About 140 weak and hungry Rohingya Muslims, mostly women and children, were on a wooden boat anchored about 1 mile (0.60 kilometers) off the coast of Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh on Tuesday, officials said, and local residents refused to…
‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ Wrestles With The Correct Religious Questions
“Exhibiting Forgiveness” does a great job of honestly wrestling with the hardest questions around forgiveness, religious and otherwise, even if not all the elements quite come together.
Silent dancing on Simchat Torah? A joyous Jewish holiday is remade for a mournful anniversary.
For many Jews across the United States and globe, memories of last year’s Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah will forever revolve around grim phone alerts and hushed conversations in synagogue, tears, hugs and the dawning realization that an unfathomable number…
Review & Giveaway: American Heretics
Charles Taylor published A Secular Age while I was in divinity school. Given the significance of the book and the attention it generated, the faculty decided to read and discuss it together. Because of the length and density of the volume, I…
Cosmic Comics: 3 Graphic Novels Highlighting Faith That Are Worth A Read
In the company of endless superhero comics and Japanese pirate manga lives a delightfully sizable population of religious graphic novels. This is fitting, as perhaps the oldest comics are religious.
What is Chabad-Lubavitch? A Jewish studies scholar explains
If you live anywhere near New York – or anywhere in the world, really – you may have seen a picture of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Yellow posters of the rabbi’s face are stuck to lampposts or streetlights: an elderly…
The Politics of Organized Nones
I learned a term in graduate school that I probably use too much now in my everyday life – ‘a self-selection effect.’ It’s something that the average person does all the time and doesn’t realize: they choose to be part…
National Fund for Sacred Places awards $4 million for preservation of historic houses of worship
Two dozen historic faith communities have received grants from The National Fund for Sacred Spaces, in collaboration with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, to be used to support critical preservation projects that will help maintain and extend the life of…
What the history of blasphemy laws in the US and the fight for religious freedom can teach us today
Some 79 countries around the world continue to enforce blasphemy laws. And in places such as Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, violation of these measures can result in a death penalty.