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Catholic Cardinal Slams Jesuit’s Bridge-Building Book; and More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…e of the term “so-called” in the context of gay rights. Jordan: Government Officials Inflaming Anti-LGBT Animus High-level officials, including the ministers of justice and the interior, have used the investigation of an online magazine to promote anti-LGBT animus, writes MJ Movahedi in The New Arab: It all began with a July request from an Islamist member of parliament, Dima Tahboub, to the Jordanian Media Commission to open an inquiry into the w…

Sneak Preview

By The Editors

…We’re working hard to create a better, faster, more nimble site. If there’s a feature you’d really like to see, or a glitch that needs attention, drop us a line at info@religiondispatches.org and we’ll put it on the list. –The Eds …

Yoga Guru or CEO? Saving the Brand When Scandal Strikes

By Andrea R. Jain

…oga world. The accusations, (re-posted in early February from an anonymous site by blogger Yoga Dork) can be summarized as follows: Friend heads a Wiccan coven in which he has sex with female members; Friend had several sexual relationships with married Anusara employees and teachers; Friend violated federal regulations regarding employee benefits by suddenly freezing Anusara, Inc.’s pension fund; and finally, Friend put his employees at legal ris…

LDS Church Brings Religious Pressure to Zoning Fight

By Joanna Brooks

…. But then, local residents received messages that high-ranking LDS Church officials wanted them to drop their opposition. As reported in the Herald, the head of the campaign said, “I received an invitation from a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ecclesiastical leader relayed from a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles… The invitation was to support the decision of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to build…

Is Buddhism Opposed to Self-Defense?

By M. Sophia Newman

…tly blamed Pandey for her own rape, a sentiment with which some government officials agreed. Twenty-five centuries earlier, in a scripture called the Kakacupama Sutta, the Buddha had also advised passivity: “Even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered, even at that, would not be doing my bidding.” Centuries later, the renowned Tibetan master Shantideva advised grat…

Sex, Violence, Art, and Religion

By Kent L. Brintnall

…c universities generally (and humanities departments specifically) are the site of budgetary struggles, and are attacked for offering nothing worthwhile to the public at large, I am quite clear that I wrote this book for myself. Although I tried to write clearly and coherently, I have never, ever thought of myself as writing a book that will be accessible to a general public. As noted above, I had a specific set of questions and intuitions and I n…

#HijabiLivesMatter: The Burkini Ban, Black Hair and the Meaning of “Natural”

By Shaina Hammerman

…Scott explains in The Politics of the Veil that the Muslim headscarf is a site where questions about divergent cultural standards—particularly those standards pertaining to sex—could play out. According to Scott, “French norms of sexual conduct [are] taken to be both natural and universal.” In contrast, she argues, “Muslim sexuality [is represented as] unnatural and oppressive when compared to an imagined French way of doing sex.” Similarly, the…

Layoffs on the Religious Right

By Bill Berkowitz

…orea’s Kim Jong-Il: and as Moon watchdog John Gorenfeld has reported, Moon officially considers himself Emperor of the Universe, claiming the imagined endorsements of dead US presidents. One of Moon’s least reported-on projects entails the establishment of an Interfaith Council to promote and oversee “all global, regional, and local interfaith dialogues among the great religions, civilizations, cultures, governments… to help resolve politico-relig…

The Anti-Defamation League Jumps the Shark

By Jay Michaelson

…and sisters. On the other, many in the Jewish community are doing the opposite: using their political and financial muscle to fight for the Jews against their enemies. Worse, in so doing, we replay our own national trauma, over and over again. My colleague J.J. Goldberg recently related a story told to him by former Israeli UN ambassador Abba Eban. Explaining Israel’s conduct in 1970, Eban said “you must understand, we’re a wounded people.” To wh…

The Abandoned Orphanage: Hillary Clinton’s Mother Teresa Moment

By Jeff Sharlet and Kathryn Joyce

…tiative, “cutting red tape with the housing authorities and human services officials.” The Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children opened in 1995. On opening day, writes Clinton, Mother Teresa “gripped my arm in her small, strong hand and dragged me upstairs to see the freshly painted nursery and rows of bassinets waiting to be filled with infants. Her enthusiasm was irresistible. By then I fully understood how this humble nun could move nations to…