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.
Read MoreAbout 200 Christians of multiple nationalities — Russian, Ukrainian, Iranian and Israeli, to name a few — sang a hymn of unity together, their citizenship on Earth far less important than a shared home in heaven. Some attendees drove 45 minutes. Others spent more than a day on planes and buses. They gathered in a city known for a particular distance — 26.2 miles.
Read MoreU.S. adults support in vitro fertilization in general but are more divided about destroying embryos created in the process. The assisted reproductive technology procedure involves fertilizing an egg with sperm in a lab dish and then implanting the egg in a woman seeking to get pregnant. Around 2 percent of births each year in the U.S., or almost 100,000, involve IVF.
Read More(OPINION) I’ve come to believe lizard brain/reactive thinking explains much about why religion and politics — not to mention, say, family quarrels — turn irrational and toxic. Your first reaction is to assume the worst. We’re born ready-made with a predisposition toward the negative, which motivates us with an urgency the positive rarely equals.
Read MoreEquatorial Guinea has a history of infringing on religious freedom dating back to the 1950s. The country is at it again using legislation to forcefully close numerous churches and deny thousands the freedom to worship. Six Pentecostal and evangelical churches were shut down by the government last year alone due to their failure to abide by registration regulations.
Read More(REVIEW) “Shepherds” is certainly a book that is stuffed with footnotes, each page linking to multiple articles and websites to back up her claims. It’s unfortunately a book many people will jump to either attack or support without actually looking up the sources themselves. But it is a book that requires just that to responsibly engage with it. To Basham’s credit, she provides the footnotes for people to check her work. For this review, I did not fact-check every source that Basham cited.
Read More(REVIEW) Adventurous, dangerous, fabulous, redemptive and revolting: Medieval travel was all of this and more, as Bale describes, drawing upon a host of period narratives to paint a vivid picture of the experience during an era dominated in the West by pilgrimage. The reasons that pilgrims embarked for places like Canterbury, Santiago de Compostela, Rome and Jerusalem (the holiest and most desirable of all) were manifold.
Read MoreAs the effects of climate change become more apparent in Africa and in other parts of the world, eco-anxiety is becoming prevalent. This is true especially in Africa, a continent that is home to a disproportionate share of climate change-related disasters but also has limited resources to deal with them.
Read MoreMost churchgoers believe Christians have a good reputation with Americans in general, but they worry those feelings are starting to sour. A Lifeway Research study finds 53% of U.S. Protestant churchgoers say most Americans have a positive perception of Christians. Two in five (40%) disagree and 8% aren’t sure.
Read MoreMembers of Israel’s Haredi community are warning of a religious war after this country’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the government must start drafting yeshiva students into its military.
Read MoreIt appears that Emily Harrison — creator of the “Dear Christian Parent” website — is some kind of religious countercultural radical. By the way, for me “radical” is a compliment when discussing matters of digital-screen culture. The question is what brand of faith-based radical she is, since her Substack’s “about” page offers classic nondenominational-era language: “Believer in Jesus. Wife. Mother. Writer & Speaker on kids and screen time. ScreenStrong Ambassador.”
Read More(REVIEW) “Sound of Hope” highlights an important issue and improves on many of the problems in the typical faith-based film industry. But the problems it does retain from the genre heavily weakens what could have been a truly wonderful theatrical experience. For those of us who’ve been waiting on faith-based films to match their secular counterparts for a long time, “Sound of Freedom” definitely gives us something to hope for.
Read MoreJews are a tiny minority in Mexico’s population of 130 million: 60,000, according to the latest national census. Those connected to the tight-knit Jewish community clustered in suburbs around Mexico City are estimated to be around 45,000. On the face of it, those small numbers make it remarkable that a Jewish woman, Claudia Sheinbaum, won the recent presidential election in a landslide.
Read More(ANALYSIS) According to a recent Pew study, the vast molarity of U.S. adults agree that religion’s influence is shrinking, yet they continue to hold a positive view of it. This disparity highlights the challenge facing the church today: How can people of faith navigate a world that is increasingly losing faith? With the looming election cycle ahead and the opportunity for a little summer reading, now is an ideal time to consider a few insightful books on the church’s role in society.
Read MoreNo one was surprised when the embattled United Methodist Church — after decades of fighting about the Bible, salvation and sexuality — boldly steered onto a progressive course after the exit of 7,659 congregations in America's biggest church split since the Civil War. At least, no one should have been surprised.
Read MoreThe John Templeton Foundation announced on Tuesday that Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was named this year’s recipient of the Templeton Prize in recognition for her work around trauma and forgiveness in post-apartheid South Africa. Gobodo-Madikizela, 69, an author and professor, has created a model for social healing in the aftermath of conflict — one that she calls “the reparative quest.”
Read MoreNigeria’s population is well over 200 million. The African country’s median age is 18, but 13.8% of its young men and women are without formal education, employment or any form of job training. This has made unemployment a compelling and dire issue requiring concerted efforts from both state and charities.
Read MoreThe speakers that took to the stage at MIT this past week addressed a series of issues surrounding AI, including how it impacts a number of areas such as communications, entertainment, healthcare, politics, climate change and the military. In fact, speakers talked about the numerous potential pitfalls in a world where AI is becoming more ubiquitous.
Read MorePakistani Hindu refugees have once again garnered attention following the notification of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act. The law aims to grant Indian citizenship to immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who belong to the Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist or Christian faiths and had entered India before 2014 due to religious persecution.
Read MoreThe feature is framed with bad news — that progressive Catholics in the United States are experiencing pain because of the rising numbers of young priests and young adults (especially parents with, wink-wink, lots of children) seeking a more pro-Catholic Catechism approach to faith.
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