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“Americans Hate Muslims, Too” (And Other Impediments to U.S. Advocacy for Religious Freedom Abroad)

By Chad Bauman

…aside and quietly told us that he had detected our American accents on the phone, and had given us the room instead of others because “Americans hate Muslims, too.” Still today, when I travel in India, Hindus presupposing my agreement frequently make off-handed and derogatory comments about their Muslim neighbors. For those concerned about the effectiveness of the United States’ advocacy for religious freedom around the world, the perception that…

Are All Religious Experiences Reducible to 16 Desires?

By Andrew Aghapour

…fellowship may be the most important thing because they place an unusually high value on social contact. It becomes possible to gain insight into your desires, your values, and how that is expressed in your religion. For most psychologists, the motivations and forces that drive people, they call them “energy.” I’m talking about values. As a species, we’re motivated to assert our values. When we come to understand how we value the 16 desires, you g…

Oprah, Terrorist Cells, and the Meaning of Life: An Interview with Paul Froese

By Andrew Aghapour

…are more likely to report a lack of purpose? You would think that it’s the highly educated, or people who are more cosmopolitan, because they’re confused by all the options, but it’s actually the poorer people in post-industrial countries. And if you compare people in poverty in post-industrial countries to people in poverty in the third world, the former are much more likely to say that they lack purpose. These people probably suffer from an exis…

A Portrait of Islamophobia?

By Mariam Durrani

…en fruit bowl, a few artificial flowers, half a bottle of Sprite, and some phone chargers. The two smaller images feature the cluttered interior of a walk-in closet with a bunch of clothes and a faint family portrait on the wireframe shelf, and something that will be familiar to anyone with a newborn child: a rocking seat next to a pink and yellow baby mat. With the caption “A Home Revealed,” the audience is left to make sense of these household p…

Reporting from Paris: A Prayer for Polluters

By Donna Schaper

…e a caucus proposed a stop fracking resolution. We spent hours on national phone calls debating when fracking should be stopped. We finally proposed 2030 as the last fracking date. It was a compromise after many “brackets,” what COP21 calls the matters that are kept in that famous parking lot where we put the things we don’t know how to decide. The Synod amended our so-called radical proposal and unanimously passed 2017 as the final date. We were…

Trump, Islamophobia, and the Philly Pig’s Head Incident

By David Krueger

…ific terrorist attacks in Paris, Al-Aqsa mosque in Philadelphia received a phone message stating, “I hope you people are happy about what you did in Paris. I’d like to state for the record that Allah is a piece of pork shit.” A few weeks later, in the early morning hours of December 7, the mosque manager unlocked the front doors for the early morning fajr prayer. As he was about to enter, he noticed the severed head of a pig lying next to the door…

The Passion of Katniss: How the Hunger Games Confronts the Trauma of Violence

By Michael Schulson

…a distance of hundreds or thousands of miles. Veteran suicides come to outnumber battlefield deaths. Violence shifts even deeper into the realm of psychology: there’s the pervasive fear of a possible strike, existing alongside the lasting legacy of combat. The final chapters of the Hunger Games series concern themselves with trauma and its aftermath, in unusually naked terms (“I still remain struck with the last two chapters. It just was so compl…

Giving Up God—Not Just a Spiritual Stunt

By Becky Garrison

…imself an unexpected media darling. Becky Garrison caught up with Bell via phone to talk about his motivations, the reactions of his friends and family, and what he hopes to discover. BG: What’s your reaction to this surge of media coverage? RB: When I started this, I thought my blog would only be read by a few people. It’s been surreal. I have no clue how to make anything go viral, so this is totally unexpected. But eventually, I think this atten…

Bad News for LGBT Anglicans, Mormons, Adventists, Norwegians, Russians, Georgians, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Saudis…

By Peter Montgomery

…as not,” said Andersen, an Apostle of the Quorum of the Twelve, the second-highest governing body of the church, according to the AP. “He designated the purpose of marriage to go far beyond the personal satisfaction and fulfillment of adults, to more importantly, advancing the ideal setting for children to be born, reared and nurtured.” Andersen also encouraged his fellow Mormons to remain steadfast in their convictions against what he said is an…

A Faith-Based Opportunity for Obama

By Sarah Posner

…, his daily emailed devotionals to the president—which Obama took pains to highlight yesterday—are frequently cited as evidence not only of the president’s piety but also to counter conservative claims that the White House is somehow hostile to religion, or insufficiently committed to the country’s “Christian heritage.” While the president is undoubtedly entitled to receive and read whatever religious materials he desires, should they really be co…