Religion Dispatches
…t few days, I have been getting Facebook messages and phone calls from rank-and-file Mormons not interviewed by the Times relaying that they too have been accosted or called in by their bishops for voicing support for greater equality for women in the church, or same-sex civil marriage rights. “I’m really a nobody,” wrote one woman. “Just a stay at home mom who doesn’t particularly go out of her way to take up too much space on the internet.” Whet…
Read More…king their followers to ignore what they are calling the “Dove Outreach not-a-church” and its “not-a-pastor,” whether he goes forward with his plan to burn Qur’ans or not. The community-building efforts of the Gainesville Muslim Community continue through the month, and will culminate in a community fast and shared meal on September 27. Pastor Johnson says he hopes the recent controversy will “have a silver lining with more and more people seeking…
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…here’s my reason: we know that culture affects biology, that there’s a give-and-take between our psychology and our environment. Some of our fundamental desires aren’t just biological, but also come from our 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…
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…y of Dhaka, studying biomedical engineering. He was also a writer for Mukto-Mona, co-authored books with Avijit Roy and, in fact, had plans to see his friends Roy, Ahmed, and several other now-slain bloggers during Roy’s fateful visit to Bangladesh in 2015. He was known in Bangladesh. And, after Roy’s death, he was a target. Immediately following the murder of Roy, Abir took precautions. “Whenever we started out of the house,” his wife Samia told…
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…“old school” nature of their work: the campaign’s success relied on person-to-person contact. Peterson says the Covenant Network group in Blackhawk Presbytery set a goal of calling every single commissioner, urging them to come to the meeting and in many cases, offering to meet to talk further. Some presbyteries employed scripts and talking points; others were more informal. “There were a lot of cups of coffee shared,” says Peterson. She noted th…
Read More…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 the face of the earth. Your own father is (or was) an extremely powerful and wealthy man with great influence within LDS culture and beyond. How have you personally benef…
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…n. The last day of Ramadan ends with the next crescent moon, marking Eid ul-Fitr—one of the two biggest holidays of the Muslim year. (The other commemorates Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son, which coincides with the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.) Traditionally, Muslims wake up early on Eid, dress in their finest, and make a trip out to the mosque for a special holiday prayer and sermon. Then, there is usually some kind of brunch, and people spend t…
Read More…th other amendments. Reuters reports on the campaign of Nino Bokvadze, a 40-year-old lawyer who is making news as “the first openly gay candidate to run for public office in the former Soviet republic, where homosexuality is largely taboo.” Nestled in the Caucasus, at the crossroads between East and West, Georgia has witnessed a cultural clash between liberal forces and religious conservatives over the past decade, as it embarked on radical reform…
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…the moral maxims; Rabbi Wise invents Reform Judaism; Muslims and other non-Christian groups arrive in large numbers. But this is primarily a story of how religion has interacted with some of the big events of American history. American religious expression—its music and art, its stories of internal spiritual quests, its embodiment, its wild profusion of utopian groups, its history of ritual practices—will have to be found elsewhere. Not that ther…
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…in churches around the country.” The Yes on Prop 8 campaign plans “precinct-by-precinct organizing and deploying thousands of volunteers to identifying and turn out voters [and it] … includes rallies, a ‘Stand for Marriage Sunday’ on September 21 and a ‘family voting weekend’ on October 18 and 19, when people will be encourage to vote by absentee ballot.” According to the report, Ron Luce from Teen Mania Ministries and others “talked about plans…
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