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Religion and HIV/AIDS: When Interfaith is Not Enough

By Susan Henking

…fforts at “interfaith” cooperation, partnering representatives of 50 “faith-based entities and AIDS service organizations.” The new action, which includes a call to “Step Up in Faith,” is being coordinated by the NYC Faith in Action for AIDS/HIV Prevention and Education Coalition (NYCFIA). While Los Angeles holds title to the most religiously diverse city in the United States, in a city as religiously diverse as New York, such organizations have s…

How Not to Rescue Muslim Women

By Shabana Mir

…and black folks who spoke funny languages were sometimes engaged in a life-and-death struggle to change societal practices. Weren’t they all swarthy, bearded males featured shouting furiously about America on the cover of Newsweek? And then there was the professor. She was so filled with outrage over oppressive practices that limited women’s choices that she wanted the United States to engage in a political war with those countries to change what…

American Conservatives, Jewish Law, and Israel’s New Abortion Policy

By Sarah Posner

…is.” On the other hand, the views of Eli Schussheim, the head of the ultra-Orthodox Israeli anti-abortion group Efrat, are controversial in Israel, as are the group’s activities. As I wrote in Moment magazine last year: In January, according to Haaretz, two members of Israel’s chief rabbinate issued a letter of support for [Efrat], praising it for “making the wider public aware of the extreme seriousness involved in killing fetuses, which is like…

Single Greatest Idea Ever: On the 150th Anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species

By Lauri Lebo

…igin of Species would also challenge religious notions, not only of a 6,000-year-old world and a literal acceptance of Genesis, but about ideas of human exceptionalism. Even though Darwin never raised the issue of human evolution in Origin (that would come 12 years later in his Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex), the underlying point was not lost on the public. If man evolved from apes, how could we have been made in God’s image? Evo…

Pop-Eye: Global Jesus on Film

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…blatantly plagiarized by the novelist Gene Brewer and made into the film K-Pax in the United States.) Rantes is somewhere betwixt and between a messiah, an insane person, or an extraterrestrial, and the film does not tie up any of the loose ends. Whether or not Subiela had the C.S. Lewis trilemma in mind (“Liar, Lunatic, or Lord”) is not clear, but the film fleshes it all out in rousing ways. The Last Jewish Prophet In Iran, journalist and filmma…

Do Stormy Daniels’ Beliefs in the Paranormal Make Her Unfit to Testify in Lawsuit Against Her Former Attorney?

By Daniel Wise

…f troublesome spirits, that you’ll dismiss her as crazy. As a scholar of religion, I can’t take this information on its own as proof that she’s incompetent to testify or less than sane. In fact, as far as these beliefs anyway, she’s a perfectly normal part of the twenty-first century American spiritual landscape….

Don’t Misread Russell Moore’s Disavowal of “Christian Nation” and Anti-Trump Stance

By Daniel Schultz

…ohler’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—are typically political hyper-conservatives and theological hard-asses. That’s the group Moore’s throwing in with, and implying that if Baptists don’t do the same, they’re falling prey to “theological liberalism.” In other words, Moore’s positioning himself against opponents in both the church and secular world by embracing a traditionally liberal idea while decrying theological liberalism. Nixon could…

Godless Oaths of Office

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ithout suffering civic consequences. In such a country, to what may a newly-elected president swear? Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution lays out exactly what oath the newly elected President is supposed to swear. It goes like this: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United Stat…

Manslaughter Conviction of Brittney Poolaw Represents Pattern of White Christian Policing of Black and Brown Women’s Bodies

By Chrissy Stroop

…uch claims. On October 6, Oklahoma’s Comanche County Court sentenced the 21-year-old Poolaw, a member of the Comanche Nation, to four years in state prison on a first-degree manslaughter conviction for miscarrying her fetus. The prosecution based its case on the fact that the fetus tested positive for methamphetamine, though even its own expert witness wouldn’t go further than to call drug use a “contributing factor.” In fact, the autopsy indicate…

Vatican’s ‘Dumbed Down Version of an Old Argument’ on Gender Can’t Stop Changes in Catholicism

By Mary E. Hunt

…, fluid, varied sex/gender as the human norm. Eeeeeks—what to do about male-only priests, mom and dad-only families, and laws that result from Catholic influence on private matters? That swishing sound is a Roman Catholic house of cards falling in on itself. Left standing are all queer Catholics and allies who will struggle as hard for trans and intersex rights as we have for LGB ones. The three suggestions the Education folks use in the document…