Islam
Gulf Countries – Do Not Disturb!
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It is unfortunate that Alan’s story, which so profoundly shook the world, has not stirred many oil laden Gulf countries in the same way.
General News
Thank God I'm an Agnostic
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“A woman comes up and she says to me: ‘I’m Jewish. I’m not going to accept Jesus as my savior. Am I going to hell?’ . .
Culture
God and Man in Toronto
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I would like not just the United Church of Canada but indeed all people concerned and interested in theological expression and exploration to consider the possibility that an “atheist minister” need not be a contradiction at all.
Christianity
I Want to Be Left Behind
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Here’s an excerpt from the recent memoir, I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, by author Brenda Peterson, which describes the darkly comic, but deeply troubling world view that comes from this Rapture-bound belief still shaping our Middle East policies.
Judaism
D'var Torah on Parashat Re'eh for Rosh Chodesh Elul
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“If we can start to restore hope in this broken world, and if we can help to spread this hope to those in our lives, then we are supporting the process of atonement and increasing the likelihood that billions will be inscribed in the book of life, the book of sustenance, and the book of hope for this and many years to come.”
Culture
Dying to Know
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“Dying to Know really is about the journey of death, and how we deal with it, and to its credit manages to take an optimistic and unflinching perspective, without trying to provide hard and fast answers—actually, by not trying to provide hard and fast answers.”
Healing Israel/Palestine
Firebombing of Palestinian Homes & Murder of Palestinian Child, plus Murder at Gay Pride Demo
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Editor’s Note:
Faced with the horrendous crimes of an ultra-orthodox Jew stabbing participants in a gay pride demonstration in Israel, and the firebombing of Palestinian homes and resulting burning to death of an 18 month old Palestinian baby while others in the family are in critical condition and may not survive, many Israelis and American Jews denounced these horrendous acts. Netanyahu and his government ordered a few Israeli settlers arrested in “administrative detention,” the polite word to describe the practice which till now has been used against thousands of Palestinian civilians–arrest without formal charges, often held in detention for months or more without trial, and in the case of Palestinians often tortured. The Israeli settlers arrested did not face what most Palestinians “suspected” of terrorist acts usually suffer: the homes of the family of the suspect are immediately blown up by the occupying Israeli Army in the West Bank. That no such punishment was immediately meted out to the Israeli settler suspects was not surprising, but just another manifestation of the racist treatment Palestinians in the Occupied territory face (though of course we don’t support this tactic against settlers or Palestinians). As many Israeli human rights and peace advocates point out, the firebombing of Palestinian homes is just one of many variants of violence visited upon Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, the goal being to make life so difficult that Palestinians will eventually be “ethnically cleansed” and Israel can make the West Bank a fully Jewish-majority part of Israel.
Gender and Sexuality
Pro-Choice for Christ
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Americans’ stances on abortion are more complicated than the political rhetoric may lead us to believe. Our understanding of religion and reproductive rights should follow suit.
Politics & Society
Against The Tide: The River Of Discrimination Flowing Against People With Disabilities
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Twenty five years after the passage of the ADA, the river of discrimination against people with disabilities continues to flow. The river is human-made: we created it, designed the very contours that sweep people with disabilities to the outskirts of society. But because we made it, we can also stop it.
Christianity
What Religion Tells Us About the Place of Wilderness in American Environmentalism
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We think of parks as a sensible response to urbanization and industrialization and of conservation as a logical solution to destruction of resources. Yet why were Congregationalists so interested in these issues? How did their religious values shape these movements?