Search

Journalist Christine Wicker thinks that the influence of the Religious Right, now on the wane, has been disastrous for American Christianity.

A letter to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg from a scholar of religious extremism.

The message of General Comment No. 34 is not only a clear condemnation of the blasphemy laws of countries such as Pakistan, which despite having ratified the ICCPR in 2008, continues to impose the death sentence for blasphemy and “defiling” the name of Prophet Muhammad. The Comment equally repudiates the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which has upheld Austrian, British, and Turkish laws against blasphemy and religious insult by invoking a sui generis right to “respect for the religious feelings of believers.”

In the wake of the Catholic Bishops’ lobbying hard for the Stupak Amendment a pastor weighs in on tax exemptions for Churches.

For the Greeks, museums were sacred places dedicated to the muses. How is it that the Catholic Church got into the pagan shrine business?

A recent NYT op-ed insists that it was Vivekananda who introduced yoga into the American “national conversation.” But that claim is flat-out wrong. I’m not suggesting that we ignore Vivekananda’s proven significance in the history and development of modern yoga, but the story is much more complex than what Bardach implies. She seems to suggest, after all, that it’s as simple as: Vivekananda introduced yoga to the West, “great minds” loved him, yoga was eventually co-opted by New Age baby-boomers, and it all went downhill from there.

Last week’s corruption bust is not the tale of a uniquely Jewish form of organized crime, a “Kosher Nostra,” but a sordid chapter in a broadly human tragedy—albeit with a lot of local color.

His district is no more Catholic than the rest of Michigan or the country, but it is heavily Republican.

Bruce Lawrence’s unflattering review of Ariel Glucklich’s new book on suicide bombers elicited a spirited response from the author.

Out of 23 Democrats who voted for Stupak-Pitts but against House health care reform bill, six are Catholics.