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Pluralism Sunday is May 2, 2010

Friends of Christian Pluralism: Pluralism Sunday is on May 2! Get your church or local group to join in the celebration of religious diversity.  On PLURALISM SUNDAY, churches celebrate elements of other world faiths in their sermons, litanies, and music; many feature speakers and singers from other faith traditions. Click more for more information and to sign up your church or group.

Glenn Beck's rally cannot block nation's path

Regardless of the activity on the Mall this weekend or the inactivity on the Mall in the days after, the question before us still remains: Who do we want to be as a people and as a nation? Do we want to go back, or do we want to move forward? Do we want to erase the steps we struggled to take in the '60s by gutting or repealing the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the 14th Amendment, the Fair Housing Act, and other progressive measures? I say, we have suffered too long and struggled too hard to turn back now. As a nation and as a people, we cannot, and we must not go back.

Wrong Then, Wrong Now: What Yesterday's Anti-Catholicism Has in Common with Today's Islamophobia

For the past few months, I’ve been doing some research in New York newspapers on the anti-Catholic vitriol the Irish faced in the nineteenth century. It’s been hard to avoid noticing how similar those attacks are to the biting comments being made against Islam and the backers of a Muslim community center proposed for a lower Manhattan building near the World Trade Center site.

Dangerous Religion

Which religion has proved the most violent and destructive in U.S. history? The answer should not be a surprise.

Beyond Adam and Eve: Christians reach out to the transgender community

When people discuss the rights of lesbians and gays in contemporary U.S. culture, and across religious denominations, the abbreviation "LGBT" is used as a shorthand: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender. But are transgender people really being taken into account? What's the state of the struggle, where transpeople are concerned?

Obama's Pledge to Close Down Guantanamo is 'Not Even Close'

Barack Obama's pledge to shut down Guantanamo Bay will not be honoured until at least a year after the President's self-imposed deadline - and may not be completed in his first administration.

Interview with 'ground zero mosque' spokesman

The leaders of the proposed Islamic community center and mosque near New York's ground zero are addressing their critics by vowing to be open and transparent as the project progresses.

Festive Muslim holiday falls around Sept. 11 this year; US Muslim leaders fear backlash

Eid al-Fitr, a joyous holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, this year falls around Sept. 11. Muslim leaders fear that their gatherings for prayer and festivities could be misinterpreted by those unfamiliar with Islam as a celebration of the 2001 terrorist strikes.

Creating a Cell: Science Plays God

‘Creation of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome’ is the title of the paper. It was published in the prestigious journal Science and came out of the Craig Venter Institute. Venter is the scientist whose name always comes connected to the word ‘maverick’; he’s the one who first made his name by bringing big private dollars into molecular biotechnology to compete with the federal government and speed up the sequencing of the first human genome (that is, the determination of the identity and order of all the billions of DNA base pairs in one human). The title here is certainly in keeping with Venter’s bodaciousness.

Dispelling "Anchor Baby" Myths

The Pew Hispanic Center, which conducts stellar research on everything from health care to religion, released a report today quantifying just how many children are born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. The report comes in the midst of a campaign by some Republicans to hold congressional hearings on whether children born to illegal immigrants should automatically become citizens.

Calling Out the Hatemongers

Progressive faith activists are on the march this summer, challenging the misperceived monopoly of conservatives who for far too long have tried to establish themselves as the sole guardians of faith, morality, and values.

Canadians Not Surprised at Enbridge Oil Spill in Michigan

Canadians familiar with North America's largest oil pipeline operation, Enbridge Inc., say they are not surprised that the company has spilled oil again.

Many Haitians still homeless more than six months after quake

"Our government is incapable of getting us out of this situation," Nicholas said. "I hope the international community can keep our hope alive, because it's fading."

What is Progressive Christianity?

Progressive Christianity is not simply inviting folks to come in shorts and sandals, providing Starbucks coffee, or having a band that plays Christian rock music.  It is not church-as-usual...

Same-Sex Marriage Inches Toward High Court

A federal court in Boston ruled last week that same-sex married couples deserve federal recognition. That case, along with another in California, is likely to move the battle closer to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lord have mercy

Mercy is the missing factor in our ever-stranger political debates about immigration, health care, joblessness, financial reform and local government budgets. A nation founded on mercy -- as shown in religious tolerance, in a Bill of Rights, in a Civil War fought to end slavery, in an open door to "huddled masses" and in the Marshall Plan -- seems to have decided that mercy is no longer affordable. Or even necessary.

Why Creationists Aren’t Wrong And why they must fight evolution

.....When that worldview died—we now live in a universe without an “up” or “down”—so did the literal coherence of the religions born within it. Seen in this light, some of the Creationists’ most hysterical claims (Adam rode a dinosaur?) make perfect psychological sense, as a desperate attempt at “bargaining” which could let them believe their salvation story could still be credible in our modern world.....

Water as Human Right Threatens to Split World Body

UNITED NATIONS - A long outstanding proposal to recognize the right to water as a basic universal human right is threatening to split the world's rich and poor nations.

Art and Religion: Seeing What Others Do Not

While many seem unable to conceive of religion and science as anything other than competitors, it is helpful to reflect on the possibility that religion is far more like art than like science. Like the arts, religion involves seeing the world in a distinctive way. And as in the arts, people of profound religious vision are often rejected by their contemporaries and yet appreciated greatly by later generations.

Anthropologist is seeing a higher number of bodies found in desert

Every year for the past decade, more than 200 suspected illegal immigrants have died crossing the U.S.-Mexican border into Arizona. That's roughly half of all such immigrants who die in the U.S., according to the U.S. Border Patrol and a 2009 American Civil Liberties Union study.

Anderson's job is to get their bodies - or what is left of them - back to their families.

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