New Jersey painter Nora Murphy created a series of portraits by blending vintage mugshots with Catholic saints who were considered criminals in their time.
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Easter, Ramadan, and Eid al-Fitr—amid COVID-19 lockdowns, religious celebrations have looked different this year. Thankfully, they don’t have to taste different. Most of us are still practicing our faith with social distancing, but staying home is the perfect way to venture into new recipes and maybe even taste a new religious tradition.
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On June 29, the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics, reasserting a commitment to abortion rights over fierce opposition from dissenting conservative justices in the first big abortion case of the Trump era.
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(OPINION) India needs to urgently tackle its problems of obvious intolerance and police brazenness against members of the minority Muslim community and those who protest the government. Recent viral videos show physical attacks and intimidation have become commonplace, particularly under the guise of enforcing COVID-19 lockdown measures.
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For the last 12 years, on the anniversary of Miriam the Prophetess’ death, artist Maureen Kushner has led a boat full of women to the spot on Lake Kinneret where, according to Jewish lore, the mystical spring known as Miriam’s Well now rests. Though the pandemic altered the group’s plans this year, it didn’t stop them from making the pilgrimage.
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Abby Johson, the prominent pro-life activist behind the evangelical film Unplanned, has come under backlash from religious pro-lifers after posting what they call a racist video. Some religious activists are pivoting to secular organizations that they think are more intentional about combating racism.
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(OPINION) Conversations surrounding structural racism and how to address it have risen to national attention, particularly in the disparate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and in recent incidents of violence against Black people. This interview explores one pastor’s vision for the role of community-based, Black congregations and faith-based nonprofits in advancing solutions relevant to structural racism.
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(REVIEW) What former baseball star Rod Carew has done is put together an all-star book to tell his story of sacrifice and hard work. But, above all, he writes about his complicated faith and the intersection of Judaism and Christianity, two religions near to his spiritual awakening.
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(OPINION) The Kutupalong refugee camps in Bangladesh are inhabited primarily by the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group that fled mass atrocities in Myanmar. Amid the spread of COVID-19, there is a growing fear that the refugees will now face further threat to their lives, as the camps are more densely populated than New York City.
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With Election Day four-plus months away, religion angles abound on the race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Find links to some of the week’s most interesting faith-and-politics news in the latest Plug-in.
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(OPINION) The white-majority mainstream media often ignore the news of Black religion. Reporters should pay more attention to how African-American newspapers are treating the coronavirus crisis, with its disproportionate impact on communities of color, alongside the nationwide reckoning on police conduct, structural racism and protests.
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(OPINION) With Turkey President Erdoğan’s AKP party having suffered losses in municipal elections, his response to these drawbacks has been to emphasize his Sunni-Islamic credentials and to link these to the restoration of the splendors of the Ottoman Empire. One aspect of this propaganda effort has been to threaten the status of Hagia Sophia.
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(REVIEW) Author Tom Holland does not write about the life of Jesus and never deals with the Resurrection narratives, but they were vital to the rise of Christianity, and Holland’s refusal to understand this most central aspect of Christianity is where “Dominion” misses the point from the very beginning. The book only engages with Jesus as an uncanny character unique in world literature who happened to start a religion that was systematized by the Paul of Tarsus.
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The new law will increase the sentence given for a misdemeanor if the defendant acted with bias because of the victim’s race, sexual orientation or religion, among other factors. The office of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said the governor “commends the General Assembly’s bipartisan work and will sign House Bill 426 [hate crimes bill] pending legal review.”
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Gladys Kwedyo has not been able to walk since she contracted polio at 2 years old, but she’s never allowed the disability to stop her from having a fulfilling career and marriage or going into church ministry to help those in need. Though the pandemic has effectively shut down Zimbabwe, Kwedyo has a hand-controlled car, two hands and a big heart.
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(ANALYSIS) This week, city officials in Charlotte began removing stones around one of four monuments in the U.S. to the most prominent Jew of the Confederacy. In today’s political climate, it remains to be seen whether protesters will draw attention to Judah Benjamin or whether he will rest in relative obscurity among U.S. historical figures. As of now, the few monuments to his legacy still stand.
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The former National Security Advisor’s inside look at the Trump administration claims a widespread indifference from the president to China’s suppression of religious freedom, even as other diplomats pressed for the U.S. to act.
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(OPINION) As the national debate surrounding law-enforcement practices and the Black Lives Matter movement continues, journalists need to go beyond covering the obvious.
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(OPINION) When the Supreme Court ruled June 15 that sex discrimination in employment includes sexual-orientation and gender-identity discrimination, faith-based organizations were right to wonder how to navigate the new legal landscape.
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(OPINION) Black church leaders have been and will be on the scene during peaceful protests. When it's time to heal and clean up, religious leaders of all races and beliefs will take part. But will they be able to speak together?
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