Brenton Tarrant is becoming a sickeningly familiar figure in the modern West: an angry, disaffected, lone wolf who finds purpose and community online with extremists who offer an escape from the wrenching dislocations of modernity through a blood-soaked path to redemption. His manifesto resembles a ISIS recruitment video, giving a heroic and cosmic meaning to an apocalyptic act of terror.
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(COMMENTARY) Harvard Business School predicts that half of America’s colleges will die during the coming decade, and many are Christian schools.
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A lot has been said and written about Jackie Robinson. The baseball legend — famous for breaking baseball’s color barrier — was known for many things. His athletic abilities, courage in the face of racism and the dignity with which he went about it all remain the focal points. What is often ignored — even forgotten — is Robinson’s Christian faith.
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(NEWS ANALYSIS) Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro — dubbed by some political commentators as the “Trump of the Tropics” — has been dogged by controversy and scandal. The result? That Christian coalition of supporters, a U.S.-style religious right, could very well abandon Bolsonaro if he ultimately fails to deliver.
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Politics and religion have come to loggerheads after Catholic conservatives called for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to be excommunicated, splitting the church’s hierarchy on how to deal with politicians who further an agenda contrary to the traditional teachings of the church. The call came after Cuomo signed into state law a measure that expanded abortion rights across the state.
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(ANALYSIS) A new documentary, Surviving R Kelly, focuses on allegations of Kelly’s sexual misconduct without exploring his departure from a religious upbringing.
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(OPINION) In Egypt alone, we have about 2 million children in Sunday School every week. In America, we also have thousands and thousands and thousands, not only for children but also for youth. And this is the strength of the church. A church without youth is a church without a future. A youth without the church, is a youth that is lost.
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One million people of China’s Uighur population have been incarcerated in a growing number of “political re-education” camps. The thirty-one camps encompass more than 2 million square meters and function as prisons in what’s described as “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”
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William Buckley’s ability to articulate a strong national defense, need for small government and a devotion to God and traditional values became the bedrock of the modern American conservative movement. It was Buckley’s Catholic faith that proved central to his life and ideology. He was a man who not only lived his devotion daily, but one that helped to inspire future generations of politicians, thinkers and broadcasters.
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(COMMENTARY) Europe took a dystopian turn last week when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that governments can punish citizens for criticizing the prophet Muhammad if such criticism “conflicts with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected.”
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(COMMENTARY) The New York Times reported this week that the Donald Trump Administration is considering, for federal purposes, a definition that a person is male or female “based on immutable biological traits identified by or before birth,” supplemented if necessary by genetic testing. That would overturn a policy under President Barack Obama to recognize transgender identities.
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(OPINION) This week 20 years ago, Tom Osanjo was running late to report on a press conference between Kenya’s Trade Minister and the U.S. ambassador. It may have saved his life.
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Mary McAleese, an attorney and the former president of Ireland, assailed her Catholic Church for its practice of baptizing infants shortly after birth with parents making vows on their behalf. She argues that this treats children as “infant conscripts who are held to lifelong obligations of obedience,” and is a violation of their human rights.
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In Kashmir, the Amarnath Pilgrimage showcases the perfect symbol of unity and bonding between Hindus and Muslims.
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Nathan DiCamillo reflects on his time as a freelancer for The Capital Gazette. He freelanced for the paper while he was in school from 2014 to 2016 and says the staff there taught him the basics of journalism and helped him to launch his career.
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Justice Anthony Kennedy's 7-2 majority opinion in favor of the baker at the Masterpiece Cakeshop focused on evidence that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had demonstrated open hostility towards owner Jack Phillips and his Christian faith. Meanwhile, Phillips says he is looking forward to creating more wedding cakes, now that he is free to do so while following his Christian convictions.
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The bizarre, cultish group that made headlines for recruiting women to be “slaves” and “masters” has closed after its leader, Keith Raniere, was denied bail after appealing in court. Raniere’s cult, NXIVM, caught the public’s attention last fall when the New York Times published a detailed exposé that included graphic details about branding of female followers, coerced sexual acts and blackmail.
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The soap opera that is Italian politics has taken a dramatic turn in recent weeks as two populist parties on opposite ends of the spectrum have decided to join forces as the Catholic Church opposes the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that has engulfed the country over the past year.
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Ann-Marie Wilson, a doctor of psychology and a midwife who trained in Pakistan, recently completed a paper on the origins of FGM, claiming that the mummies in the British Museum show clear signs of the practice. Now three countries, Egypt (97 per cent), Ethiopia and Indonesia (the most populous Muslim country in the world) account for more than half of the 200 million women and girls who have undergone what can be a life-threatening procedure.
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Why has a letter by the Archbishop of Delhi to all the Parish priests and religious institutions in the Archdiocese of Delhi with the subject ‘Prayer for our nation’ created a firestorm in India? The media suddenly is abuzz after several different voices across the political spectrum cry foul that the letter is meant to divide the nation on communal lines. Notably, the right wing Hindu organization’s ideologue called it a "direct attack on secularism and democracy."
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