Religion Dispatches
…courts for more than a decade. We used the internet to regroup and grow in numbers. The Church even developed its own web-based resources to acknowledge and address its own controversies—historic and contemporary. This, we thought, was a good sign. A sign that might not need to fear losing our membership, our place, in a cherished tradition, just for having and voicing questions, doubts, and differences. We told ourselves to not to be afraid. And…
Read More…h coming from even the most outspoken anti-Muslim public figures (both political and religious) maybe the whole mess will serve to dial back the Islamophobic rhetoric a bit. The Wall Street Journal has reported that “residents of Gainesville are trying to get the word out that the actions of one tiny church don’t reflect the city. Along the main drag, businesses are putting up signs such as ‘We Support Tolerance’ and ‘Do Not Impose Your Beliefs on…
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…social milieu. We also know that, across human history, there have been many societies with different sets of values, which have produced very different types of people. While I think that your book is a sharp and comprehensive look at the 16 motivations in many of the people that you’ve surveyed, I can’t buy that this is universal—that there haven’t ever been places and times where people had very different motivations associated with their cult…
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…a, was murdered as he was leaving a book fair in Dhaka. His wife, author Bonya Ahmed, was severely injured in the attack. Within six months, three more secularist bloggers would be murdered. In 2016, these attacks have continued and widened in scope. Recent attacks have claimed religious minorities—including Christians, Hindus, Sufis, and Shias—professors, students, LGBT activists, and even the wife of a police investigator. While the attackers ma…
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…way before efforts to repeal the so-called “fidelity and chastity” rule. Many folks mark the 1974 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church as the beginning of the movement for LGBT equality in the denomination, when David Bailey Sindt held up a sign asking, “Is anyone else out there gay?” Part of the reason for 10A’s success this year is the answer to that question: Yes, there are gay people out there. As Rev. Tricia Dykers-Koenig, national o…
Read More…nti-marriage-equality campaign. High-ranking Church leaders even scheduled phone calls with individual members to make the ask in person. Did Church leaders solicit an individual contribution from you to the Yes on 8 campaign or any other anti-marriage-equality initiative? If so, how did you respond? How would you respond in such a situation? 2. Mormonism is an openly patriarchal religious culture—one of the most patriarchal modern cultures on th…
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…might feel uncomfortable walking home”—people had already begun to blame any number of extremist Muslim groups, and of course the subways had been shut down—“and that, if I walked home with them, maybe people would think twice before trying anything.” (He wore a yarmulke). Responding Together If I give a sermon for Eid ul-Fitr, I’ll tell that story. For the younger congregants to whom that day might be distant memory, it’s important they hear how…
Read More…n 30 years and life in prison. Their Colonial-era penal code criminalises anyone who “has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature.” Earlier this year, Tanzania stopped health clinics from providing HIV services, saying they “cater to homosexuals.” It is believed 33,000 people in Tanzania died from AIDS-related illnesses last year, and 1.4 million are living with the disease nationwide. Romania: Journalist discusses U.S. religiou…
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…ory of ritual practices—will have to be found elsewhere. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. God knows, while Glenn Beck rants in Twitter-like aphorisms condensing David Barton’s execrable version of history to a huge listening audience, and while Christian triumphalists fight to make their version of history the official one in textbooks, there’s plenty of room for reasoned, researched, and temperate documentaries. There’s a valuable publi…
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…t to state and local governments.” While it isn’t always clear as to how many people actually read the language of a ballot initiative, the change allows supporters of same-sex marriage to frame the battle over the initiative as an attempt to take away an already court-granted right. On August 8, ProtectMarriage.com, the organization that successfully got the initiative qualified for the ballot and is spearheading the campaign, announced that it w…
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