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A Debate Rages in India Over Conversion, Secularism, and “Spiritual Violence”

By Murali Balaji

…an water, and healthcare. Even during the Mughal era, violence was not the most common means of converting Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains to Islam. Instead, it was the jizya, the tax levied on non-Muslims, that over time won the most converts, and those conversions happened across caste lines. The re-introduction of Christianity by the Portuguese to India’s west coast (where Syrian Christians had lived since the time of St. Thomas) in the 15th centu…

Can the Catholic Church Survive Trump?

By Patricia Miller

…ing too closely identified with a specific party. And, as political scientist Timothy Byrnes writes in the journal OMG!, no religious institution is in more peril of losing its soul to politics than the U.S. Catholic Church. (Unlike many evangelicals, who at this point appear to have little soul left to loose given their die-hard support of Trump). The culprit, of course, is abortion. The U.S. bishops’ long-term insistence that “all other moral ev…

Are You There God? It’s Us, Googling

By Michael Schulson

…e “Why did God make me ugly?” and 103 ask “Why did God make me black?” The most common God-related question, asked over 25,000 times per month in the US, is “Who created God?,” followed by that old Job-ian classic, “Why does God allow suffering?” But we should be careful here; Google search data offers a skewed sliver of insight into the full range of human motivation and behavior. The population of people who ask Google about God may not be refle…

Indonesian Court Rejects Religious Conservatives’ Bid To Criminalize Gay Sex; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tlawing gay and extramarital sex, setting back human rights in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Separately, some lawmakers are seeking to make homosexuality a crime in an amended criminal code that might be considered by parliament next year. AP quotes a human rights lawyer calling the 5-4 decision “a big verdict.” The judges in their ruling said it’s not the Constitutional Court’s role to criminalize private behavior or to usurp parliamen…

First U.S. Visit of the Virgin Mary Confirmed in Wisconsin

By Lewis Wallace

…its are still pending against the Diocese of Green Bay. Casting a shadow almo*]}*st long enough to reach Champion, the nearby Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed for bankruptcy in early 2011 after spending over $29 million addressing abuse claims over two decades. Meanwhile, the caretakers at the Shrine of our Lady of Good Help are trying to fundraise for basic amenities—a bathroom here, a wheelchair ramp there, and a new parking lot—before the site starts…

How the Politics of the 1890s Explain the GOP’s Health Care Woes

By Patricia Miller

…They were also in favor of adding silver to the currency supply to make it more elastic, which would loosen the hold of Eastern financial interest over interests rates and free up credit for small businesses and farmers. The Democrats opposed tariffs both as an imposition on the functioning of the free market and as a way to starve the federal government of revenue so it couldn’t do things like expand infrastructure. Throughout much of the 1880s,…

Not a ‘Weenie-A** Lodge’: James Ray Trial Begins

By Johnny P. Flynn

…became concerned about those who had passed out or were suffering obvious stress. Just after the tragedy Melinda Martin, a former employee of Ray’s, told ABC news that the scene was so chaotic that EMT’s thought at first they had arrived at a more ominous event. “There was vomiting, you know, moaning and crying, and it looked like a mass suicide. It looked like people were on their way out. It was crazy.” Soon after the incident, Lakota spiritu…

Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

By Sarah Posner

…center stage in the halls of the United States Congress in the latest and most blatant McCarthy-esque twist in the rising level of Islamophobia in the United States. Anti-Muslim diatribe and activity have reached what Marshall Breger, a law professor at Catholic University, an Orthodox Jew and a Republican, has described as a “season of singular national distemper where, for reasons best understood by social psychiatrists, the American people hav…

Yet Another Survey Shows ‘Nones’ Growth at Record Levels

By Elizabeth Drescher

…d Claude S. Fisher of UCB and Mark A. Chaves of Duke drew on data from the most recent General Social Survey (GSS), which has tracked religious preference since 1972, when a mere 5% of Americans self-identified as religiously unaffiliated. The report reinforces October 2012 findings by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life on the rapid growth in the population of Nones, especially among adults under age 30. According to the report, the demograph…

Sovereign Grace Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Just Got More Complicated

By T.F. Charlton

…May 17, however, Maryland Circuit Court Judge Sharon V. Burrell dismissed most of the suit on the grounds of statute of limitations: under state law, civil charges must be brought in many cases of child abuse within three years of the victim turning 18. If Burrell’s ruling stands, only the two remaining plaintiffs who are under 21 (both of whom are from Virginia) will be able to bring suit against SGM. On May 29, Susan Burke and William O’Neil,…