The coronavirus pandemic has confronted ministries with an unprecedented triple whammy: declining donations, unexpected expenses for sanitation and remaking workplaces for remote employees, and challenges in delivering their services, some of which are more needed now.
Read More(OPINION) With approximately 30 million members, Muhammadiyah is Indonesia’s and the world’s largest modernist Muslim organization. While the Indonesian government has been slow to respond to COVID-19, Muhammadiyah has drawn on the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings and the Quran to advise Muslims to stay home during Ramadan celebrations, including ritual obligations some may see as essential to their faith.
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(OPINION) The pandemic is adding stressors to an already stressed landscape of faith-based academic institutions. These schools will have to make hard choices about their futures, and that will require evaluating their core missions.
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On April 24, the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims welcomed their most important holiday with the appearance of the new moon. Usually, they would spend 30 days fasting, studying the Quran and enjoying celebratory “iftars,” evening meals with tables full of food and homes full of family and friends. This year, none of that is happening in the usual ways.
Read MoreFor Holocaust survivors, including some who later lived under Communist rule, COVID-19 has brought a mixed bag of old traumas sparked anew, depression and anxiety, isolation and fear, but also reminders of the traits that sustained them through difficult periods in their lives.
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A neighbor of the field hospital and an area activist had sharply different reactions to Franklin Graham’s organization setting up an emergency medical facility in Central Park.
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(OPINION) The ever-evolving coronavirus pandemic has upended our world in ways no one could have ever expected. Journalists still don’t know where this story is going. One thing is clear. While death tolls climb and fall depending on which countries are effectively flattening the curve, the vast majority of those of us who are healthy and staying at home still have to deal with loneliness.
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(OPINION) The United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) launched its annual report Tuesday, recommending India, Nigeria, Russia, Syria and Vietnam as “countries of particular concern” engaging in severe religious freedom violations.
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As lockdowns largely halt the economy, small businesses are bracing for the worst. A creative church on the East coast and a faith-based rehabilitation center on the West coast have found ways to boost local business in their COVID-19 relief efforts.
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Nearly a third of America’s public and private universities were already operating at a deficit before the coronavirus pandemic. Now the crisis threatens the survival of the weaker institutions in higher education, and even those that survive will emerge weaker as they struggle with destructive ripple effects for years. Here’s how Christian colleges are coping.
Read MoreJamie Kimmel’s training and prior experience as a hospice chaplain couldn’t have prepared him for the ways this crisis is changing how he works. He’s rationing personal protective equipment and relying on reduced public transportation for his commute. At his hospital, he comforts COVID-19 patients by phone as they grapple with existential questions and the possibility of death, all while separated from loved ones.
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While white evangelicals are the least likely religious group to view global warming as a crisis, there is a growing movement of evangelicals like Michelle Frazer who not only care about the impacts of climate change, but perhaps more significantly, are appealing to conservative Christians in ways that the secular, left-leaning environmental movement hasn’t.
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Not until the COVID-19 outbreak did I learn about the global influenza pandemic of 1918 — known colloquially as the Spanish flu — and my family’s connection to it.
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Dr. Mohammed Elgazzar has served in medical missions to war-torn Sierra Leone, Sudan, Syria and more, saving lives without regard to the beliefs of the wounded. His faith inspires him. “The Quran is not coming from Allah just to be read,” he said. “It is not enough to see pain and feel sad. You have to do something about it,” he said. “That is my religion.”
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(OPINION) People of faith will be asking deep questions about said faith as this crisis drags on. Journalists should not sidestep that aspect of this experience, but inquire about it and treat it with the respect it deserves.
Read More(OPINION) There are plenty of baseball players who openly practice Christianity, but Billy Sunday is unique in that he exchanged his bat for a Bible and embarked on a career as a preacher, capitalizing on his time as a ballplayer to generate interest in his revivals.
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A spiritual experience in the desert set Mitch Hescox on a path toward igniting Christians to care for the environment. Caring about environmental issues like climate change and pollution is about caring for the least of these in society, and that’s the only way to be truly pro-life, he argues.
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(OPINION) It’s an old debate. American attitudes about the country’s economic system are shifting. The issue isn’t black or white, and religious thinkers are weighing on from a variety of denominations and worldviews.
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(TRAVEL) See Rabbi Natan Slifkin’s collection of creatures ranging from locusts to lions at the newly virtually opened Biblical Museum of Natural History in Israel while staying safe at home during quarantine.
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While the latest statistics from the LDS Church show a slight growth in membership worldwide, much of the growth is coming from abroad. Polarization and inflexibility prevent growth more than controversy, religious scholars say.
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