(ANALYSIS) A delegation of 12 Buddhist monks recently walked across Sri Lanka along with their adopted dog Aloka. People of all faiths in Sri Lanka, who have witnessed riots and bloodbaths in the past decade, welcomed them. Apart from Buddhist monks, Christian, Muslim and Hindu leaders joined the U.S.-based delegation during their week-long peace walk across the island nation.
Read MoreChristians and Muslims used to fight over food at this internally displaced refugee camp in Nigeria. Following a key change by the camp’s leadership more than a decade ago, the families now live peacefully, befriending each other, eating meals together and raising their kids as a single community.
Read MoreIn Christianity, Buddhism and Judaism, religious teachings consistently emphasize caring for others — whether through love of neighbor, generosity as spiritual practice or the moral obligation to give. In fact, charity is one of the Five Pillars of the faith but potentially the least discussed. It’s the Third Pillar and is called zakat (Arabic for “almsgiving”) — an annual obligation to give a portion of one’s wealth to those in need.
Read MorePhysical health and religious practice can help you live longer. Research points to religious involvement being positively correlated with longer life spans. Frequent religious attendance is associated with an average reduction in mortality risk of approximately 34%. In a nationwide BYU study, frequent religious attendees lived seven years longer than non-attenders.
Read More(OPINION) An international investigator will visit Nigeria to assess the religious persecution occurring across the country, and there are so many issues that it’s hard to know where she should begin. Will she detail the mass kidnappings that have occurred regularly over the past decade? The religious and tribal fighting? The terrorist organizations wreaking havoc on the country?
Read More(ANALYSIS) As Muslims gather for the annual pilgrimage of Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, they will circle around the “Kaaba,” a black cube draped in gold-embroidered cloth. A ceremonial textile — known as the “kiswah” — covers the Kaaba, around which Muslims will walk seven times in a ritual known as “tawāf.” It is the central act of the annual pilgrimage.
Read MoreAt the dawn of the new millennium in northern Nigeria, while a Christian man was petitioning God with his midnight prayers, his 19-year-old Muslim neighbor was calling upon Allah, also through prayer. What the Muslim teen didn’t know is that he would someday convert to Christianity, something that in the African nation can prove to be dangerous.
Read MoreTravel to Cairo and you’ll find Muslims and Christians intertwining their faiths, borrowing one another’s saints and celebrating religious festivals side by side. The official iconography of Saint George, for example, shows a knight on horseback — an image that echoes ancient Egyptian depictions of Horus striking a hippopotamus with a spear.
Read More(REVIEW) A “Romeo and Juliet” style love story, “Cast Aside The Clouds” that protests how religious intolerance — such as the kind regularly levied against the Baháʼí people in Iran — threatens love by targeting innocent people for oppression.
Read MoreAfter yet another deadly attack, the focus turns — once again — to protecting houses of worship. The shooting at a San Diego mosque hit close to home for a Jewish engineer more than 1,300 miles away.
Read MoreMove over, pastors. New research reveals your counseling and pastoral care may no longer be needed. A new study shows that congregations might increasingly be turning to AI to deal with their spiritual needs and help with personal growth. The research shows 1 in 3 adults now believes AI's spiritual guidance is just as trustworthy as that of a pastor.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Many Muslim Americans are fearful following a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego that left three worshipers dead. Investigators reportedly found hate speech and anti-Islamic writing inside the vehicle of the suspected shooters, who killed themselves soon after the attack.
Read MoreThe killing of three people at San Diego’s largest mosque highlighted the rise in Islamophobia that has spread across the United States over the last few years. There had been no specific threat made against the Islamic Center of San Diego, but police officials found evidence that the suspects — two teenage boys — had engaged in “generalized hate rhetoric.”
Read MoreEarlier this year, a 15-year-old walked through the gates of her high school in Kenya, wearing her hijab. The student and her parents had been assured by the principal that she could continue wearing it, just as she had throughout primary school. A few weeks later, that assurance fell apart. It has become part of a broader fight regarding religious freedom in the country.
Read MoreMaria lives in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with her husband and four children, content with being farmers and living in the fields. But the 27-year-old woman, who did not want to be identified by her full name, has always faced persecution for being Christians. She isn’t alone. It’s the type of violence many in Africa have had to deal with for years.
Read MoreMilitant Fulani killed more Christians in Nigeria over the past year than any other aggressor, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said May 8 in naming the militants a nonstate violator of religious freedom.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Liberal democracies promise freedom and prosperity, yet they often struggle to answer a deeper question: What is this freedom for? When shared narratives and moral horizons fade, individuals may experience fragmentation and a loss of meaning. Politics shrinks into technocratic management.
Read MoreThe Israeli thriller “Unconditional” has sparked accusations of “hasbara” before release, but the series proves more complicated than simple propaganda. Following a young Israeli woman imprisoned in Russia, the show explores national image-making, Israeli behavior abroad, and the moral gray zones surrounding identity, war, and public perception.
Read MoreReligious minorities in India are in dire straits, facing persecution, lynching and other violence, according to a U.S. watchdog group. “Every day violence and calls for violence have become routine,” said Stephen J. Rapp, Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice. “Throughout this grim history, it is seldom that the perpetrators have been held to account.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) The United States is on the verge of being burned again for not seeing the importance of religious belief driving human behavior in global conflicts. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not defending Iran as a state but its version of Islam as a global religion.
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