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An Open Letter to CEO Jeff Smisek On United Airlines’ Blasphemous Safety Video

By Austin Dacey

…ed, you may be relieved to know. Perhaps you would agree that in the final analysis, such things are of no concern. No, Mr. Smisek, this message is not the grievance of a disgruntled customer. It is a witness to an abomination. It is a plea for spiritual recompense. In the video message that was played before my last United Airlines flight, you expressed your desire to greet each and every passenger; you invited us to sit back, relax, and enjoy th…

Invited by Allah

By Amina Wadud

…and they said, “It might.” One of those whom I asked was the late Dr. Nasr aAbu-Zayd, who also offered this consolation: “People have a short memory, it will blow over.” I had no idea if five years was long enough for it to “blow over” when I applied for visa to make hajj this year. I also had no idea if the people who work in the embassy connect every detail of your life with your passport and visa requests. I know when I come into the United Sta…

Gingrich Downplays Adelson Money, Stokes Fear of “Second Holocaust” at Florida Church

By Sarah Posner

…ce” of gambling. But it wasn’t a joke, it was a Newt Gingrich campaign appearance at a Presidential Forum, hosted by the conservative Christian legal group Liberty Counsel and others, at Aloma Baptist Church in Winter Park, Florida, just north of Orlando. Gingrich was running late, so the event co-sponsors filled time with over-the-top God-and-country songs, prayer, and speeches about the causes their organizations promote. Liberty Counsel, the Ch…

When Auschwitz Becomes a Poké Stop

By Karen E. Park

…tablets and laptops and televisions, we watched real people die. As Luvvie Ajayi has written, these images and videos “desensitize us to black death” and numb us to the violence done against black bodies—a powerful truth that collides with questions about death and how to treat it reverently in this digital age. This week, instead of watching people die, we are playing Pokémon Go. In just a few days, the game has more users than Twitter, has crash…

On Harith, and Matters of Inheritance

By Amina Wadud

…was born, I was already a teenager. She was less than two when I began my away-from-home academic career. Starting as early as fourteen through my Ph.D., my educational path separated me from my family. Out of eight siblings, I am the only one with any degrees beyond high school; three of them. Leaving home in my teens meant I would never live with my youngest sister like I had with the other siblings. By the time I started visiting my mom with m…

Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

By Daniel Silliman

…ivil rights activists. He helped Martin Luther King, Jr. make the argument against Vietnam, drafting King’s “Beyond Vietnam”speech in 1967, broadening the concern of the movement and alienating some moderate civil rights supporters. Author of numerous works on American-American religious history, including There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America and Martin Luther King: An Inconvenient Hero, Harding taught at Illiff School of Th…

‘Anti-Romeo’ Vigilante Squads Target Men Suspected Of Being Gay; More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ind priests willing to perform marriage rites in Tampere, Helsinki and Vantaa, at least. But in Kotka, southeast Finland, the local diocese has issued a ruling banning even prayers on church premises for same-sex couples who have exchanged wedding vows. The ban extends to prayer sessions held by priests for gay couples who have tied the knot in civil ceremonies. Kotka clerics also decided to discontinue the practice of reading wedding announcement…

Pride Month & Prejudice; ‘Worrisome Time’ For LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…n a job interview, that you won’t minister to same-sex couples, says Timo Laato, Lecturer at Lutheran School of Theology, Gothenburg, Sweden. The Church of Norway has officially two views on marriage, and gender is seen as irrelevant to a marriage. A pastor should not question the two views. According to a bishop, there is no room for those in the Church, who call the Church’s new doctrine as schismatic, says Rolf Kjøde, Director of Continuing Edu…

Forced Cremation of Covid Dead in Sri Lanka Further Marginalizes Muslim Community

By Andrea Malji and Amarnath Amarasingam

Baby Shaayiq Faz was just 20 days old when he died. He was the youngest Covid victim in Sri Lanka, born amid a pandemic and cremated before reaching his first birthday. Officials at a Sri Lankan hospital claim the baby tested positive for Covid, a result that confused the parents, who have tested negative. Cremation is a common method to dispose of the dead throughout the world. However, the practice is not universally accepted. Muslims consider…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…on a San Francisco beach in 1986 and was moved to an obscure corner of Nevada called the Black Rock Desert in 1990, where it eventually grew into an internationally renowned event that draws close to 50,000 participants annually. For one week in late August and early September, an elaborate civic infrastructure called “Black Rock City” is constructed, featuring a carefully laid out grid of streets in which participants set up hundreds of differe…