Hong Kong was tense and festive when I arrived for a small 1997 conference about religion coverage in global media. The reason for the odd atmosphere was obvious: In a few days, on July 1, Great Britain would yield control of that great city to the People’s Republic of China.
Read More“My stories for Religion Unplugged are important because they offer readers a nuanced understanding of a complex region often reduced to simplistic narratives,” Iqbal said. “The website amplifies original, deeply reported stories that reveal how religion has become central to social and political developments.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) There are moments in our national life when a legal controversy reveals something deeper than a dispute over statutes or precedent. It exposes a fracture in our shared moral imagination — a failure to recognize what is sacred to communities whose ways of life do not mirror our own. The struggle for Oak Flat in Arizona's Tonto National Forest is one of those moments.
Read MoreNigerian Christian leaders verified that Christians there are persecuted for their faith, refuting a growing international narrative that violence in the deadliest country for Christians is not religion-based.
Read MoreA Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach turned deadly on Sunday with updated reports of at least 15 dead, including a Chabad rabbi, a Holocaust survivor and a 12-year-old girl. One suspect was killed at the scene and the other was arrested, in a targeted attack on Jews that authorities are investigating as terrorism.
Read MoreDespite cannabis's central role in Rastafarian worship, adherents face persistent criminalization and face a minimum 10-year prison term for simple possession. Police raids on tabernacles remain routine across Kenya, with officers confiscating plants, destroying drums and sometimes forcibly cutting dreadlocks. Now, adherents are trying to legalize it.
Read More(ANALYSIS) On his recent visit to Turkey and Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV met with political and religious leaders, celebrated Mass and visited historical sites. The trip also marked the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which resolved core doctrinal differences, with the aim of advancing Christian unity at the time.
Read MoreRed post boxes are one of the most well-known and iconic British symbols — but at Christmastime, they take on a very different ambiance, often virtually overnight. Posting Christmas cards becomes even more fun as you never know quite what might appear on top of the post box in many part of the U.K.
Read MoreFilm and culture critic Joseph Holmes knows a good film when he sees one, but he hardly ever sees one — or at least that’s the running joke among Religion Unplugged staff.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Until the 1960s, Quebec was the most religious part of North America. Now it is home to an aggressive secularist government that, on Nov. 27, introduced a proposed law, Bill 9, that would outlaw public prayer. For several centuries, religious minorities faced discrimination and, until the 1960s, Jehovah's Witnesses were still being arrested for their refusal to salute the flag.
Read MoreThe Rev. Emmanuel Bekomson, the parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Calabar, Nigeria, became concerned about how members of his parish with different disabilities were being engaged in church activities. He became even more unsettled and burdened when he discovered that some members did not attend Mass.
Read More(ANALYSIS) In Laos, Christian burials are barred from cemeteries, churches have to find improvised worship spaces, and Christians are often pressured to engage in activities that go against their religion. And with neighboring China’s new influence, it may get even worse.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Reading these living picture books aloud at Thanksgiving allows children to meet the story in its full shape — its beauty, its failures, its moments of generosity, and its deep contradictions. They see people whose faith guided them across an ocean, and people whose spiritual practices had been rooted in this land for generations.
Read MoreWhen Western Christian missionaries arrived in Africa in the 19th century, they disallowed the use of native musical instruments in church, which they associated with demonic worship. But now, all these years later, the instruments are making a comeback in churches across the continent to the delight of millions.
Read MoreOn the same day the breakfast concluded, a local news outlet reported that two Armenian opposition podcasters had been placed in pre-trial detention. Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan, co-hosts of the “Imnemnimi” podcast, had been arrested over comments made in a Nov. 10 episode about National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan.
Read MoreAt a Delhi temple, Afghan Sikhs gather in prayer, their voices rising in unison, yet their hearts weighed down with longing for a homeland they were forced to leave. Among them is Daya Singh. He fled Afghanistan twice — first in 1992 when the Taliban seized control, and again in 2006 after facing persecution for being Sikh.
Read More(ANALYSIS) It’s been over a decade since Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok, Borno, in April 2014. The abduction received international attention, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirl being shared globally, including by Michelle Obama.
Read MoreThe U.S. designation of Nigeria as an egregious violator of religious freedoms has not gone far enough to stem violence there, top persecution watchdogs said amid an intense uptick in attacks on Christians in the African nation.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Nine in 10 Americans gather around a table to share food on Thanksgiving. At this polarizing moment, anything that promises to bring Americans together warrants our attention. The emphasis on the Pilgrims’ 1620 landing and 1621 feast erased a great deal of religious history and narrowed conceptions of who belongs in America — at times excluding groups such as Native Americans, Catholics and Jews.
Read MoreItaly’s Supreme Court ruled that an evangelical worship space, which is located in a former shop a short distance from the Vatican, does not qualify as a religious edifice due to its non-traditional appearance.
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