In the news these days — including religion headlines — it’s all coronavirus all the time. Our Weekend Plug-In columnist explores some of the COVID-19-related big ideas and questions emerging in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) The roles that religion and religious leaders play during crises have consequences for how people regard religion long after the crisis ends. We should consider the past to understand the implications the coronavirus pandemic will have.
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(OPINION) One woman — Mary Mohammadi — has come to represent the imprisoned persecuted Christians of that Shiite Islamic country, who face vicious treatment and the threat of deadly disease inside Iran’s notoriously filthy and brutal prisons. Their crime? Belief in Jesus.
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Nyepi Day, or The Day of Silence, is a Hindu new year celebration unique to Bali. For 24 hours, the festival looks a lot like social distancing. But Balinese authorities are also allowing tens of thousands to attend ceremonies during the pandemic — and experts fear that despite warnings to limit gatherings, the coronavirus will spread.
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(OPINION) The Bible and the CDC both impose isolation on us, requiring us to use a higher power to overcome our human instincts to comfort each other with touch.
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Catholics have called for the intercession of a great number of saints (such as Saint Pope Gregory the Great) throughout history to help defeat widespread illness, plagues and epidemics. There are scores of saints that can be called upon in a time of crisis. While the world continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, Catholics are looking for the intercession of these five saints to battle COVID-19.
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(OPINION) For many clergy, taking their services online is a new phenomenon, but the liturgy at the heart of these services has been passed down through many times like this one.
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The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ push toward Deaf inclusion recently culminated in the publication of the first complete ASL (or American Sign Language) Bible, passing their 1,000th language mark for Bible translations. It was a long road to get there, the Deaf community in the church says.
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Social distancing is important, but social avoidance is not okay, says Ron Lewis, pastor of the multicultural church Every Nation NYC as they moved services online. The church was formed during another crisis— 9/11— and sees its mission, to help people grow their faith, uninterrupted during the current pandemic.
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Passover seders are often cherished family memories. But this will be remembered as the year when a public health crisis prevented generations of family from gathering together, when those who did not travel watched on a computer screen as the story of the exodus from Egypt was retold.
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(OPINION) Iain McGilchrist says Western Christianity is undermining itself. C. S. Lewis said something similar. Both cite the same reason. We’re starting with the wrong metaphor. By focusing too much on law and substitutionary atonement, Christians forget the marital love present in the cross.
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Shabbat dinners are canceled, community centers are closed, and leaders in the Jewish community are having to come up with creative ways to foster community in these unprecedented times.
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In an interview with Poynter.org, NBC’s Lester Holt — whom I respect — said: “I always thought 9/11 would be the biggest story I would ever cover. But this (the coronavirus pandemic) is the biggest story we have ever seen.” Wow. That’s an amazing statement from a journalist of Holt’s status.
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When her physical reality was pushed to its limit, Sybil Archibald plumbed her inner world. She communicates what she discovered through art.
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The main duties of a priest are to administer the church’s sacraments — which include baptism, confession and holy communion — while also visiting the sick and providing pastoral care to parishioners. How does all that work during the COVID-19 pandemic when most priests are in the high-risk age category for contracting the deadly virus?
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(ANALYSIS) We are living in surreal times. The world as we knew it just over a week ago has been brought to a halt by the COVID-19 pandemic. After the virus devastated China’s Wuhan province, it spread to Europe and now the rest of the world. Our daily lives have been disrupted in a way never seen in our lifetimes.
Read MoreDeliberately vague definitions of “extremism” are infringing on the religious liberties of many in Russia. As a result of this legal language, at least 313 Jehovah’s Witnesses have been placed under investigation, and many more have been imprisoned and convicted.
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(REVIEW) I Still Believe is a beautiful and necessary Christian love story that corrects some of the problems of other Christian films. Still, the movie suffers from the same weaknesses that plague the secular young adult romance genre.
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(OPINION) A recent report from the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom reveals that the Chinese government has forced Uighur Muslims to work in factories that may connect to supply chains in large American companies.
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Ahmed Toufiq, Morocco’s minister of Islamic affairs, is leading an export of the kingdom’s Boutchichiya Sufi Islam and pushing back against the Wahhabi tradition of Saudi Arabia with its links to Salafi jihadism.
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