(OPINION) The pandemic is adding stressors to an already stressed landscape of faith-based academic institutions. These schools will have to make hard choices about their futures, and that will require evaluating their core missions.
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On April 24, the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims welcomed their most important holiday with the appearance of the new moon. Usually, they would spend 30 days fasting, studying the Quran and enjoying celebratory “iftars,” evening meals with tables full of food and homes full of family and friends. This year, none of that is happening in the usual ways.
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A neighbor of the field hospital and an area activist had sharply different reactions to Franklin Graham’s organization setting up an emergency medical facility in Central Park.
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(OPINION) The ever-evolving coronavirus pandemic has upended our world in ways no one could have ever expected. Journalists still don’t know where this story is going. One thing is clear. While death tolls climb and fall depending on which countries are effectively flattening the curve, the vast majority of those of us who are healthy and staying at home still have to deal with loneliness.
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(OPINION) The United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) launched its annual report Tuesday, recommending India, Nigeria, Russia, Syria and Vietnam as “countries of particular concern” engaging in severe religious freedom violations.
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As lockdowns largely halt the economy, small businesses are bracing for the worst. A creative church on the East coast and a faith-based rehabilitation center on the West coast have found ways to boost local business in their COVID-19 relief efforts.
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Nearly a third of America’s public and private universities were already operating at a deficit before the coronavirus pandemic. Now the crisis threatens the survival of the weaker institutions in higher education, and even those that survive will emerge weaker as they struggle with destructive ripple effects for years. Here’s how Christian colleges are coping.
Read MoreJamie Kimmel’s training and prior experience as a hospice chaplain couldn’t have prepared him for the ways this crisis is changing how he works. He’s rationing personal protective equipment and relying on reduced public transportation for his commute. At his hospital, he comforts COVID-19 patients by phone as they grapple with existential questions and the possibility of death, all while separated from loved ones.
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While white evangelicals are the least likely religious group to view global warming as a crisis, there is a growing movement of evangelicals like Michelle Frazer who not only care about the impacts of climate change, but perhaps more significantly, are appealing to conservative Christians in ways that the secular, left-leaning environmental movement hasn’t.
Read More(OPINION) There are plenty of baseball players who openly practice Christianity, but Billy Sunday is unique in that he exchanged his bat for a Bible and embarked on a career as a preacher, capitalizing on his time as a ballplayer to generate interest in his revivals.
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A spiritual experience in the desert set Mitch Hescox on a path toward igniting Christians to care for the environment. Caring about environmental issues like climate change and pollution is about caring for the least of these in society, and that’s the only way to be truly pro-life, he argues.
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(OPINION) It’s an old debate. American attitudes about the country’s economic system are shifting. The issue isn’t black or white, and religious thinkers are weighing on from a variety of denominations and worldviews.
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While the latest statistics from the LDS Church show a slight growth in membership worldwide, much of the growth is coming from abroad. Polarization and inflexibility prevent growth more than controversy, religious scholars say.
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(OPINION) In early April, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom called for the release of prisoners of conscience in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. These prisoners are often detained simply for holding beliefs their government does not recognize. But a prison sentence should not become a death sentence due to the virus.
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(OPINION) No one knows exactly how long the COVID-19 shutdown will continue, but the crisis provides a unique opportunity to look into the past for tips on dealing with the present.
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Gilead Sciences, which has raised hopes of a drug to treat coronavirus with some early signs of success in clinical trials, is named after an ancient salve used in Bible times.
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(OPINION) Coronavirus is bringing to the fore what is likely to be one of Islam’s most fundamental divides of the next decade: the rift between those Muslims whose worldview is being shaped by the modern world and those who are clinging to a literalist past.
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(OPINION) A chance to attend an online multi-day silent retreat during the coronavirus lockdown helped this Buddhist author use a time of crisis for greater spiritual growth, self-care and inner joy.
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Combining Buddhism, Haiku poetry and meditative photography, Tyler Knott Gregson offers insight into coping with chaos, loss and isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic through his experiences struggling with autism. He shares his artwork and his journey with more than 350,000 Instagram followers, self-identified “Chasers of the Light.”
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(OPINION) As social distancing restrictions tighten, church hierarchies and their parishioners are struggling to reconcile with what is being sacrificed for public health and order.
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