commentary
How Southern delusions lie at the heart of the Charleston killings
By guest — June 8, 2016
(RNS) Hypnotized by the lost cause of the Civil War, those under its spell could not awaken without the shock of wanton cruelty. The murders at Emanuel AME Church provided that shock
The weaponization of religious liberty
By guest — June 8, 2016
(RNS) How did something as fundamentally American as religious freedom become a culture war weapon against LGBT people and their families?
How ‘Me Before You’ promotes an ableist agenda
By Charles C. Camosy — June 7, 2016
(RNS) The main complaint from nearly the entire disability community is that Me Before You justifies an ablest assumption: namely, that the life of someone who cannot walk is not worth living.
Hijab is not another word for freedom
By guest — June 6, 2016
Let’s not be fooled by Ramadan clothing ads or well-intentioned intellectuals into thinking that hijab is a means of self- or fashion expression.
Why was Muhammad Ali the greatest? He had a clear moral vision
By Hussein Rashid — June 4, 2016
(RNS) His religious identity was new to the American public, but he did with it what many believers have done -- offered a voice of moral clarity and urgency to the issues of the day.
The minister who taught Donald Trump to ‘think positive’
By Mitch Horowitz — June 3, 2016
(RNS) The decades-old critique of Norman Vincent Peale has never gotten it quite right.
The Bible in emojis? Terrific idea, sloppy execution
By Jana Riess — June 2, 2016
(RNS) For starters, if you really want to reach millennials, as the subtitle promises, is the King James Version the best way to do it?
Why civil rights and LGBT equality are joined at the hip
By guest — June 1, 2016
(RNS) The black community and the LGBT community are not mutually exclusive and neither “community” is monolithic. We are interconnected by our humanity.
Politicians ignore Reason Rally at their peril
By Tom Krattenmaker — June 1, 2016
(RNS) A glass-half-full assessment of the secular movement shows a level of progress and momentum that promises to make it harder for politicians to disregard, writes Tom Krattenmaker.
Did a prominent wartime rabbi fail European Jews?
By Yonat Shimron — May 31, 2016
(RNS) At the epicenter of this intense debate is the controversial relationship between FDR and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.
A Mennonite pastor is suspended and a denomination is splintered (COMMENTARY)
By guest — May 27, 2016
(RNS) What a waste of effort, to put a good pastor on trial. What an absurd tragedy that a historic peace church would reprimand those who want to bless loving, committed relationships.
Religious Americans should take up Obama’s call for a moral awakening
By Jacob Lupfer — May 27, 2016
(RNS) The first visit of an American president to Hiroshima occasions a broader and ongoing debate about the ethics and strategic value of nuclear weapons.
United Methodism’s global evangelical transformation
By Mark Tooley — May 27, 2016
(RNS) Decades ago it never occurred to me nor to many evangelicals in United Methodism that our church's membership decline and theological liberalism in America would be reversed by dramatic growth in Africa.
Family members showed Dylann Roof mercy. Why can’t prosecutors?
By Shane Claiborne — May 26, 2016
(RNS) Can we, as a nation, do better than killing those who kill in order to show that killing is wrong?
For ISIS, a competing vision of Ramadan as a month of conquest and jihad
By Ayman S. Ibrahim — May 26, 2016
(RNS) ISIS discourages the notion that only piety, prayer, and worship are important during Ramadan, insisting that armed jihad is a sacred duty during that holy month.
