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How to Choose a Tour Company for Your Hajj

By Amina Wadud

…limited number of hajjis permitted from that country in any one year. This number is set by hajj authorities in Saudi Arabia, because, in all fairness, there has to be a cap on how many Muslims converge on the place. Right now, it stands at around 3 million! Countries with large populations of Muslims have many more applicants than their allotted number of pilgrims. This means you have to put in your request well in advance, two maybe three years….

Death in the Desert: Riding With the Samaritans

By Lauri Lebo

…nt along the border, near the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where a new stretch of fence running along the border is visible. But we do not see anyone. The recent immigration crackdowns are only one piece of the larger picture that Brother David calls “the push-pull factor.” Lack of job opportunities in Mexico and Central America pushes migrants from their homes. They are pulled to the U.S. because of demand for cheap labor. One of the majo…

Why the Church is Struggling to Hold Onto Millennial Catholics

By Kaya Oakes

…secular campuses, Catholic outreach to students is mostly in the hands of Newman Centers or Newman Clubs, which are often run by members of religious orders, including Dominicans, Jesuits, and the Paulist Fathers. Newman Centers have historically been multi-generational, and many have embraced ecumenism, interfaith activities, and social justice – all of which would seem to appeal to the more liberal-leaning younger Catholics polled by CFC. Howev…

Belize Overturns Sodomy Law Defended by Religious Right, Ugandan Officials Will Continue to Suppress Gay Groups, And More on the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…hey were not even aware he was gay. David’s sister called to make sure we knew that she knew and she supported us. She relayed that his mom was not admitting anything and continued to defend David to anyone who bothered her. His other siblings also messaged us to say that they were being harassed via telephone, in person, and social media… Why would this be such big news in Nigeria? I believe it is because the press still wants to vilify gay men a…

Dutch Treat: Betsy DeVos and the Christian Schools Movement

By Peter Laarman

…rming a large part of it. The extent of slavery in New Netherland (renamed New York and New Jersey after 1664) shocked many when historians brought it to light beginning in the 1970s. And then there are those doughty Afrikaner cousins of ours, whose rigidly racist apartheid ideology was forged by people calling themselves voortrekkers—pioneers—driven to form a separate and righteous society out in the veld. Like the Afrikaners, and like the Englis…

As Gaza Burns, Jews Disagree, Protest & Pray

By Sam Kestenbaum

…ssiles Hamas has fired (2,270)—some reaching as far north as Jerusalem—the number of Hamas’ smuggling tunnels uncovered (31), the number of Israeli soldiers killed in action (29). These numbers will likely change every hour. In the weeks leading up to the Israeli invasion of Gaza and now as increasingly grisly accounts and bloody images emerge of Palestinian homes and hospitals blown apart, American Jews are conflicted—alternately protesting again…

Satanic or Silly: Does Yale Press Censorship of Cartoons Insult Muslims?

By Daniel Martin Varisco

…at led to a boycott of Danish products, attacks on Danish embassies, and a number of deaths. Last month in the New York Times, however, Reza Aslan countered that the controversy over the cartoons has died out and that in any case, there never was any violence over them in the United States. I agree with Aslan that the novelty of the cartoon depictions, which were intended to irritate Muslims, has worn thin by now—the Saudis, to take just one examp…

The Plot to Turn the Synod into a “Plot”

By Patricia Miller

…nod is to take up. The Supreme Pontiff may, if he so chooses, increase the number of members of the Synod of Bishops by adding bishops, or religious to represent the religious institutes, or clerics who are experts, to the extent of fifteen percent of the total number of the members mentioned in articles V and VIII. Despite this, Douthat assures us that “as a Catholic,” he expects “the plot to ultimately fail; where the pope and the historic faith…

Jonestown at 40: The Real Conspiracy Is More Disturbing Than the Theories

By Rebecca Moore

…been acquired, and dress rehearsals occurred, all with the complicity of a number of individuals. Unfortunately that cohort included my older sister Carolyn Layton and my younger sister Annie Moore (both of whom died in Jonestown). But quite a few others were part of the conspiracy as well, including the team of young men from Jonestown who ambushed Congressman Ryan and his party as they attempted to leave. Knowing the identities of the conspirato…

The Family Research Council’s Mistaken Identity

By Sarah Posner

…adical far right, described in the FBI’s Project Megiddo report as “a vast number and variety of groups, such as survivalists, militias, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, Christian Identity churches, the AN and skinheads.” The report called Christian Identity “the most unifying theology for a number of these diverse groups and one widely adhered to by white supremacists. It is a belief system that provides its members with a religious basis for racism…