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Do iPads Cause Religious Experiences?

By Andrew Aghapour

…ng of a London Apple store and noted the “evangelical frenzy” of the fans lining the block. At first Riley stayed mostly at the periphery of the crowd, shooting sarcastic looks to the camera 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 f…

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

By Grant Gallicho

…ps will take up a number of issues, from the revised liturgy to assisted suicide, but their conversations are sure to be dominated by an issue that has been dogging them since the mid-1980s: sexually abusive priests and the bishops who enabled them. Ten years after Cardinal Bernard Law became the poster bishop for failed religious leadership, new revelations of episcopal misfeasance threaten to swamp the real gains made by the Church. One Step F…

There’s Something Rotten in Ireland

By Haroon Moghul

…Israel’s embassy in Ireland. They go from digs at Ireland (“naïve”) for joining Europe and much of the world in voting for an upgrade in Palestine’s status at the United Nations, to the most recent—an allegation that, if Jesus were alive today, he would probably be lynched by hostile Palestinians. Nobody at the embassy seems to know who’s writing and posting these very ugly statements—and they’d prefer it stay that way; a spokesperson notes that…

And What of the Non-Jewish Jews?

By Shaul Magid

…here’s been much reaction to the Pew poll in regards to denominational viability, affiliation, and attitudes toward things such as Israel, the Holocaust, God, and religion. Interestingly, Zionism has been replaced by “caring for Israel,” which is in some ways similar, though there are important distinctions. Zionism represents a systemic Jewish experiment in identity, language, culture, and politics, while “Caring for Israel” is largely an emotion…

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

By Marcia Pally

Trump, long up in the polls, stays up; Cruz is rising. What do they have in common? Savior appeal. Of the idolatrous kind. The two front-runners differ is some ways—among likely caucus voters in Iowa, Bloomberg News reports, Trump is considered stronger on managing the economy, illegal immigration, and the deficit while Cruz is stronger on leadership and persuasiveness to conservative evangelicals. But their common savior appeal tells us a great…

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

By Murali Balaji

…th politics, and the frequency of intra-religious conflict (Sunni versus Shiite Muslims, Jat versus non-Jat Sikhs, upper-caste Christians versus Dalit Christians) has also played a role in India’s recent spike in social unrest. Despite the complex nature of identity politics in India, one thing is more apparent: the unease with which Indians of all faiths are dealing with the conversation about conversion, as well as its ramifications beyond the c…

Can the Catholic Church Survive Trump?

By Patricia Miller

…anger for any institution that allies itself too closely with any given political party, a hazard that’s pronounced in the age of Trump, as the raw racial animus at his core becomes impossible to ignore for even those who were determined to avert their gaze. But that danger is especially acute for religious institutions, which face a special moral hazard in becoming too closely identified with a specific party. And, as political scientist Timothy…

Are You There God? It’s Us, Googling

By Michael Schulson

…to the rest of the country, for every search I looked at, retirement communities search more about hell,” he writes. Each month, on average, 422 people in the US ask Google “Why did God make me ugly?” and 103 ask “Why did God make me black?” The most common God-related question, asked over 25,000 times per month in the US, is “Who created God?,” followed by that old Job-ian classic, “Why does God allow suffering?” But we should be careful here; Go…

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

By Peter Montgomery

Costa Rican human rights and anti-torture activist Victor Madrigal-Borloz is the new UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. The first expert, Vitit Muntarbhorn, resigned for health reasons after his first year in the position, which was created over the intense opposition of anti-LGBT groups and nations. Also this month, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, Jordanian Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, described the g…

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

By Lewis Wallace

…, for one), the Vatican was happy to let the festivities continue. Vatican II removed a few legendary saints from the General Roman Calendar in the 1960s, but making saints like Christopher and Valentine less official did not constitute a prohibition on their veneration. Current examples of this hands-off approach abound. Since the 1980s, an apparition site at Medjugorje, Yugoslavia has been a source of concern at varying levels of church hierarch…