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Religion Was Not the Reason for the Paris Attacks

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…is case may be similar to many of the other lone wolf terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States in recent years. Before Paris, there was the 2013 Tsarnaev brothers’ attack on the Boston massacre, the deadly assault on a Norwegian youth camp by Christian extremist Anders Breivik in 2011, the December 2012 Newtown massacre by Adam Lanza in Sandy Hook school, the July 2012 movie theater shootings by James Holmes in Aurora, Colorado, the Augus…

After Early Christian Opposition, Iceland Gets First Pagan Temple in Nearly 1000 Years

By Joseph Laycock

…ll, Reykjavík. It will be the first heathen temple to be built in Northern Europe since the construction of the Temple at Uppsala in Sweden in 1070. More importantly, the temple symbolizes the arrival of the Ásatrúarfélag, founded in 1972, into Image of Beinteinsson in 1991 by Jónína K. Berg is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.* Iceland’s religious mainstream. The progress of the Ásatrúarfélag is an index of a move in Western society toward a broader s…

Why Serra Should Not Be a Saint

By Jacqueline M. Hidalgo

…tial saint because of his violent evangelism, but also because he became a European tool for the U.S. conquest of Californian territory—a means for ignoring the complex Mexican history of the U.S.’s most populous state. Perhaps for this reason, more than any other, California’s mission period is the last place we should look for saints; too much violent nationalism lies at the core of California mission memorialization to be of use to a global chu…

Five Must-Reads on the “Nones”: A Tipping Point in American Religion and Spirituality

By Elizabeth Drescher

…. Her historical look at the metaphysical tradition from fifteenth century Europe to late modern America shows that while religious change in the United States has unfolded outside the normative boundaries of denominational Christianity, “new” developments in religiosity have hardly been random, disorganized experiments of the unfettered spirit. The “historiography of connection” for which Albanese calls places spiritual and religious practice in…

What was Pants to Church Sunday Really About?

By Joanna Brooks

…ist action in history. Thousands of Mormon women from the South Pacific to Europe to North America bucked convention and wore pants to church meetings on Sunday to manifest their support for greater dialogue on the status of women within the LDS Church, and Mormon men wore purple in solidarity. For Mormon feminists and allies, the event was a chance to step out of silence and fear and wordlessly say, “We are here. This faith matters to us. And ge…

OK’s Anti-Gay Marriage Bill Would Change Weddings But not Marriage—Not Even Gay Ones

By William E. Smith

…are positively medieval! To simplify greatly, a valid marriage in Catholic Europe, from around the twelfth through the sixteenth century, was a sacrament entered into by the couple alone. There may well have been a wedding ceremony, and this was strongly encouraged to say the least. But people who met the basic qualifications (e.g. not already married, of age, etc.) married themselves using vows expressed in the present tense (e.g. I take you to b…

A One-State Solution for Israel and Why It Will Work

By Haroon Moghul

…reserve an expansionist project. But that is not going to happen. A recent European Union report states that tensions in Jerusalem are at their highest in years. It’s about time the United States joins the international community in expressing real, and consequential, disapproval of this state of affairs. The relationship between America and Israel isn’t one of alliance so much as one of patron and client. When we, as Americans, could be devoting…

Anglican Communion Gets Anti-Gay Secretary General; Black Gay Christians Challenge Conservative Evangelicals in Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…and the fate of LGBTI people in Africa. “The future of Christianity is not Europe or North America, but Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” said Pastor Rick Warren. Africa is ground zero for the Christian evangelical right-wing movement. Under the veil of economic development, Rick Warren is also planning a conference in Rwanda that sells a dangerous theology. This anti-gay propaganda has spawned the passage of anti-gay legislation across Africa and…

3 Takeaways from #Easter2015

By Michael Schulson

…us—shows a double peak, first around 7:00am CT (which is to say, midday in Europe), and then again around 1:00pm CT. Accordingly, #Ostern (German) and #Pâques (French) both peaked around the European noon. (The data for #Pascua is more messily distributed, seemingly a weird postmodern artifact of Spain’s distinctive colonial reach). 2) “Like invitations to a hipster wedding” Tags like #jesus arise organically. So, seemingly, do popular 2015 tags l…

‘No Room’ for Gays in Country that Worships God [Kenya] | Churches Fight to Keep Sexuality Out of Sex Ed [S. Korea] | Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…also known by the nickname Saintodosly, told the Blade during a recent telephone interview from Lagos that Aladekugbe used his brother and six students to set him up. “They had suspected before based on the firm belief that people of same-sex orientation should not be discriminated by the church,” said Sylvester. “That is what I always said to this school and it was at this school that people should not be discriminated. When they asked me, I said…