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Religion Round-Up: What’s Going on in Religion Around the World

By Diane Winston

…with a reminder that religion remains a factor even in one of the world’s most secular nations. “On Aug. 8, 2008—the right day of the eight month of the year ’08—at exactly 08:08:08 p.m,. the summer Olympics are scheduled to begin in Beijing. The day and hour for the start of the Olympics was chosen for its good fortune—a widely held belief in Confucianism and Chinese folk religions.” By American standards (which are unusually high among develope…

Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, and Pro-Home Birth

By Katherine Don

… is a conservative Christian who is, in a manner of speaking, pro-choice. Most of Prentice’s clients are “ranch people” and Christians like herself who incorporate prayer into childbirth. “To me, this is what I know,” she says. “I only know one God, and I only know one Lord, and I only know one way to pray.” When labor isn’t progressing well, she uses prayer to help the process along. “Everybody will lay hands on the mother, and we invite the Hol…

Trump’s Pathological Devotion to Border Walls Isn’t Political, It’s Theological

By Alana Massey

…orld sent them flocking to BibleGateway.com to prove the claims ludicrous, mostly by referring to The Sermon On The Mount, pitting the words of the apostle Paul against the words of Jesus as some sort of moral mic drop. But Huckabee Sanders and Sessions were right. It was decidedly not Christ-like, merciful, pious, or loving toward the people of God, but it was biblical. I will return to this moment (and these verses in particular) but Trump has b…

Cafeteria Cockroaches and Synagogue-State Relations in Israel

By Shalom Goldman

…and the vast apparatus of the Israeli Army. And this despite the fact that most Israelis are not themselves “strictly kosher.” Without Kashrut supervision most restaurants and hotels in Israel would not survive—they wouldn’t get enough regular business. This system controls the work week of the restaurant and hotel employees: on the Sabbath and holidays no “forbidden work” can be performed in preparation of food. (There are non-Kosher restaurants…

Pussy Riot Members Sentenced to 2 Years for Offending Russian Orthodox Church

By The Editors

…, strong-arm measures to handle social processes, a situation in which the most important political institutions are the disciplinary structures of the state – the security agencies, the army, the police, the special forces and the accompanying means of ensuring political stability: prisons, preventive detention and mechanisms to closely control public behaviour. Nor are we happy with the enforced civic passivity of the bulk of the population or t…

Will Pope’s African Tour Change Attitudes on Divorce and LGBTQ Among African Catholics?

By Kaya Oakes

…y the Pope to take up issues relating to the family. With divorce becoming more common internationally, including in Africa, the Catholic teaching that divorced and remarried Catholics are barred from receiving communion unless they are granted an annulment by the Church has come under criticism from liberal members of the church, who had hoped the synod might speed up that process. Instead, it ended on a note of ambiguity, leaving the issue up to…

New Poll Reveals Jews May Be Open to Change in Israel Policy

By Benjamin Weiner

…list politician who has advocated the “transfer” of Israeli Arabs and will most likely be taking up a minister’s portfolio in the new Netanyahu government, further emphasizes the survey’s dovish tilt. But an important question to ask is: what does it mean that so many American Jews support Obama’s stance, when that stance, to date, has been best described by observers as “enigmatic”? How well will these numbers hold up if Israel’s “most favored na…

A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…led the orthodoxy and orthopraxy of the this denomination into question. Almo*]}*st one year later, we can take a step back to consider what happened in Minneapolis and to map some of the trajectories of this historic vote. A Fundamental Injustice? Discussions of sexuality, ordination practices, and related issues have been a regular feature of the the church’s conversations since before the merger of its predecessor bodies in 1988. Numerous studies h…

Church and State in Japan: The Case of the Yasukuni Shrine

By Mark R. Mullins

…the downturn of the economy and the ensuing financial troubles at even the most successful Japanese companies. Unfortunately, the political world does not provide much basis for optimism. Prime Minister Taro Aso is barely hanging on to power, and the leader of the opposition party, Ichiro Ozawa, is engulfed in controversy and scandal. In this dismal economic and political environment, it is a pleasant diversion to celebrate the Oscar and escape to…

Pious White Reformers and Race, Then and Now

By Peter Laarman

…dation,” three to “amalgamation,” and four to “colonization.” To be clear, most of the white civic leaders who fretted about “degradation” did not believe that people of color were in any way inferior to white people—certainly not inferior in God’s eyes. They believed “all men are created equal” to be the literal truth (although the author of those words did not), and they were acutely conscious that honoring the Declaration of Independence necess…