Topic: Culture and Society
“Give people job opportunities, give children education, and then you bring them out of poverty. Just giving them condoms and contraceptives will not automatically draw them out of poverty,” says Rev. Joel Jason of the Archdiocese of Manila. But some women say lack of access to family planning and free birth control makes it harder for them to improve their lives. More
“All of the experiences that I have during Ramadan when we’re on tour fasting have always been a blessing,” says Native Deen group member Abdul-Malik Ahmad. “So during the month of Ramadan, I feel that it’s my time to say thank you to God, basically, for all these opportunities.” More
Some seminary graduates are finding it increasingly difficult to secure paid, full-time jobs as pastors. Many turn to other ways to serve or to make ends meet while they look for work. “These students genuinely feel that existentially they have been challenged by God to serve people.” says Greg Sterling, dean of Yale Divinity School. “How are they going to do that if they can’t be supported” by a financially viable congregation? More
The Jordan River is the central location for many sacred stories of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Modern Christians in particular are known to journey to the site some consider to be the religion’s actual starting point. Says Rustom Mkhjian, assistant director of the Jordan River baptism site: “We know this is the spot where Jesus was baptized and Christianity started.” More
“We have [Muslim] folks who worship here in Chapel Hill who refrain from publicizing and making it known where they worship, when they come together. They tell me it’s because they have concerns about their safety,” says Mark Kleinschmidt, mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina where three Muslim students were murdered in February. More
“There is something about the experience of a big group of people singing together, and really singing from the bottom of their hearts, and it does something to you that lifts us out of the intellectual pursuits we do all day long,” says Maggi Dawn, dean of Yale’s Marquand Chapel. More
“It took many parts of very many communities to make peace in Baltimore,” says Eugene Sutton, Episcopal Bishop of Maryland. “Religious leaders from all over the city—Christian mainly, Muslim and Jewish leaders—got out on the streets and congregations and really proclaimed a message of hope and of nonviolence and peace. City officials did the same.” More
John Bursch, the main lawyer arguing why the states should not be required to license same-sex marriages, summed the issue up this way: “You can love your neighbor no matter what their sexual orientation is—what choices they make about their life—and still have a disagreement about what marriage means. And the question is who gets to decide the meaning of marriage?” More
Watch excerpts from R&E’s recent interview with Matthew Vines, author of the book “God and the Gay Christian” and founder and president of the Reformation Project, an effort “to train Christians to support and affirm LGBT people.” More
“People in the community get to value something they weren’t familiar with before and realize what we have that’s so worth preserving,” says Margaret Dick, a member of Buffalo’s Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic Church. Only about 100 people attend morning mass, but when Buffalo Mass Mob gathered there, almost 650 people attended. More
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