Religion News on the Web
Selected religion-related news from around the Web
February 03, 2012
- The Associated Press
AP: Contraception mandate outrages religious groups
The Obama administration’s decision requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control was bound to cause an uproar among Roman Catholics and members of other faiths, no matter their beliefs on contraception.
January 12, 2012
- The Australian
Australian: Salman Rushdie brushes off call for festival 'blasphemy' ban
The vice-chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband, one of India's most influential Islamic seminaries, has called on the government to deny the Indian-born writer a visa to attend the Jaipur Literary Festival over the insult caused to Muslims by his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.
January 11, 2012
- The New York Times
NYT: After losing a lawsuit, taking their appeal to God
They have tried letter-writing, petitions and a lawsuit, all to no avail. So now the Christian congregations that are weeks away from expulsion from New York City’s public schools are focusing on more-religious tools in their arsenal: prayer, fasting and repentance.
December 31, 2011
- The Economist
The Economist: In the beginning were the words
Religions invite stereotypes, holy texts even more so. Non-Muslims often see Islam as a faith followed by people who hew so closely to an unchanging set of words that they ignore awkward new facts sooner than contradict its message.
December 30, 2011
- The Globe and Mail
Globe and Mail: The surprising success of the Confession app
When they launched their first Roman Catholic mobile phone application early this year, the founders of the Indiana-based startup Little i Apps had hoped their product would reach a small, niche market of fellow Catholics.
December 27, 2011
- The Washington Post
Wash. Post: Religious limits on women spur controversy in Israel
A sign outside a row of synagogues directing women to walk on the other side of the street has turned this town near Jerusalem into a front line of a raging national debate about the imposition of strict social codes by ultra-Orthodox zealots.
December 27, 2011
- The New York Times
NYT: Israeli girl, 8, at center of tension over religious extremism
The latest battleground in Israel’s struggle over religious extremism covers little more than a square mile of this Jewish city situated between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and it has the unexpected public face of a blond, bespectacled second-grade girl.