Shona Crabtree
Shona Crabtree is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Shona Crabtree
10 minutes with … Matthew Green
By Shona Crabtree — September 11, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Journalist Matthew Green trekked through East Africa in search of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) _ a rebel army known for terrorizing Uganda for the last 20 years. Green’s new book, “The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted,” examines the man […]
Ten Minutes with … Donna Freitas
By Shona Crabtree — July 10, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) What began as Donna Freitas’ class on dating turned into a book titled “Sex & the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses.” Freitas, assistant professor of religion at Boston University, interviewed more than 100 students about their sexuality, romantic ideals and the prevalent “hookup” […]
Film follows struggle of gay Muslims
By Shona Crabtree — May 28, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) For six years, filmmaker Parvez Sharma traveled to 12 countries interviewing gay and lesbian Muslims. In one mosque, he found two lesbians praying for their desire to be replaced by love. An Iranian man lifts his shirt to reveal his back riddled with lash marks. An Egyptian refugee finds […]
Their names are lost to history, but their stories endure
By Shona Crabtree — May 22, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Lot’s wife and daughters. The two thieves crucified with Jesus. The three wise men. They’re all iconic figures with well-known stories from the Bible, yet they all have one thing in common _ officially, they have no names. Both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are riddled with […]
10 minutes with … Sandeep Singh Caberwal
By Shona Crabtree — April 3, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service SAN FRANCISCO _ Is a turban just a turban when it’s featured in a Kenneth Cole ad campaign? Sandeep “Sonny” Singh Caberwal, 28, is one of 11 people featured in a national ad campaign titled “We All Walk in Different Shoes” to mark the company’s 25th anniversary. Other subjects include […]
Pope marks Easter with nod to Muslims, China
By Shona Crabtree — March 25, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) This is the time of year when the Catholic Church enjoys the greatest growth spurt of the entire year _ an estimated 150,000 adult converts who were baptized or confirmed into the church on Easter. A recent survey shows 44 percent of Americans now profess a religious affiliation that’s […]
NEWS FEATURE: Hispanic Buddhists a small but growing trend
By Shona Crabtree — March 7, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service SAN FRANCISCO _ On a Saturday afternoon near this city’s predominantly Latino Mission neighborhood, a handful of people gather for a Buddhist study group in a sunlit room adorned with a single altar. For half an hour, they chant a mantra derived from Sanskrit and Chinese. Then they switch to […]
Conservatives angry at changes in AIDS funding
By Shona Crabtree — February 14, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) From “The Godfather Trilogy” to “The Exorcist” to “The Passion of the Christ,” Catholic themes have long been mined by Hollywood. Colleen McDannell, professor of history and religious studies at the University of Utah, is the editor of the recently published “Catholics in the Movies,” a collection of academic […]
10 Minutes with … Will Bowen
By Shona Crabtree — December 13, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Last year, the Rev. Will Bowen gave a sermon challenging listeners to not complain for 21 consecutive days. He handed out purple bracelets as a reminder. Now, one year later, 4.6 million people in more than 80 countries have taken up the challenge. Bowen’s recent book, “A Complaint Free […]
Jewish food a profound and personal link to the past
By Shona Crabtree — November 28, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) While potato latkes are forever linked with Hanukkah, along with dreidels and menorahs, the potato part of potato latkes is actually a fairly recent invention in the history of Judaism. Who knew? Originally made with cheese, latkes are now made with an assortment of vegetables. What’s important is frying […]
Unitarians try to raise profile with new ad campaign
By Shona Crabtree — October 26, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Proud of their liberal views, spiritual skepticism and religious diversity _ counting atheists, neo-pagans and Buddhists in their ranks _ Unitarian Universalists are not known as heavy-duty evangelizers. But with just 250,000 members nationwide and growth relatively stagnant at 1 percent a year, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is […]
10 Minutes With … Peggy Levitt
By Shona Crabtree — October 11, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Tired of the polarized rhetoric about immigrants, Peggy Levitt spent a decade researching four immigrant communities around Boston: Pakistani Muslims, Indian Hindus, Brazilian Protestants and Irish Catholics. What she found is that the immigrant vision of the good society and religion’s role in that society is not that different […]
Photographer Captures Faith on the Side of the Road
By Shona Crabtree — September 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Sam Fentress has spent the past 25 years crisscrossing America’s highways and byways, stopping along the way to snap shots of religious signs in every state except Hawaii. He found everything from John 3:3 on a farm silo in Ohio to “Obey God or Burn” scratched into a rock […]
Book Uncovers a Lonely, Spiritually Desolate Mother Teresa
By Shona Crabtree — August 30, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Ten years after her death, a new book of Mother Teresa’s personal letters illustrates a profound and private spiritual struggle _ much of it unknown to the world that would come to embrace her as a living saint. “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light,” to be released Sept. 4, […]
10 Minutes With … Kate Braestrup
By Shona Crabtree — August 2, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) After the death of her husband, a Maine state trooper, author and mother-of-four Kate Braestrup became a Unitarian Universalist chaplain. She now works with the Maine Warden Service, a cadre of game wardens who enforce hunting and fishing laws and ensure public safety. Braestrup’s memoir about accompanying search-and-rescue missions […]
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