(ANALYSIS) The manosphere is a catchall term for websites, forums, blogs and influencers promoting a particular kind of hypermasculinity, from the belief that women and feminism are the cause of men’s problems to calls to legalize rape.
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Categorizing those who do violence is a messy business. The very individuals who are called heroes, warriors and revolutionaries by some can be categorized as villains, murderers and radicals by others. But when the morality of a violent person is highly controversial or just ambiguous, we have a separate, more fuzzy term – we call them a vigilante.
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Baptists in Lebanon are suffering the escalation of Israel’s war with Hezbollah, as the war zone has expanded to include areas surrounding Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS) and the Beirut Baptist School, both founded by Southern Baptists.
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The meeting is being held during an election cycle in which rejecting AIPAC support has become a defining issue in Democratic races. It also comes amid concerns from some Jewish Democrats — including ones critical of AIPAC — that the group’s emergence as a bogeyman in American politics is inappropriate or even antisemitic.
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(ESSAY) When Passover arrives each spring, Jewish families around the world gather at their tables to retell a story passed down for thousands of years. At ritual dinners known as Seders, they recount the Exodus, the biblical story of the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt — asking questions, singing songs and explaining the meaning behind symbolic foods like matzo.
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(REVIEW) “The House of David” Season Two improves on its strengths while refining its flaws, delivering a compelling biblical epic about power, faith and leadership. Despite some uneven pacing and character development, it offers a timely, countercultural vision of heroism grounded in moral responsibility.
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Passover plans this April 1 are a tossup for Israel, including the nation’s 20,000 to 30,000 Christians.
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(REVIEW) In 1954, the Oscar-winning composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold staged a European homecoming with a new operetta. How this came to pass — and how his planned comeback failed to materialize — is even more convoluted than the piece’s farcical plot. Korngold, a Jewish refugee from Vienna, first came to Hollywood to adapt Felix Mendelssohn’s music for Max Reinhardt’s 1935 film of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
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(ANALYSIS) Every major escalation in the Middle East sends shock waves far beyond the region. In the United States, those shock waves arrive not as distant tremors — but as catalysts for domestic radicalization and violence, particularly against Jewish communities. The data, in this regard, is unambiguous.
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(ANALYSIS) In theory, many Christians support pacifism or non-violent resistance, but for Iranian Christians, those theories are challenged by the harsh realities of a hellish regime and an ongoing war. This question of ‘just war’ has a long history, going back to the first centuries of the church.
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(ANALYSIS) It’s Oscars season and some of Hollywood’s most notable films about religion — from “Ben-Hur” to “A Man for All Seasons” — were made many decades ago. Why do explicitly faith-centered films appear less often in mainstream Hollywood today? How does spirituality continue to shape storytelling in different ways? We answer all these questions and more.
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(ANALYSIS) One thing I am always probing the edges of is how deeply religion is embedded in each one of us. There’s a saying that bounces around the sociology of religion: “you may be done with religion but religion is not done with you.”
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(ANALYSIS) As the American and Israeli war with Iran unfolds, some American Christians are speaking of the conflict in biblical terms — mapping end-time prophecies on to current events in the Middle East. In a sermon on March 1, for example, John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, described the war as part of a divine plan.
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The report critiqued other branches of the U.S. government that have undercut protections for religious freedom. It criticized, for example, cuts to USAID programs, since many of those programs were specifically aimed at protecting religious freedom.
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(ANALYSIS) The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader on Sunday marks a pivotal moment for the country’s political and religious future — and for the religious minorities who have long lived under the constraints of the Islamic Republic’s theocratic government. As the war rages on, it remains to be seen what his elevation means for Iran and the region.
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(ANALYSIS) One of the books I’ve read in the last couple of years that has really stuck with me is Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind.” It’s a distillation of a lot of his work on how people manage to puzzle their way through tricky moral situations. For instance, he discusses the classic Heinz dilemma.
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The summit unfolded against a backdrop of escalating geopolitical tension, coinciding with U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran that resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the prospect of regime change in a country gripped by Shi’a rule for nearly 50 years. For many of the attendees who flew to Malta, regime change in Iran is the start of a new era.
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Overt antisemitism among online influencers has started to break into the real world. A notable recent example comes via Tyler Oliveira, a YouTuber who rose to fame with stunts like trying to absorb a swimming pool’s worth of water with paper towels before pivoting to “documentaries” that often purport to expose conservative bugaboos — and who has filmed two recent videos focused on Jews.
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(ANALYSIS) Respondents were first asked the standard question: “What is your present religion, if any?” They were given about a dozen response options, ranging from Protestant to Catholic to Jewish to agnostic. After answering that question, respondents were given a follow-up battery that asked: “Aside from religion, do you consider yourself to be any of the following in any way (for example, ethnically, culturally, or because of your family’s background)?”
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As Holocaust survivors age, organizations are turning to AI-powered avatars to preserve their testimony. An interactive version of survivor Sonia Warshawski, created with StoryFile, allows students to ask questions about her life and experiences. Supporters call it the future of Holocaust education, while critics question its ethical and emotional limits.
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