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Marriage equality and ‘the end of Catholic Ireland’; Gambian Prez vows to slit gays’ throats; Colombian govt affirms support for marriage and adoption; global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…istian idea of marriage…Christians are perfectly free to carry on without any threat to their customary understanding of marriage.” Mary Kenny writes in the Guardian on the “end of Catholic Ireland.” Among Dublin’s smart set it seemed the kiss of social death to admit to being a practising Catholic [in the wake of the pedophilia scandals]: it’s even vaguely unfashionable to be married, especially only once. Nonetheless, in the 2011 census, it emer…

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

By Andrea Malji and Amarnath Amarasingam

…020, 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 nearly half of the reported deaths. A Muslim leader in Sri Lanka informed the authors that the number is actually higher, and that 82 Muslims have died, with over 70 cremations. The cremation of the victims was carried out by the state without the approval of the…

Before Black Twitter: How the Early Black Press Shaped American Discourse Around Race and Religion

By Benjamin P. Fagan

…I think that the people and papers that it treats will be interesting to anyone interested in American history, literature, culture, and religion. I’ve written the book in a narrative style, and kept most of the specific scholarly debates in the introduction and the footnotes. But I also had in mind the handful of other scholars who work on early African-American print cultures, and especially those who paved the way for my own research. The stud…

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…

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

By Daniel Martin Varisco

…hat the children of Israel were commanded not to make “graven images” or “any likeness” of anything in the sky, on Earth, or in the water (Exodus 20:4)—though both faiths buried their iconoclasm a long time ago. The purpose of the ban was clear: since there was no other God, no one should make idols to worship. While some Protestants still rail at Catholics and Orthodox Christians for veneration of their icons and statues, the image of Jesus on th…

How Not To Defend Atheism

By Vlad Chituc

…llion atheists in the U.S., a full 26% of the country. The most charitable number I could find was from Gallup, putting the number of Americans in 2014 who say they don’t believe in God at 11%. To make things frustratingly worse, other atheists have been calling Silverman out for falsely inflating the number of atheists for more than four years. And last year, I specifically asked Silverman if he would stop reporting the stats on “nones” as being…

Hell, in Rob Bell’s Own Words: State of Belief Radio

By The Editors

…I saw one summary of the book that read: “Evangelical pastor writes book denying hell, catches hell for doing so.” [RB]: What’s interesting about that is: I don’t deny hell. And in the book I clearly state: I see right now in our world greed, rape, abuse, financial scandals, I see genocide. We see hells on earth right now, so the idea that there is no hell… We see people rejecting the good and the true and the human all around us, all the time, so…

Special Report: Have Evangelical Colleges Succumbed to “Theological Paranoia”?

By Chrissy Stroop

…are not indifferent. These stories of dissent and disagreement complicate any kind of “sea change” narrative about American evangelicalism moving toward moderation and openness. But whatever the future of American evangelicalism, I can’t help but wonder how many of my generational peers who chose evangelical higher education, given today’s climate, would have joined me at Ball State. Also on RD: Is Accreditation of Religious Institutions a “Farce”…

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,…

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

By Michael J. Altman

…lobal Islamic Ummah.” While Breivik wants to ban race-mixing and limit the number of non-Europeans in his future Europe, he is quite happy to offer assistance “to our Buddhist and Hindu brothers if they request our help against Jihadi attacks or campaigns.” In the end, as long as everyone stays within their own ethno-religious territory, all is well. Fences make good neighbors in the wake of the clash of civilizations. Breivik hoped conservatives…