- Advanced search
- Maximize
Immigration Reform: A Country Divided, Or a Richer Society?
With the Obama administration’s renewed support for immigration reform, and new support from conservative Christian leaders, immigrants’ rights activists are looking toward real progress—and their vision is supported by recent scholarship in the intersection of religion and immigration.
The Anti-Gay Highway: New Report Details Mutually Beneficial Relationship Between US Evangelicals and African Antigay Clergy
A new report documents the trend of evangelicals like Rick Warren exporting sexuality issues to Africa, whose clergy, in turn, support the minority antigay view in mainline denominations, weakening them. The author of the report speaks with RD at length about what he found.
Massacre of Jesuits in El Salvador: 20 Years Later
Two decades after the murder of six Jesuit professors, El Salvador is celebrating the end of right-wing rule and the first peaceful transfer of power in nearly 200 years.
Bad Religion Leaves Big Bruises: When Christians Threaten Health Care Reform
Two strands of Christianity battle against a bill ensuring that all Americans are cared for. One prefers John Locke to Jesus while the other has its issues with women.
Escalating Afghanistan: What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?
Don’t the clergy have a duty to challenge the march of folly in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Mormonism’s Black Issues
While many Mormons would like to forget the Church’s history of discrimination against blacks, an Apostle’s recent statements comparing the post-Proposition 8 Mormon backlash to the Civil Rights-era harassment of black voters have brought that painful past back into the spotlight.
Prison as Resurrection
While it’s clear that prisons in this country are a disaster and a scandal, a new book delves into the system’s religious roots and the belief in the spiritual benefits of disciplinary isolation.
Killing One Primate to Save Another: The Ethics of Animal Rights
A disturbing story emerged this week of a scientist leaving his research out of fear for his and his family’s lives. What are our responsibilities in this area and what do our traditions have to say about it?
Jewish “Women of the Wall” Defy Law to Pray
A powerful documentary, “Praying in Her Own Voice,” chronicles twenty years of struggle for religious equality at one of Judaism’s most sacred sites and asks: How can there be unity when half the population is silenced?
‘Soul Murder’ in the American Workplace
As the media yawns at the latest unemployment numbers, our columnist seeks religious leadership on the taboo subject of our dysfunctional relationship to work. For even if the economy recovers and “full employment” returns, we will still be encountering a workplace that remains a site of utter terror in some instances and a site of routine abuse and low-grade anxiety in others.
How Should We Speak of Unspeakable Evil?
Do we turn to the wrong institutions when we go to courts of law to attempt to enact forgiveness or reconciliation for genocide?
Afghan Idol: Can a Talent Competition Save a Nation?
An interview with the director of Afghan Star, a documentary that follows a tense but cathartic talent competition.
Why David Sometimes Wins: What We Must Learn From Cesar Chavez
A new book by veteran organizer Marshall Ganz tells the sometimes triumphant, sometimes cautionary tale of the rise and fall of Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Movement. While the story of the movement’s successes is well known, the reasons for its decline are more mysterious—until now.
Cafeteria Cockroaches and Synagogue-State Relations in Israel
Set against the backdrop of the recent closure of a Knesset cafeteria due to an unkosher cockroach, Shalom Goldman takes an entertaining and meandering look at the state of affairs in Israel. Touching on topics as disparate as the alliteration-happy Israeli media and racist policy proposals, Goldman brings into sharp relief some of the tensions in Israeli religious and cultural life, much of which remains at the mercy of the Orthodox rabbinate.
The Next Generation of the Pro-Life Movement
Young people are being trained by militant anti-abortion groups to be informed, media-savvy, publicity-oriented foot soldiers in the battle to outlaw abortion.
My Womb for His Purposes: The Perils of Unassisted Childbirth in the Quiverfull Movement
Already distrustful of outside experts, be they members of the education system or leaders of traditional denominations, Quiverfull followers are increasingly eschewing the medical establishment, opting to leave childbirth to God. The recent death of a newborn, however, exposes a growing rift between the most zealous opponents of intervention and those open to some assistance.
Rage Against the Regime: Voices from the Iranian Underground Music Scene
Iran’s Green Revolt is about freedom and democracy, sure. But it usually has to take form in a particular issue or, as in the case of a growing portion of Iran’s youth, in song. Meet the resistance in the form of the underground music scene.
French President Sarkozy declared recently that the burqa “will not be welcome on our territory,” as it is a symbol of the enslavement of women. If the president is trying to foster equality of women, is this the best way to go about it?
RDPulpit: Is Barack Obama a “Fierce Advocate” For Gays or Just Pragmatist-in-Chief?
The Obama administration has gone from indifference to actively promoting religious opposition to the civil rights of gay Americans, comparing same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia. Only when “pink dollars” were pulled did the president approach the LGBT community. A former priest suggests how to make Obama listen.
Economy Yields Too Few Prophets
Few mainstream journalists are truly capturing the reality of the economy in terms of the nation’s worst off. As of last month, the actual number of workers in crisis is not the 14 million but more like 29 million, or 18 percent of the total workforce. Where are the religious coalitions willing to challenge the president’s policies?