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Pussy Riot Members Sentenced to 2 Years for Offending Russian Orthodox Church

By The Editors

…ak out in our support. There are a vast number, I know. I know that a huge number of Orthodox people are standing up for us. They are praying for us outside the courtroom, for the members of Pussy Riot who are incarcerated. We’ve seen the little booklets Orthodox people are handing out with prayers for those in prison. This shows that there isn’t a unified social group of Orthodox believers as the prosecution is endeavouring to say. No such thing…

Cafeteria Cockroaches and Synagogue-State Relations in Israel

By Shalom Goldman

…funerals, or certify a restaurant as kosher. At present there are a small number of Conservative and Reform Rabbis in Israel, but they receive no funds or recognition from the state. What they do receive is a heavy dose of contempt from the official Rabbinate. When non-Orthodox Rabbis are referred to in Orthodox publications their title is given in transliterated form, the English word “Rabbi,” not the Hebrew word “Rav.” Women Rabbis come in for…

Wesolowski Sexual Abuse Case a New Approach or Same Old Same Old?

By Mary E. Hunt

…r in the style to which Wesolowski became accustomed. Multiply that by the number of countries where the Vatican has diplomatic relations. I doubt these diplomatic men cook their own meals or wash their own cassocks, no matter how frugal Pope Francis may be. So somebody pays a lot of money to keep this genteel charade in motion. That “somebody” is rank and file Catholics who have little if any say about where their weekly contributions go. Spoiler…

Trump’s Pathological Devotion to Border Walls Isn’t Political, It’s Theological

By Alana Massey

…ted casualties go up, but we lost our collective minds when we watched the number of confirmed active shooters in Paris go up. The images coming out of Paris in the immediate term were of a city devoured by chaos and fear rather than the stillness of carnage, more terrifying for their uncertainty. There was a brief lull in the digital noise when an official government action was announced from France: the state of emergency declared by President F…

Unprecedented Anti-LGBTQ Statement By Orthodox Church in America Should Be Christian Nationalist Warning Sign to US Orthodoxy

By Katherine Kelaidis

…hurch in America (OCA). Both are, unsurprisingly, characterized by a large number of American converts in their ranks. Nearly 70% of those in the AOA are converts, while the OCA is about evenly split, 50-50. Similarly, the GOA, arguably the most progressive Orthodox body in America—“progressive” being a relative term—remains almost exclusively composed of ethnic Greeks. Focused on their own ethnic political concerns, including the position of the…

The Problem with AMC’s Sci-Fi Hit Humans

By Andrew Aghapour

…human form isn’t always best for the job. Take, for example, the synth telephone operator. Why create a physical robot for this job which has to receive audio through a wired earpiece and then respond via speaker into a microphone? Couldn’t synth software do the trick without complex parts that mimic the functions of ears and a mouth? Furthermore, wouldn’t it make better economic sense to distribute artificial intelligence across multiple hardware…

LGBT Editor In Bangladesh Murdered by Islamists—and More, In this Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…rofiles Tergo, “the first and only registered organization in Ukraine that helps the parents of LGBT people, as well as LGBT Ukranians who are rejected by their families.” The story features Antonina Yankovaya, who says she “went wild” when her son started bringing his boyfriend home, but that a three-day counseling session at Tergo changed her life. South Korea: Human rights activists call for government to recognize LGBT group Human Rights Watch…

To Be Queer, Gifted, and Black: A Conversation with Theologian Pamela Lightsey

By Nyasha Junior

…oung persons will read it and will take courage from it. I’ve heard from a number of young LGBTQ persons, black especially, who thank me for the book and said they have wanted a resource like this for some time to combat some of the negative statements that they hear on the regular basis, particularly within the churches, within the churches that they love. I’m telling them to not receive that putrid narrative that God doesn’t love you into your b…

Elephant Orphans and Ecological Spiritualities: An Earth Day Reflection

By Jacob J. Erickson

…ysteries of these creatures. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. A large number of the “spiritual but not religious” crowd in the West are self-proclaimed ecologists or naturalists. A large number of atheists and agnostics are deeply passionate about ecological ethics, or how we might be more “in tune” with nature. Culturally, they become fascinated in the personalities of cats and cat videos, the companionship of dogs who offer a kind of faithf…

None Means None (Not Atheist, Agnostic, Unbeliever…)

By Elizabeth Drescher

…sticism. Religion News Service regrets the inaccuracy.” Well, okay. Take a number if you’d like to complain about my own writerly inaccuracies. Still, the trouble with the piece goes beyond an inaccurate (though indisputably grabby) headline. Reporter Kimberly Winston is careful to point out that the Pew report authors have noted “that [the religiously unaffiliated] are by no means homogeneous.” She goes on to highlight Pew researchers’ noting of…