitions in completely undoing the premises and core principles of the New Deal and the postwar social compact. They accomplished this feat in just 30 years of concerted effort. Andersen shows us how they did it through sins of commission but also sins of omission: quietly declining to renew key regulatory provisions, dropping cost-of-living indexing for recipients of various public benefits, letting the real value of the federal minimum wage…

Global LGBT Recap: Francis’s First Year; Homophobia and Development; African Activists Push Back

By Peter Montgomery

…anti-religion ethos.’” Netherlands: Former Right-Wing Politician Launches New Islamic Party According to news reports, “Arnoud van Doorn, a former far-right Dutch politician and a former friend of notorious anti-Muslim propagandist Geert Wilders, but later accepted Islam and became a Muslim, has announced his plans to launch a new Islamic party in his native Holland.” The Islamic Party for Unity will be contending for three seats in the upcoming…

‘Russkii Mir,’ the Russian Equivalent of ‘Blood & Soil’ Ideology at the Heart of Putin’s War, Explained and Rejected by Theologians in New Statement

By Daniel Schultz

…uote from a scholar to the effect that “Putin wanted to be the father of a new Russian nation, but he is the father of a new Ukrainian nation instead.” The same might be said for his hopes to sponsor a revived Russian church, and just possibly for his dreams to use American social divisions against themselves. Any religious body wanting to counteract “division, mistrust, hatred, and violence” just got handed the tools to do so, courtesy of Orthodo…

Conservative Christians Oppose New ‘Inter-Religious’ University

By Philip Clayton

…ing negates my faith. That logic fueled the age of religious warfare. This new postmodern world requires a different economy of belief. Those who reject interreligious bridge-building based on mutual respect and understanding, those who insist ever more rigidly on the exclusive truth of their own way, distance themselves further and further from other traditions. Are these the sorts of religious leaders we want to be producing, to take the helm in…

How Belief in Moscow as ‘The New Rome’ Explains Kirill’s Astonishing Declaration That ‘Russia Has Never Attacked Anyone’

By Katherine Kelaidis

…aditionally views America as the site of the Garden of Eden and the future New Jerusalem, a new Holy Land. Just as early Christians believed Rome existed to facilitate the spread of the Christian Gospel, many Mormons today believe the United States exists to facilitate the Restoration. Furthermore, many American evangelicals believe American exceptionalism derives from the fact that America has been given a special mission from God. In addition to…

Heterosexual With Issues: Haggard’s Self-Hate

By Michelle Goldberg

…, hugging and roughhousing with male congregants, riding a scooter through New Life’s sprawling lobby. Then it all implodes, his ruin narrated in news clips. We see a church leader reading a letter from Haggard to his crying congregants: “There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.” In an archaic-seeming settlement agreement, the church pays Haggard severance, but “banishes” him…