Followers of Sarna, a nature-worshipping faith, want visibility, respect — and political power.
Tag: christianity
Has France’s chronic decline in Christianity reached a low point? That trend now coexists with another dynamic: a second wind of religion among disaffiliated young people.
A diocese in the UK found that many people lacked the confidence and faith to walk into a conventional church — so it decided to take the church to wherever people were.
Christians say the dormant law, first passed in the 1970s, targets their faith. Those trying to revive it say it is essential for preservation of indigenous faiths and culture.
Italian novelist Viola Ardone reflects on childhood dreams, institutional patriarchy, and why the Catholic Church still silences women as 133 cardinals gather to elect the next pope.
We had believed that Bashar al-Assad’s downfall would be a chance to come together and heal the wounds of the victims’ families. It was not to be. The regime had left roots too deep and the new rulers failed to learn the lessons of our neighbors.
Led by young artists like Varsha and Sherin, Christian rap in India is emerging as a powerful genre used both for worship and protest. Gospel hip-hop, as it is also called, is gaining traction through social media and carving its own space in India’s spiritual and musical landscape.
Although science and research dominate our lives, many people continue to believe in miracles. There are understandable reasons for this.
Jesus spoke Aramaic, but the Bible has been translated from Greek. Many mistaken translations of the Gospels have skewed the development of Christianity — and the course of history. It’s time to let the Bible be retranslated to let its true message be known.
A staunch Republican for many years, a pro-life activist and a policeman, Gary Nelson will vote for the Democrats for the first time in his life on Nov. 5. A German reporter finds out how this happened to this Arizona native and fundamentalist Christian?
Updated Aug. 26, 2024 at 11:20 am Mother Teresa was born on this day in 1910. Who was Mother Theresa? Mother Teresa, born as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje (now North Macedonia), was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation that provided care and assistance to […]
The positions of ultra-conservative Christian and Islamic Salafism supporters are almost identical on cultural, social and legal issues, such as their position on private and public freedoms. That often starts with women’s freedoms.
Egyptologists and religious scholars alike blasted the new Netflix docudrama series that chronicles the story of Moses, raising both current political issues and the deeper questions around the religion-science dialectic.
Updated May 15, 2024 at 1:30 p.m. Billy Graham’s 1957 crusade began at Madison Square Garden in New York City on this day. The crusade drew a total of 2.3 million people over the course of its four-month run, with an average attendance of around 18,000 people per night. Who was Billy Graham? Billy Graham […]
Geopolitical analysts who view Russia as an unpredictable force tend to understand Moscow’s actions in purely worldly, political terms. German Professor of Theology Hubertus Lutterbach has uncovered a different message hidden in Putin’s religiosity — an implicit threat to his neighbors and the world.
As Colombia debates banning the abusive practice of “conversion therapy,” a Colombian teacher recalls the four years of therapy he undertook as teenager and his path to self-acceptance.
Daughter of conservative Korean immigrants to Argentina, portrait of rising star in Latin America’s electronic music club scene.
Disney’s new movie “Wish” is being touted as a new children’s blockbuster to celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary. But some Christians may see the portrayal of the villain as God-like and turning wishes into prayers as the ultimate denial of the true message of Christmas.
The synod had promised to bring forth revolutionary ides for both members of the LGBTQ and women within the Church. But looking at the first session’s conclusion reveals that hopes for change may have come too early.
Both Hamas and Israel should stop manipulating the language of faith and morals to justify extreme and indiscriminate violence, writes Islamic theologian Marwan Sarwar Gill. Religion (in good faith) ultimately offers a way out of conflict the bad faith has fueled.
Followers of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion in four traditional communities in the country’s northeast are resisting pressure to convert to evangelical Christianity.
As advocates in Hong Kong work to spread the word that being LGBTQ+ is not an illness, conversion therapy centers like New Creation continue to harm and traumatize those who want to get “out of the gay life.” Members of the LGBTQ+ community struggle to reconcile their faith and their orientation in a society that continues to be institutionally homophobic.
Uganda has signed a harsh anti-LGBTQ+ bill into law. It’s part of a wider push back against “Western” values that’s partly being funded by a global coalition.
People’s deplorable actions ultimately have more to do with socially induced fears and mistrust than some inherent evil. Fiction and tradition tells us humans are fundamentally wicked, but history says otherwise.
Categories
The Problem With Easter
Not all holidays are celebrated equal. Why’s that? wonders our Neapolitan psychiatrist.
An evangelic group has threatened to take legal action against a samba school because of its mix of religious iconography at the 2023 Carnival festivities. A Brazilian secular institute has a response.
He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice… But he doesn’t always wear a red suit. From Aruba to Finland and Liberia, here’s what Christmas looks like around the world.
After a fire at a church in August killed 42 people, Egypt’s Christians are worried about the fate of their places of worship, which lack proper infrastructure and financial support to meet safety standards. But, as Egypt’s Mada Masr reports, this is not a new problem, and it is one that has been ongoing for years, during which Christians were not given permission to set up churches.
“Who do you think I am,” our Naples psychiatrist asks her patient, “a priest?”
Emerging religions and cults in Asia are deeply intertwined with politics: in China, religions need political approval, while in Japan religious groups use political platforms to assert themselves. Not even the killing of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, carried out by a member of the Unification Church, has prompted a closer look at exactly what role religion plays in society.
The European far-right’s sympathies for “white and Christian” Ukrainians shows its devotion to the idea of the “clash of civilizations.” But it fails to see the basic paradoxes of war, where you may be fighting those who most resemble you and be forced to welcome those who look different.
On the same day that Bethlehem’s Mayor Anton Salman inaugurated the Christmas holiday season earlier this month with an impressive fireworks display and tree lighting in the town square, residents of the West Bank city’s three refugee camps — Aida, Dehaishe and Jibrin, also known as Azza Camp — continued their daily protesting against the Palestinian Authority. The protests, which have included burning tires and blocking roads, aim to gain the release of several Palestinians arrested by Palestinian security forces for waving banners of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine during the funeral of 14-year-old Amjad […]
Categories
When The Nazis Stole Christmas
Both the Nazis and East German Communist Party tried to use Christmas for their own ends, and distance it from its Christian meaning. Writer and historian Karl-Heinz Göttert looks at the attempts to hijack Christmas throughout German history, and why it matters today.
Residents near the Caribbean coast of Honduras have been witness to an unlikely, and much welcome, event: fish that seem to arrive from the skies. Or maybe from somewhere else?
But in the end… is it enough?
Darwin may have poked a hole in the Christian creation myth. But historically speaking, the relationship between science and religion has been far more nuanced than most people imagine.
President Xi Jinping demands ‘inflexible atheism’ from his fellow Communist Party members. But he also has a soft spot for Buddhism, sources suggest.
Just as terrorism in the name of other religions has existed throughout history. We must call evil things by their name if we want to overcome them.
The deadly Palm Sunday attacks in Egypt are just the latest example of a steady effort to remove Christianity from the Middle East. It is long past time to take action.
After the Christmas market attack in Berlin, the Western world would be wrong to assume it can prevent its cultural or political dissolution by merely repeating its prayers to the glory of diversity.