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A collage of a Bible, Valdimir Putin, and the Kremlin and an outline of Russia

Putin’s ‘Year of the Family’ Declaration Blends Russian Nationalism with the Far-Right Rhetoric of the Global Pro-Family Movement

By Irina Smolevskaya

…idis, “A Twisted Love Story: How American Evangelicals Helped Make Putin’s Russia and How Russia Became the Darling of the American Right,” Religion Dispatches, March 2, 2022. [17] Zygar, “Russia’s War on Woke;” Helge Blakkisrud, “Blurring the Boundary between Civic and Ethnic: The Kremlin’s New Approach to National Identity under Putin’s Third Term,” in The New Russian Nationalism, ed. Helge Blakkisrud and Pål Kolstø (Edinburgh University Press,…

International reax to US Marriage Ruling; Official violence at Turkey’s Pride; Marriage Advances in Mexico Over Church Objections; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…implied the state Supreme Court judges are being bribed by agents of a new world order: Russia, China and the Arab world have now escaped from their hands. They don’t dominate them, but in Western countries they want to establish a single government and they want to use it to destroy the family, the Catholic Church, which are in their way, as well as the true national governments. And one of the means for destroying the family is to pervert the co…

Breaking Up with God: I Didn’t Lose My Faith, I Left It

By Sarah Sentilles

…I can’t know if God exists, but I do know the word God is operating in the world, running around doing all kinds of work, good and bad, and I think, as a theologian, I have a responsibility to think critically about the kinds of gods we make and worship and to try to come up with versions of god that might make the world a more just and life-giving place for everyone. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I had many different audi…

Talking Justice on Twitter: “We Are Breaking Down Barriers”

By Arafat Kabir

…with each other in ways that are transformative, and symbolic of this new world of social media. They are all Jewish and I am Muslim, and we are breaking down barriers. Our backgrounds and religions are relegated to the background as we share ideas, hopes, worries, and more. These friendships forged online are not tainted by stereotypes and prejudice, but are stronger because we respect one another’s differences. Maybe people who reach out on soc…

Anti-Gay Violence Rages in Gambia; Conservative ‘Complementarity’ Confab; Coming Out in Iraq Can Be Death Sentence; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…nce was a set of six videos, which it turns out were produced by Mark Regnerus, author of a discredited report on “family structures” that is still widely cited by anti-gay activists. Conservative activists, including Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, and Eric Teetsel, heaped praise on Pope Francis’s opening remarks. At New Ways Ministry, Francis DeBernardo reviews differing interpretations of Francis’s remarks, which included the formulation used by ant…

‘Culting’: From Waco to Fundamentalist Mormons

By Catherine Wessinger

…hat descriptive manner by scholars (especially in the study of the ancient world). Since the 1970s, the word “cult” has been used in popular discourse as a pejorative term for religions people fear, or hate, or do not want to recognize as a “real religion.” The use of the word “cult” can also be seen to imply that it is only in small, unconventional religious groups that believers commit hurtful and illegal actions; socially dominant religious gro…

‘Barbaric’ v ‘Progressive’ Islam; Catholic Church Objects to Mexican Court OK For Gay Adoption; Malaysian Court Weighs Boundaries Of Civil and Shariah Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…bers of his ruling coalition to vote their conscience and declared, in the words of one news report, “that Coalition frontbenchers [people with leadership positions] who break rank and vote in favour of gay marriage will be sacked.” Backbenchers would be free to vote as they wished. Abbott is trying to kick the decision into a future national plebescite on the issue. Mr Abbott said he accepts people may be disappointed over the Coalition’s decisio…

Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism

By Peter Laarman

…ent in the idea of enjoying God’s special favor. Walzer writes that exodus stories—the original one, of course, but also the exodus stories written by New England settlers and by South African Boers and by the founders of the modern State of Israel—tend to skip lightly over the downside of their God-sent liberation: the taking of others’ land and the effective erasure of the seized land’s inhabitants and of their story. Walzer asks, “Is it a featu…

Russian Attack on LGBTs at UN Rejected; Gay Cake Controversy Rages in N. Ireland; Bishop Calls for Marriage Referendum in Puerto Rico; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ns of a country where gay marriage is recognized, which is not the case in Russia…. Russia argued the previous rules were not discriminatory and said the changes violate the sovereignty of states under the pretext of respecting human rights. But Russia’s appeal was roundly rejected by 80 votes to 43, with 37 abstentions. China, Belarus and Muslim countries like Malaysia supported Moscow. Indonesia abstained but voiced “strong objections” to Ban’s…

Global Islam, the Year in Headlines

By Qamar-ul Huda

…both progressive and regressive, in global Islam. This list, in links and headlines, just skims the surface—but every one of these topics bears watching in 2013. 1. A US Army report confirms over 1,000 copies of the Qur’an and other Islamic Sacred Texts Burnt in Afghanistan by the US military. 2. YouTube Video “Innocence of Muslims” ignites protests in the Muslim world setting deep divisions between interfaith communities and liberal and orthodox…