Religion Dispatches
…Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego, and the founder of Farm Forward, met with Cubit co-editor Andrew Aghapour at a coffee shop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina to explore how religion applies to elephants, dogs, chimpanzees, and factory farming. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. As a scholar of religion, why do you think it’s wrong see religion as exclusive to humans? I think mos…
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…congregants. It was for this reason that Shinta helped found the Pondok Pesantren Waria al-Fatah, the world’s only Islamic boarding school for transgender people. “In the public mosque we made people uncomfortable. We needed a safe place for trans women to pray,” she says. Since its establishment in 2008 the boarding school, or pesantren, has become a safe haven for trans people from across Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. “…
Read More…Wellington, New Zealand Per the National Catholic Register: “The only Anglophone nominee is Archbishop John Dew of Wellington, New Zealand. In 2005, he advocated a new ‘pastoral approach’ for allowing divorced-and-civilly-remarried Catholics to receive Communion. During last year’s synod on the family, he also voiced his support for a change in language when ministering to persons with same-sex attraction.” Archbishop Alberto Suárez Inda of Moreli…
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…ick and delusional,” and Roman Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco “denounced the spread of ‘gender ideology,’” according to RNS’ Michael Gibson. In some ways, the most interesting take comes from the Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore, who starts off by saying, “we do not see our transgendered neighbors as freaks to be despised.” The reality of a fallen world, Moore says, means that we’re all alienated in one way or ano…
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…concert at The Forum arena in Los Angeles on May 27. Photo by Cathleen Falsani for Religion Dispatches. After attending a U2 show in San Jose, Calif., earlier this month, Noel Gallagher of the band Oasis described it as a “psychedelic experience” that was “staggering.” “It starts off as a punk rock gig but then it gets intimate, there’s a lot of truth in it about where they come from and the people that they are,” the notoriously prickly Gallaghe…
Read More…Company. The hundreds who couldn’t make it into the full-to-capacity hall sang “Amazing Grace” on the sidewalk. A bakery supporter said it seems as though Christians “have no rights.” One pro-marriage-equality columnist, Fionola Meredith, said she was supporting Ashers in the name of free speech and said that forcing the company to endorse same-sex marriage would to “nothing to advance the cause of equality.” United Kingdom: Thatcher biographer d…
Read More…, who is under fire for imposing a strict “morality clause” on teachers in San Francisco’s Catholic schools. But in an indication of how the religious liberty issue crosses the political lines of the Francis papacy, the letter was also signed by two noted moderates: DC Archbishop Donald Wuerl, whose DC offices would fall under the law, and Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley, who is considered Francis’ closest US ally. Of course, with Ted Cruz’s anti-…
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…ica is a homogeneous entity. In reality, however, Africa is made up of thousands of ethnic groups with rich and diverse cultures and sexualities. As appealing as the notion of African culture may be to some people, no such thing exists. Moreover, even if we wanted to imagine an authentic African culture, like all others, it would not be static. African history is replete with examples of both erotic and nonerotic same-sex relationships. For exampl…
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…h Gnanasara, but insisted that their agendas were separate. Nonetheless, a number of news reports claim that Wirathu’s 969 and Gnanasaara’s BBS movements are in league, and there are reports that Wirathu has been in contact with Buddhist monks from Thailand’s southern border with Malaysia, where pitched battles have been taking place between Buddhists and the Muslim majority in that locale. Wirathu said it wasn’t just Buddhists who were concerned…
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…Gallery, the “Yoga: The Art of Transformation” exhibition travelled to the San Francisco Asian Art Museum and finally to the Cleveland Museum of Art. The exhibition served as the first major art survey of yoga in the United States and provided visual representations of yoga’s complex, dynamic history, ranging from philosopher-ascetics turning inward in pursuit of salvation through realization of the true self; to ecstatic devotees turning outward…
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