Posts in Religion
Why Gaza Remains A Big Challenge For Democrats This Election Season

As millions prepare to watch the Democratic National Convention this week, tens of thousands of protesters are converging on Chicago to rally against the ongoing war in Gaza. Inside the United Center arena, at least 30 party delegates are expected to voice their opposition to the administration’s policies on the conflict.

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Most Americans Believe God Played A Role In Human Origins

A majority of U.S. adults believe humans came about because of divine intervention, but there’s disagreement over what that involvement looked like. A Gallup survey finds 37% of Americans believe God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.

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‘God Bless Bitcoin’ Makes A Sincere — But Mixed — Case In Cryptocurrency Belief

(REVIEW) Cryptocurrency is a really fascinating topic worth talking about. It’s gratifying to see it being talked about in the context of faith. If the documentary had only trusted the audience more to inform them rather than advertise to them, it would have added something even more valuable to the conversation.

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Europe Is Not Very Religious — And There’s The Data To Show It

Is there a more recent dataset of European religion that I haven’t analyzed yet. And the answer is yes! There is one. It just released data from a survey wave that was administered in 2023 and 2024. It’s not all of Europe, just 13 countries. It doesn’t include France, but it does have a nice representation from Western Europe, Scandinavia and a few Eastern European countries thrown in there.

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Judge Rules UCLA Discriminated Against Jews During Gaza War Protests

The University of California at Los Angeles blocked Jewish students from portions of campus when protests erupted in response to the Israel-Hamas War, a district judge has ruled, citing their faith as the sole factor.

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Arizona And Missouri Add Ballot Measures To Codify Abortion Rights

Arizona and Missouri are the latest states to add measures to the November ballot allowing voters to enshrine abortion rights in their respective state constitutions, joining at six other states with similar measures. In at least two states, Nebraska and Pennsylvania, ballot initiatives to protect life are pending.

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A Look Back In Time To Japan’s Forgotten 19th Century Martyrs

(ESSAY) In one theme of this summer's travels, the history of Japanese Christianity, I found a different issue. This is the ignorance not only amongst foreigners but also amongst Japanese themselves of that history, particularly the long history of persecution. Some of this, especially the dire persecutions of the early seventeenth century, is better known through Shusako Endo's gripping 1966 novel “Silence.”

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Columbia President Minouche Shafik Resigns Following Pro-Palestinian Protests

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigned Wednesday, bowing to pressure from university faculty and students and public officials who widely criticized her handling of pro-Palestinian campus protests last school year.

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How The Education System Erased God’s Image And Likeness

(ANALYSIS) To the left of my standing desk sits my treasured collection of drawings that our grandchildren have given me. Our grandkids are unabashedly excited about their drawings. They should be. They remind us of how we’re made in God’s image and likeness.

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Divine Insights: Can Dreams Really Predict the Future?

(ANALYSIS) In many religious traditions, precognitive experiences are considered gifts from higher powers. Prophets like Isaiah and Daniel in the Bible received visions directly from God, guiding communities with forewarnings and words of wisdom. Similarly, Islam attributes precognitive elements to the revelations of the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran, offering insights into future events and moral lessons.

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On Religion: How A Baby Boomer Priest Helped Millennials Grow Deeper In Their Faith

(ANALYSIS) As a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, Father Stephen Noll felt a sense of loss when he learned he would need a smartphone app to attend baseball games. Noll calls himself a “digital dinosaur, perhaps from the Jurassic period.” What he didn't expect, after 50 years of priesthood, was for this digital divide to affect his ministry.

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Why The Ultimate Goal — In Sports And Life — Is Called A ‘Holy Grail’

(ANALYSIS) Several important threads have combined over the centuries to give rise to the Holy Grail metaphor commonly used nowadays. These include elements of pre-Christian mythology, the veneration of relics in Christian tradition, and medieval literature from Great Britain and France.

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Zimbabwean Community And Jesuits Clash Over Ancestral Land

Local residents and the Catholic order have engaged in a years-long court battle after the church tried to evict them from their ancestral land on the outskirts of the capital Harare. The more than 1,000 families, however, were relieved when a court agreed to halt, for now, a move by the Jesuits to evict them from their land that the church wants to turn into an urban residential area.

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How Global Religious Freedom Is Being Harmed By Government Lies

Government-fostered misinformation and disinformation are hindering religious liberty in several places globally, USCIRF said in an August factsheet, and spreading societal religious persecution including violence. USCIRF defined misinformation as a claim that is false or inaccurate, and disinformation as a false or inaccurate claim that the government deliberately disseminates.

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Harris, Walz And Shapiro: Election Faith Factors To Consider

(ANALYSIS) This extraordinary political year displays an increasingly multicultural America. Starting with Harris, she'd be the first Asian American to be president, the first with Hindu roots as signified by her name, the first female and first female African American. Despite Donald Trump’s feigned racial perplexity, her dual Black identity is equally obvious since she chose to attend Howard University and has been a member of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church for three decades.  

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There’s A Lot I’d Like To Tell My Grandkids, But They’re Too Busy To Listen — For Now

(OPINION) I’ve got important things I want to tell my grandkids. I’m older. I’ve learned stuff. I could save them lots of problems and disappointments. Some years ago, I decided to write a book I’d call something like, “Things I Want to My Grandkids to Know.” I’d self-publish it and provide a copy to each of the kids.

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‘Doing What God Had Called Them To’: Q&A With ‘Accidental Diplomats’ Author Phil Dow

During the Cold War, an oft overlooked battle for minds unfolded on the vast stage of Africa. As colonial powers withdrew and new African nations emerged, both the United States and the Soviet Union scrambled for alliances.  Author Phil Dow’s new book, “Accidental Diplomats,” catalogs the influence of American evangelical missionaries in Ethiopia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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Churches And Politics: What’s Allowed When It Comes To Candidates?

What political activities can churches and other religious nonprofit groups engage in legally? According to the Internal Revenue Service, “Section 501(c)(3) organizations are precluded from, and suffer loss of exemption for, engaging in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.”

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