Posts tagged religion and politics
A New Book Attempts To Restore The Girl Behind The ‘Many Lives’ Of Anne Frank

(REVIEW) “The Many Lives of Anne Frank” is trenchant, elegant and relevant — beautifully written, almost like a novel. Franklin achieves the seemingly impossible: Allowing the reader to see the flesh-and-blood Anne — complex, rambunctious, talkative, critical, acerbic, funny and vivacious — rather than the homogenized and sentimentalized figure enshrined in pop culture.

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Trump’s Greenland Obsession Overlooks A Spiritual Iceberg

A week doesn’t go by without President Donald Trump talking about “needing” to acquire Greenland. As reporters rush to cover this mysterious territory, much has been said the island’s politics and melting ice — but nothing about the island’s eclectic religious mix of Lutherans, Pentecostals, Baptists, Baha’is and Catholics.

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Amid India-Pakistan Tensions, What International Law Says About War

(EXPLAINER) As tensions rise between India and Pakistan, questions about what constitutes a lawful war are once again in focus. International law makes a clear distinction between jus ad bellum (the right to go to war) and jus in bello (the rules governing conduct in war). These are framed by the United Nations Charter, customary international law and treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, all of which define what states and their leaders can — and cannot — do during conflict.

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Uprooted Kashmiri Hindus Using Radio To Keep Their Identity Alive

Founded in 2013, Radio Sharda has grown into a powerful cultural project — broadcasting Kashmiri-language content to a global diaspora and anchoring displaced people to their roots. Named after the goddess of learning and the ancient Sharada Peeth temple, Radio Sharda is more than a radio station. It is a living archive of a vanishing language, a meeting point for artists and a shared refuge for memory.

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Bibles In Schools Should Be A Choice

(OPINION) While public school Bible initiatives seem commendable, and we agree with recognizing the Bible’s value as an educational resource for teaching the moral, spiritual and historical context of Western civilization, we believe there’s a less controversial way to go about encouraging Bible teaching in our schools.

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How These Supreme Court Cases Could Reshape The Law Regarding Religion

(ANALYSIS) The big U.S. Supreme Court decisions due in the coming two months include three cases on the religion clauses in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. At issue: Can a state deny a tax benefit to religious charities it thinks are not “religious” enough, can parents withdraw public elementary children from classes on gender identity and whether the state can fund a religious charter school.  

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2024 Election Post-Mortem: How Did Evangelicals Vote?

(ANALYSIS) The breakdown of the non-White evangelical vote may tell the story of the 2024 election when it comes to religion. Republicans have historically struggled with this group of voters. But it was essentially split in 2024 — Harris 49% and Trump at 48%.

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What Ancient Animal Fables From India Teach About Political Wisdom

(ANALYSIS) Viṣṇuśarman’s “Pañcatantra” is a striking collection of animal fables from perhaps around 300 C.E. in which birds, lions and others speak and reason as humans do. The stories are parables that teach how to negotiate sometimes brave, sometimes cruel, sometimes clever and sometimes naïve friends and enemies alike.

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Christian Zionism Hasn’t Always Been A Conservative Evangelical Creed

President Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is one of the GOP’s most prominentChristian Zionists” — a phrase often associated with conservative evangelicals’ support for Israel. But Christian Zionism is much older than the 1980s alliance between the Republican Party and the religious right.

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Church Nonprofit Loses — Then Regains — Funding After Musk Reprieve

Mana Nutrition, a ministry supported by Churches of Christ and used in global relief efforts, is among a host of nonprofits worldwide that receive grants from USAID and had their contracts terminated through DOGE spending cuts. For Mana, contracts were later restored, but disruptions were felt.

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Why Manipur’s ‘Territorial Integrity’ Remains A Risky Narrative

(ANALYSIS) In international law, territorial integrity would mean a country’s right to “sovereignty” over its entire territory, prohibiting external interference or attempts to alter its borders. In Manipur, the term refers to preserving the territory of the state as it existed at the end of the British Raj in 1947. Protecting a state’s “territorial integrity” is largely a political concern with little constitutional basis.

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Evangelicals’ Uneasy History With The Government Trough

(ANALYSIS) Conservatives, Christian conservatives in particular, have always had a troubled and inconsistent relationship with the idea of government funding flowing to nonprofits. Now, Donald Trump has reengaged the fight to reduce the size of government with DOGE, though he is going about it in strange ways.

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Should Christian Ministries Take Government Funds?

(ANALYSIS) The backlash against President Trump’s funding freeze was swift and strong. But the outcry was not just from progressives. A number of Christian groups, some of them relatively conservative, also objected. World Relief, the benevolence arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, said the freeze would hamper their refugee resettlement efforts.

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Hegseth Says He’s ‘Christian And Robustly Supports Israel’ In Fiery Senate Hearing

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, avowed that he is a Christian who “robustly supports” Israel and its war against Hamas in Gaza. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, provided favorable coverage of Israel on the network and said that his time in the U.S. Army turned him into a supporter of the Jewish state.

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Are There Any Religion Lessons From The 2024 Election?

(ANALYSIS) Any presidential election causes a real problem for me. I do get asked to talk to reporters and do webinars and write pieces for major outlets about the role that faith played at the ballot box. There’s one issue: I just don’t have access to any reliable data for a very long time after an election.

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‘The After Party’ Offers Christians An Escape From Divisive Politics

Spearheading one of a growing number of attempts among evangelicals to empower clergy and laypeople to reframe the political divide, the creators of “The After Party” hope to foster conversations that will not only promote healing but enable those engaged to participate in public life in ways that are constructive, rather than chronically divisive.

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Amid Tense Election, Ministers Remind Christians Of Allegiance To God

During another divisive political season, preachers across the nation are expressing messages that put “politics in perspective.” While many permit or even encourage participation in the political process, they advise church members to measure their political beliefs against the Gospel.

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Did The Election of Donald Trump Drive People from the Pews?

(ANALYSIS) There is no doubt in my mind that politics is one of the main culprits for the emptying out of American religion. That was my starting point for this piece. What follows is a peek inside how I think through a problem like that.

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Did Mainstream Media Distort America's Religion-and-Politics Divide? Is this Still Happening?

(OPINION) While culling files from decades of religion-beat work, I have come across a forgotten and seminal article from 2002 that contended the media were distorting public understanding of American politics. It said "religious right" Republicans were blanketed with coverage and turned the tables, contending that "the true origins" of cultural conflict were found in increased "secularist" influence in the Democratic Party.

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