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Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

…only if the beth din deems the allegation to be true will the family be permitted to go to the authorities. Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford, who brought the case against Yosef Kolko, is concerned that such actions limit a prosecutor’s ability to secure a conviction. “By having a diversion to a different type of tribunal, no matter how well intentioned the people involved are, it ultimately makes the job of getting a criminal conviction…

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New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

…ry religious registration, usually with a government proscribed list of permitted religions; • religious requirements or restrictions on government ID cards and passports; • religious tests for citizenship or participation in civic life; • religious control of family law; • and religious control of public education. Almost half of the countries of the world have laws or policies that penalize blasphemy, apostasy, contempt of religion, or religious…

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My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

…ed by businesses like Annex challenge the ACA’s contraception mandate on a number of grounds. The most significant challenge invokes the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, claiming that the insurance coverage mandate imposes a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion. Annex Medical lost its claim because the court concluded that the mandate does not impose a substantial burden on religious exercise and in the widely-publicized H…

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Dear White Evangelicals: A Black Square Ain’t Gonna Cut It

…doubt that a start would have been not being able to count on one hand the number of Black children in my entire Christian school student-body. Do Black educators only exist in public schools? Of course not. Why then couldn’t we find more Black scholars to employ when it came to teaching children? I can tell you that I’ll recognize change as genuine when white preachers and ministers stop using Bible verses to pacify their white congregants by amp…

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Jesus Christ and Super Stars: How The Holy Rolled Mainstream in Pop Music

…re was something salvageable beneath the hateful rhetoric. Or perhaps to admit being moved by explicitly Christian music—not despite its Christian themes, but precisely because of them—is too much to bear for a generation that’s crafted an identity around its alleged immunity to grace. Stevens stands out as one of the most explicitly Christian artists of the century but he is hardly alone in grappling with the holy for mostly secular audiences. On…

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Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

Mitt Romney’s delusional 2012 pollsters got nothing on apologists for last week’s Pew Poll that found no real “Francis effect” from the pope’s first year. According to Daniel Burke at CNN.com in a lengthy, mostly anecdotal piece, “there’s more way than one to measure the pontiff’s influence” than, say, actual metrics like the number of people going to mass or returning to the church. According to Burke, you just have to “ask around” Boston to fin…

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8: The Mormon Proposition Gets It Right

…have dismissed the film as blatantly false.   But what I’m hearing from a number of Mormons deeply familiar with the Proposition 8 campaign is that the film gets it mostly right. [See also Holly Welker’s review here. – Eds] Some take exception to editing choices that sequence events out of context for dramatic effect; others wish that the filmmakers had not been so cartoonish in their depictions of anti-gay-marriage standpoints, using only notori…

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Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

…big tent approach to coverage of American ir/a/religion. But do the Gallup numbers point to new ways we might be thinking about business as usual? Two findings are striking. First: Gallup reported that although Americans felt religion’s influence was declining, many—75 percent—agreed that more religion would be positive for the country. Not surprisingly, churchgoers were most gung-ho about religion’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who…

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The Best the Largest Progressive Jewish Org Could Come Up With?

…d Jewish Funds for Justice, the latter of which had already swallowed up a number of smaller Jewish social justice organizations.  I know several people who work at BtA, and I commend them on their ability to keep a secret. I and friends of mine plied several of these folks with drinks, but their lips stayed sealed. (I did find out that the org would have an action-verb in it, as is the fashion these days, but that’s all.) That being said, I’m not…

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