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Do iPads Cause Religious Experiences?

By Andrew Aghapour

…and lobbing one-liners about the seemingly religious ecstasy of the “glassy-eyed” consumers being ushered in by a team of Apple’s blue-shirted “preachers.” Entertaining as these loose comparisons might be, it was what Riley did next that caused a brief media flurry and garnered coverage by MSNBC, Business Insider, and over two hundred blogs, news sites, and forums within days of the documentary’s release. Riley tracked down an Apple super-fan, Al…

Too Late for Apologies: Three Steps the U.S. Bishops Should Take to Prevent Another Sexual Abuse Scandal

By Grant Gallicho

…ngs claimed that because an alleged act of abuse was committed against a 17-year-old in 1995, the allegation should be thrown out. At the time of the alleged abuse, the canonist argued, canon law held that the age of majority was sixteen. But review boards were not established to serve a canon-law function. Their role is simply to determine whether there is good reason to believe an alleged act of abuse took place against a minor. What if the Nati…

There’s Something Rotten in Ireland

By Haroon Moghul

…om the embassy’s public relations strategy, which includes wondering if pro-Palestinian Israeli activists are motivated less by ideology and more by “sexual identity problems.” Seriously. Setting that kind of tone will probably only encourage more and more absurd statements. The recent post on Jesus seems especially insensitive, considering who it is being directed to and where it is apparently originating. A number of Palestinians are Christians,…

And What of the Non-Jewish Jews?

By Shaul Magid

…ecently being “Jewish” was a liability and anti-semitism was palpable, the number of non-Jews today who identify as Jewish seems historically distinctive. We could, perhaps, point to the so-called “fearers of heaven,” an undocumented community of Hellenes in late antiquity who lived in large Jewish population centers, apparently lived partially as Jews, and had some status in the Jewish community. But today’s non-Jewish Jews aren’t identifying as…

False Saviors: Trump, Cruz, and the Gospel of the Quick Fix

By Marcia Pally

…king purchasing power, disappearing job opportunities, and increasingly out-of-reach education. This is problem enough for the many who work hard and can’t figure out why they’re “losing ground,” as Pew wrote. Add to that fears of terrorism. People want relief. But if no solution presents itself, either lassitude or rage set in, along with the search for saviors who’ll deliver relief from material hardship—but who also make people feel the world i…

A Debate Rages in India Over Conversion, Secularism, and “Spiritual Violence”

By Murali Balaji

…) effort has rung alarm bells among observers, stoking fears that the right-of-center government of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (a self-described Hindu nationalist), are seeking to undermine post-independence India’s secular ideals. It has drawn so much attention, in fact, that it prompted President Obama to issue a not-so-subtle rebuke to Modi’s government for not doing more to protect religious minorities. Among I…

Can the Catholic Church Survive Trump?

By Patricia Miller

…favorable to Trump—which they were, with 60 percent backing him despite all-but-explicit condemnations by Pope Francis: Through imagery and rhetoric, the bishops unambiguously associated the requirement to opt out of the [Affordable Care Act’s] contraception mandate with threats to destroy Christianity in the Middle East. They drew parallels to “governments who try to squash and destroy religious liberty,” and even to the specter of ISIS beheading…

Are You There God? It’s Us, Googling

By Michael Schulson

…men eat shrimp?” is a popular search query in the US) or the ratio of heart-related to penis-related searches (67:100 for those keeping score). This Sunday, Stephens-Davidowitz turned his attention to God. Some of the patterns he documents are predictable, such as the steep reduction in “Google searches for churches,” yet more evidence of the increasing number of “nones,” or that “searches related to the Bible, God, Jesus Christ, church and prayer…

Indonesian Court Rejects Religious Conservatives’ Bid To Criminalize Gay Sex; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…d all sex outside marriage to be illegal. More from Associated Press: The 5-to-4 decision by the nine-judge panel of the Constitutional Court rejected the arguments of a conservative group, the Family Love Alliance, which believes Indonesia is being swamped by immoral behavior, fueled by the internet and social media. Members of the group wept as it became clear the court would not side with them. Rights advocates had feared judges would criminali…

First U.S. Visit of the Virgin Mary Confirmed in Wisconsin

By Lewis Wallace

…g needs to visitors on scuffed-up laminated pages. If it weren’t for a port-a-john next to the parking lot, the whole scene in this snow-covered countryside could be taking place in the 1950s, or even the 1880s, when the current chapel was first built. The Virgin Mary’s First Visit to the U.S. All this peace and quiet is about to disappear. On December 8, 2010, Bishop David L. Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay concluded a two-year investigation i…