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Religion in Real Time on CNN’s “Believer”: A Conversation with Reza Aslan

By Kaya Oakes

…s who make the long, perilous journey from Latin America and Mexico to the United States, before they do so, they make a vow to Santa Muerte, make peace with Saint Death. They say to themselves, “I may not make this, there’s a good chance I may die on the way. If I make it to America, I vow that I’ll set up an idol or temple for Santa Muerte.” And that’s precisely why you see so many shrines in the southern United States—because the people who cre…

Blood and Hammers: Elderly Anti-Nuclear Activists Sentenced to Jail

By Kristen Tobey

…of their eighteen-month to ten-year sentences. Plowshares activists in the United States have never been acquitted, though on occasion charges against them have been “inexplicably” dropped (not, however, when they have filed to have charges dismissed, as did the Disarm Now Plowshares, along with a few other groups of Plowshares activists over the years — these motions have been denied). The near-certainty of a jury trial has come to be crucial to…

Marriage Debate in Australia Shifts To Push For Religious Exemptions; and More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…uples. Of course, even without such provisions, churches in Australia, the United States, and elsewhere can’t be forced to marry same-sex couples under existing law. In these circumstances, using freedom of religion as a weapon to deprive LGBT people of any partnership recognition at all is misguided at best and disingenuous at worst. If the United States is any indication, proponents of religious exemptions are unlikely to stop at marriage. Since…

Is the Bible Too Holy to Be Tennessee’s State Book?

By Adam Shapiro

…gious meaning. The bill’s secular opponents—such as the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State—and its religious opponents, including Haslam, are united in the view that such a separation is impossible. This is in a deep sense a semiotic failure on both ends of the political spectrum. But it may also be a recognition of the Bible’s unique role as a political and legal powder keg in American history, going back to the Bible ri…

Shhh…Don’t Speak of Abortion: Roe v. Wade at Thirty-Six

By Frederick Clarkson

…s to abortion care is a significant problem of health care delivery in the United States. A major study by the Guttmacher Institute found that some 87% of US counties lack a single abortion provider. The study notes a long-term decline in the rate of abortion in the United States, but could not determine whether this was because of increased access to and use of contraception, or due to the lack of access to abortion providers. And yet, even of th…

Historian John Ragosta Discusses the Context and Inspiration for ‘Religious Freedom’ in the U.S.

By Frederick Clarkson

…d upon it to for 140 years to define religious freedom [since Reynolds vs. United States, 1879], but it played a critical role in development of the First Amendment and in the way the states defined religious freedom. It was far better known in the nineteenth century when historians, students, newspaper editors and politicians regularly turned to the Statute to understand religious liberty. Its history is equally important: After the American Revo…

Colonialism and the Crisis Inside the Crisis of Catholic Sexual Abuse

By Kathleen Holscher

…associates, high rates of abuse span Catholic colonial geographies in the United States and elsewhere. Consider, for example, the dioceses of Rapid City and Sioux Falls, which together extend their ecclesial jurisdiction over 6 federal Indian reservations in South Dakota. By 2010, more than 65 Catholic priests and religious formerly employed at Indian boarding schools within those dioceses had been named in lawsuits targeting sexual abuse—a numbe…

Honey, I Shrunk the Church: The Vatican Manages Sexual Abuse, Canonization and the Nuns

By Mary E. Hunt

…state shrinks right up to nothing when liability lurks. In early 2014, the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which monitors implementation of that Convention, questioned Vatican officials about sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy and its systematic cover-up by church officials. Former sex crimes prosecutor for the Church, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, in watershed testimony, admitted that the Vatican bore some respo…

Bad Karma: Life Lessons From Earl

By Anthony B. Pinn

…time, projects a different posture: actions have consequences. Perhaps the United States, like Earl, must examine its conduct, recognize the web-like nature of human interactions, and acknowledge at least the possibility that the United States as a nation has not lived up to the best of its democratic ideals, has not represented in its internal practices and foreign policies the commitment to freedom that fuels its rhetoric. And, while we’re at it…

When Rabbis Seized Control of the Synagogue: The Role of Authority in American Judaism

By Zev Eleff

…rization” of American life. The patrilineal decision decentered American Judaism, causing rifts within the various movements and shifting the center of concern from the United States to Israel. So far, I have delivered a number of talks on this subject and received great feedback….