Religion Dispatches
…rumors abound. Most of the suspicions point toward right-wing extremist Christian Patriot groups. They are exactly the kind of movement that might be attracted to make its mark on a liberal anti-gun crowd on what many have noted is Massachusetts’ Patriots’ Day. The 26-mile course of the marathon was meant to honor the 26 victims of the Newtown school shooting, with a different victim recognized at each mile marker. Massachusetts, like Connecticut…
Read More…claiming various Hindu genocides at the hands of Muslims in different historical periods. For Breivik, Vyas provides an example of Muslim violence and imperial expansion. Breivik returns to South Asia again and again for examples of Muslim violence such as the Hindu Kush article to portray right wing anti-Islam Hindus as allies in the fight against Islam. Under the heading “Modern Jihad” Breivik writes, “Islam has systematically murdered more than…
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…lling asked, noting that in addition to wedding service-providers like bakeries and florists, dress-shops, hair salons, and “any number” of other businesses could claim that their services are in fact a form of constitutionally protected artistic practice. “The claim at issue here sounds as if the business can put up a sign in its window that says, ‘We sell cakes for heterosexuals only,’” Melling explained, taking ADF’s logic to its natural conclu…
Read More…rganization was founded by Taz Tagore, a Buddhist whose family fled east Africa during an ethnic cleansing, and Adam Bucko, a “mystic Christian” whose family fled communist Poland. Philippines: Pope’s Visit Excites Young Catholics A Bloomberg story on the excitement caused by Pope Francis’s visit to the Philippines this week included this: An April 2013 survey by the Social Weather Stations found that the number of Filipinos identifying themselves…
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…, secularists remain comparatively disinterested in political issues that drive secularist political organizations, such as organized opposition to federal faith-based funding. 5. Turnout, turnout, turnout. While the percentage of white evangelicals who voted in the 2014 midterms outstripped their share of the population as a whole, as Pew noted in its post-election analysis, “despite the continued growth of religious ‘nones‘ within the population…
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…ypeople, priests, and bishops, and the usual courtesy visits with politicians in each country. Witnessing the experience of Kenyan, Ugandan, and Central Africans first hand, sitting with them, and hearing their stories, the Pope may well see the same issues he did as a parish priest in the slums of Argentina, including issues of the complexities of family life as experienced in countries with great social difficulties. That experience pushed him t…
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…tural issues. “The classic case is the variety of laws in a number of countries derived from the colonial era which still criminalize same-sex relations, even when the colonizing power discarded such laws a long time ago,” he said. “On another front, while care, kindness and consideration are at the heart of religions in their common humanity and linkage with human rights, various interlocutors misconstrue or resort to interpretations to justify v…
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…, hence the “Ev.” and “M” in front of some labels. These results aren’t terribly surprising. It does illustrate just how wide a spread there is between different traditions, all the way from 12 percent approval among Jehovah’s Witnesses to 94 percent support in the admittedly small Unitarian-Universalist sample. If you’re curious, the “pro” traditions outweigh the “con,” 23068 to 12530. The “Nones” are both big and supportive of marriage equality….
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…me from a lengthy Sunday New York Times piece in which respected religion writer Laurie Goodstein offered grisly details of allegations of pedophilia against Mr. Wesolowski during his tenure in Santo Domingo. I’m hard pressed to recall a case as brazen and heinous. Apparently this fellow regularly had a few drinks by the waterfront in the afternoon and then invited a shoeshine boy or other young man in need of money to accompany him to a secluded…
Read More…n a shooting spree in three different cities where he killed a number of African Americans and Jews and Asians that day. Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity oriented. Southers was not talking about ordinary churchgoers, but rather about the radical 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,…
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