“This case is about Christians aggressively imposing themselves upon their fellow citizens with the power of government,” says plaintiff lawyer Douglas Laycock. But defense attorney Tom Hungar warned that the case could lead to “government regulating the theological content of prayers, prescribing what is orthodox and what is not in religion.”
Author Archives: Fred Yi
American Dream
Has income inequality killed the American dream? Some religious leaders are encouraging congregations to raise moral concerns about the economy. “One of my goals is to get pastors and congregations to feel emboldened to ask questions about the economy,” says Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Kristallnacht 75th Anniversary
“You had people watching synagogues burn. You had people looting business that had been plundered. You had people joining in on the violence,” says historian Victoria Barnett, who directs the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust.
Victoria Barnett Extended Interview
Kristallnacht, says this historian who directs the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust, was a pogrom, an escalation of violence against the Jewish population at a time when America was heavily isolationist: “There were a variety of factors that made people turn away from actively helping the Jews just as they really needed the help the most.”
Coventry Cathedral
Out of the ashes and rubble of World War II a ministry of forgiveness, peace and reconciliation was born “to heal the wounds of history.”
Pope Francis and Catholic Expectations, Predicting Violence, Reza Aslan’s Zealot
Changing expectations for reform under Pope Francis; violence, neuroscience, and the ethics of probing the human brain to predict violent behavior; and Reza Aslan, author of “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.”
Pope Francis and Catholic Expectations
Liberal Catholics who were hopeful that Pope Francis’s papacy would usher in sweeping reforms are discovering that the Church “is an institution that takes its time with major decisions, and none of this is going to happen soon.”
Reza Aslan’s Zealot
A new book by religion scholar Reza Aslan portrays Jesus as a Jewish revolutionary and just one of many in a line of “failed messiahs.” “It was a phenomenon quite widespread that led to a number of rebellions and insurgencies throughout the first century,” says Aslan.
Reza Aslan Extended Interview
“On the one hand, knowing what it is to worship Jesus has given me a profound sense of respect for the faith of Christianity…But I also, as a historian and a scholar of religions, have been able to look at Jesus in a sense unburdened by dogma and doctrine.” Watch more of our interview with the author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.
Upanayanam
We visited a Hindu religious coming-of-age ceremony for nine-year-old Rushil Ramakrishnan at the Hindu Temple in Adelphi, Maryland. Also known as the “sacred thread” ceremony, it is typically performed for boys between the ages of 8 and 16 and traditionally marks the start of their formal education. Dr. Siva Subramanian, a neonatologist at Georgetown University Hospital and a founder of Sri Siva Vishnu Temple as well as other Hindu associations in the metropolitan Washington, DC area, presided over the two-day ceremony. He explains the meaning and significance of its elaborate rituals and Sanskrit chants.
View more pictures by photographer Sam Pinczuk:
