Beliefs
Lawsuit alleges religious coercion through meditation in Chicago Public Schools
By Richa Karmarkar — May 13, 2024
(RNS) — Chicago public high school students allege they were coerced into participating in a Hindu puja ceremony as part of a multiyear study of Transcendental Meditation's ability to reduce crime from University of Chicago's Urban Labs and the David Lynch Foundation.
Shunned for centuries, Vodou grows powerful as Haitians seek solace from unrelenting gang violence
By DÁnica Coto — May 10, 2024
How 19th-century Spiritualists ‘canceled’ the idea of hell to address social and political concerns
By Lindsay DiCuirci — May 8, 2024
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The number of religious ‘nones’ has soared, but not the number of atheists – and as social scientists, we wanted to know why
By Christopher P. Scheitle and Katie Corcoran — May 6, 2024
(The Conversation) — Social factors, from wealth to politics, may shape whether people who do not believe in God identify as an atheist.
A milestone reached in mainline Protestant churches’ decades-old disputes over LGBTQ inclusion
By The Associated Press — May 6, 2024
(AP) — The United Methodist Church, which stripped out its bans and related social teachings over the past two weeks, is the last of the major mainline church bodies to go through this process.
How ‘apocalypse’ became a secular as well as religious idea
By Erik Bleich and Christopher Star — May 3, 2024
(The Conversation) — Events that the media describe as ‘apocalyptic’ reflect changing anxieties about the future.
3 things to learn about patience − and impatience − from al-Ghazali, a medieval Islamic scholar
By Liz Bucar — April 19, 2024
(The Conversation) — In religious traditions, patience is more than waiting, or even more than enduring a hardship. But what does patience look like? And when should we not exercise patience?
Hindu Lord Ram road-trips through the United States
By Richa Karmarkar — April 17, 2024
(RNS) — For the first time in North America, an image of Lord Ram is being paraded from temple to temple on a two-month-long road trip, just in time for the deity’s birthday, Ram Navami.
Solar New Year celebrations unite religious groups across the South Asian diaspora
By Richa Karmarkar — April 15, 2024
(RNS) — This week, people of all South Asian backgrounds celebrated the Hindu Solar New Year in their unique, regional ways. But common threads between the holidays, many say, have the power to unite those living in the diaspora.
As a landmark United Methodist gathering approaches, African churches weigh their future.
By Peter Smith — April 15, 2024
(AP) — Today, members from four continents vote at legislative gatherings, serve on boards together, go on mission trips to each others’ countries and are largely governed by the same rules.
US Catholics more polarized than ever about still-popular Pope Francis, survey says
By Aleja Hertzler-McCain — April 12, 2024
(RNS) — The Republican and Republican-leaning favorability rating represents a decline, creating the largest partisan gap in approval of Francis since his papacy began.
Why Sikhs celebrate the festival of Baisakhi
By Anshu Malhotra — April 9, 2024
(The Conversation) — The spirit of Baisakhi for Sikhs is reminiscent of the ideals of their gurus, who encouraged them to work toward building a just society.
A dramatic schism over social issues? The United Methodist Church has been here before – but this time, America’s religious landscape is far different
By Christopher H. Evans — April 9, 2024
(The Conversation) — The United Methodist Church will hold its General Conference, delayed several years by the pandemic, in April 2024. The meeting comes amid a dramatic divide over LGBTQ+ rights.
For some Christians, a solar eclipse signals the second coming of Christ
By Eric Vanden Eykel — April 5, 2024
(The Conversation) — A scholar of early Christian literature writes that religious theories around celestial events are part of a larger human pattern to find meaning. And they go back thousands of years.
Awe and dread: How religions have responded to total solar eclipses over the centuries
By David Crary, Mariam Fam, and Deepa Bharath — April 5, 2024
(AP) — Ahead of the total solar eclipse that will follow a long path over North America on Monday, here's a look at how several of the world's major religions have responded to such eclipses over the centuries and in modern times.
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