Worldcrunch
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.
In traditionally Catholic Colombia, Protestant preachers have learned to effectively combine marketing and religion to make themselves enormously wealthy. And thanks to political lobbying and religious freedom, they are exempt from the law and taxes.
Not all holidays are celebrated equal. Why’s that? wonders our Neapolitan psychiatrist.
Few see reason right now for holiday optimism, though Christmas ceasefires have happened multiple times since the conflict in Donbas started in 2014. A new call by religious leaders has raised hope for at least a pause in the fighting.
Poland’s legislature is in the process of passing new “blasphemy” restrictions that would impose jail sentences for denigrating the Catholic Church, Warsaw-based daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported Monday. Parliament’s lower house has approved an amendment that—if passed into law—would impose “a fine, a penalty of restriction of liberty, or imprisonment up to two years,” on anyone […]
The absence of Christian players at the professional level can be traced to discrimination that begins young.
After two years of occupation by terror group ISIS, the largest Christian city in Iraq, Qaraqosh, was recently freed by government forces.
The sixth-century Saint Catherine’s Monastery is a treasured Christian pilgrimage site in a region increasingly controlled by ISIS.
Muslims are supposed to save water, Christians and Jews energy. In the past, we blamed those ideologies for ecological crises.
MOUNT ALFAF — Seven eagles are swirling in the blue sky above Mar Mattai, Iraq’s oldest monastery. Can they see Mosul? The northern Iraqi city that has been occupied by ISIS since last year is only 20 kilometers away. Perched alongside Mount Alfaf, this orthodox Syriac monastery founded in the 4th century by hermit Matthew […]
In the end, it has nothing to do with God. From biblical times to crusades and jihad, self-proclaimed “holy wars” are actually driven by power, territory and economic interests.
BAGHDAD – Everywhere in the Iraqi capital is an off-limits “red zone” for Westerners except for the American invasion’s legacy known as the “green zone.” This central quarter in Baghdad, accessible only by the right identification document or special permission, is actually a sort of privileged prison for those with valuable blood. But I have […]
Following its 2011 revolution, Libya has struggled to establish a democratic rule of law as it navigates the political divisions sowed through the decades-long bloody reign of Muammar Gaddafi. Religion, per se, had not been seen as a major source of conflict in a country that is 97% Sunni Muslim. Roaming jihadist groups, however, would […]
AHRAMONLINE (Egypt), AFP, THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch CAIRO — After being accused of “inciting hatred” against Coptic Christians and “undermining national unity,” the Islamist Al-Hafez TV channel was ordered by a Cairo administrative court to be closed permanently, according to the Egyptian Ahramonline news website. The station, which was among several to be taken temporarily […]
Thinking beyond the top “papabili,” some have cited Cardinal Bechara al-Rahi, the Patriarch of Antioch. For the Church, the plight of Christians in the Middle East is a key issue of our times.
Essay: The fury of fundamentalist Muslims should not obscure efforts to consolidate democracy.