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

By Andrea Malji and Amarnath Amarasingam

…ronically, we lock down on one, and open the floodgates to the other.” The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom also tweeted that they are “concerned with reports of forced cremation of Muslims who died from coronavirus.” As of December 10, 2020, there have been 146 Covid deaths in Sri Lanka with a disproportionate number coming from the Muslim community; despite making up less than 10% of the population, Muslims account for…

It’s Not About Cake: Anti-Gay Vendors Want a Constitutional Right to Discriminate

By Sunnivie Brydum

…uire businesses serving the public to provide services without regard to a number of protected characteristics—including, in Washington and Colorado, an LGBT identity. (Washington updated its statewide non-discrimination law to include sexual orientation and gender identity in 2006, and Colorado followed suit in 2008.) Those laws, duly enacted by state legislatures, are what Masterpiece Cakeshop and Arlene’s Flowers are really looking to undercut…

Data-Mining The Denominations: The Southern Baptists in Four Charts

By Daniel Schultz

…blems as well. The SBC had been almost flat on the membership charts for a number of years, but now it’s actually started to lose members. In 2013, the SBC claimed 15,735,640 members, and in 2014, that number fell by 236,467 to 15,499,173—that’s a 1.5 percent decline. However, on this stat alone, the claim could be made that churches are simply clearing out the cobwebs and tidying up their membership rolls so their numbers more accurately reflect…

A Rationalist’s Ghost Story

By Gary Jansen

…mber of flashbacks from when I was a young boy). In addition, there were a number of things I didn’t get the chance to explore for a very practical reason: I had a deadline. Working in publishing I’m very conscious about how important deadlines are. Writers need to make those deadlines and because I worked in the industry I wanted to be respectful about that. There were a number of frightening episodes that my wife experienced that I didn’t have t…

Liberty University’s In-House Conversion ‘Therapist’ Retires, But Will the Christian School Cease This Discredited Practice?

By Lucas Wilson

…nd thousands of sons.” This disturbing sentiment hints at the overwhelming number of students who were habitually subjugated to Emerick’s chaotic work. The question, however, remains: While neither he nor Liberty referred to him as a therapist of any kind, how was it legal for Emerick, someone who’s not a licensed therapist, to get away with offering such services? The first part of the answer is that for the majority of the time Emerick was offer…

Breivik’s Religious Pluralist Vision: A COEXIST Bumper Sticker Without the Crescent

By Michael J. Altman

…ks in Oslo. The full vision of his solution was a new utopian world order, free of Marxism, multiculturalism, and Islam, where the rest of the world’s religions and civilizations could tolerate one another. Breivik believed his actions would usher in a long war that would end with the deportation of Muslims and the eradication of Marxists in Europe. But his vision was bigger than just Europe. He saw a world where every civilization and religious i…

Who Bombed the Boston Marathon?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…ted. Only 149 groups existed before Obama was elected in 2008. In 2012 the number had expanded to 1,360. Not all are plotting terrorist attacks, of course. But some are. In September 2012, Daryl Johnson, a terrorist analyst for the US Department of Homeland Security testified before a Senate committee that there was an “upsurge” of potentially violent non-Islamic extremist activity in the United States. So fingers point toward right-wing Christian…

Religious Affiliation, ‘Mankind’: India’s Anti-Corruption Activist Leads Second Freedom Struggle

By April L. Bogle

…phone and check it for messages. Sure enough, I had one from an unfamiliar number. A woman’s voice said Bedi was still sleeping, exhausted from the previous day’s overseas flight, and needed to reschedule our interview for that afternoon. I called the number back, convinced the opportunity was lost. “I’m here at the hotel now, but I’m booked solid this afternoon—” “Hold on, let me check with her,” the woman told me. There was a brief pause. “She s…

Participant Discredits the Original Ex-Gay Study

By Warren Throckmorton

…dings with the 11 subjects (from page 1555, see below). Bussee was subject number two and Cooper was number one. Both Bussee and Cooper were rated as Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual) before change and a 0 (exclusively heterosexual) after change. Since there was no follow-up, this study has been used to support the proposition that gays could change to straight via religious mediation. For instance, not knowing any of this background at the time,…

In the Aftermath of the “Himalayan Tsunami”

By Luke Whitmore

…illingness to slow down the pace of development in the face of ever-rising numbers of visitors to the region. Ravi Chopra has noted that for the careful observer of Indian weather patterns of the last two decades the intensity of the flooding should not have come as the utter surprise that it did. These broader trajectories underlie what is happening now. From the safety of my office, as I read the news and engage with observers online, I am ob…