The Purim festivities in Israel this year were tinged with a schizophrenic twinning of glee and despair. Adding to the dismal mood was intermittent rain and a drizzle of rockets from Lebanon. Many celebrants experienced cognitive dissonance in marking the foiling of a genocidal plan in ancient Persia while a bloody war is raging today in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Read MoreStatistics compiled by Amnesty International show that there is a culture of stigmatization and victim-blaming towards rape survivors in Nigeria. The result is a large percentage of rape and sexual assaults going unreported. One man is trying to change all that by helping others after experiencing abuse himself as a child.
Read More(OPINION) With the ever increasing warnings about the alleged danger of “Christian nationalism,” however ambiguous that term might be, it is only fair to ask: Is America a Christian nation? And, just as importantly: Has America ever been a Christian nation? And how does this relate to Christian nationalism?
Read More(OPINION) Mostly we butt into other folks’ affairs because we’re control freaks who need to fix, or at least feel superior to, everyone else. Or, like Dear Abby’s correspondents, we’re nosy. Or we reap some type of social currency from getting the inside scoop and then passing it along to friends. Or we hope to deflect attention from our own shortcomings by calling attention to someone else’s.
None of those is a good look, is it?
Read MorePastors of Hispanic Protestant churches in the United States maintain immense gratitude for their role, but many face financial struggles. Their congregations reflect diverse worship styles, but they have a unified desire to reach and serve their communities. A new study looks into the challenges these churches face in modern-day America.
Read MoreAs of January 2024, 56% of the largest U.S. charities now accept cryptocurrency donations. According to The Giving Block, a crypto-giving platform for charities, more than $2 billion in crypto has been donated to nonprofits since 2018. Is it the future of giving?
Read MoreMuslim athletes face a unique challenge when Ramadan coincides with their training and competition schedules. Throughout the month-long period, practicing Muslims fast from dawn until sunset, abstaining from both food and drink. For athletes, this can be particularly demanding as they need to maintain their energy and performance levels.
Read MoreLast month, the Presbyterian Church in America, a conservative evangelical denomination founded in 1973, ordained its first teaching elder of Iranian descent who was raised in a Muslim family.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Ultra-Orthodox resistance to conscription is nothing new. But the forcefulness of this declaration is new, especially coming in the midst of a war. And Yosef is not any random rabbi. He is the son of Ovadia Yosef, who was the spiritual leader of the Shas Party: an important partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious governing coalition.
Read MoreWhy do churches grow? Lots of reasons. Why do churches shrink and die? Lots of reasons. That’s the complex reality that we discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights four takeaways from a new national survey on religion in public life. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read More(OPINION) Perhaps what we’re witnessing today relates to that old Churchill adage, “Any man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart, and any man over thirty who is not a conservative has no brains.” Today, this is also working itself out along gender lines, not in a hard and fast way but in a consistent enough way that it can be documented. Does this explain it all?
Read MoreIn the works are a humanitarian welcome center in Tapachula — a gateway at the Guatemalan border — for migrants of all nationalities, and Haitian-language church plants in Tapachula and Monterrey near the southern U.S. border.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Here’s a fun fact, the United States Census Bureau is prohibited from asking questions about religion on the decennial census. That’s the big data collection effort that is conducted every decade to get an accurate headcount of the United States for purposes of apportionment.
Read MoreIn the “The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church,” Sarah McCammon, a national political correspondent for NPR, shares — with a sometimes visceral honesty — the everyday currency of childhood in an evangelical subculture in which the Bible was the ultimate authority.
Read MoreLaura Martinez’s letter to her supporters in Mexico is reminiscent of New Testament letters. Recently, she wrote about adapting quickly to the culture, climate, geography and gastronomy of Colombia. She enumerated the differences in seasons and interpretations of certain Spanish words, and she was pleasantly surprised the quality of water in Colombia is higher than where she’s from in Mexico.
Read More(ANALYSIS) There is a “Demos II” epistle from another anonymous cardinal — criticizing Pope Francis and describing seven tasks facing the next pontiff.
Read MoreThe Playhouse Cinema in Hamilton, Ontario, about 40 miles from Toronto, became the latest venue to call off a Jewish-themed event when it announced Tuesday that the annual Hamilton Jewish Film Festival would not be held in the theater as scheduled in April. The festival is sponsored by the local Jewish federation.
Read MoreAnother March Madness is once again upon us. The NCAA’s men’s Division I basketball tournament will enthrall millions with its bracket-busting upsets. It is, for many sports fans, the best time of the year. This year’s 68-team field features seven Catholic schools. In addition, five are Protestant and one Mormon. Here’s a look at how they stack up.
Read MoreA new exhibit, “Kingdom of David and Solomon Discovered” — on display now through Jan. 31, 2025, in the lobby of the Armstrong Auditorium in Edmond, Oklahoma — reflects on the panoply of the royal house of Judah, whose influence extended from Tyre in ancient Phoenicia, today Lebanon, to Sheba or Saba, in what is modern-day Yemen and Ethiopia. On display are 49 outstanding artifacts illuminating the material culture of those Hebrew monarchs.
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