The Supreme Court is seeking a compromise that would let religious nonprofit groups avoid any involvement in offering insurance coverage for contraceptives while also ensuring that employees get the coverage.
“If Easter means anything it’s that you don’t have to be afraid,” President Obama said, to the scattered “amens” and grunts of agreement from the attendees of the White House’s Easter Prayer Breakfast on March 30.
As it turns out, the faith community may have a marked advantage when it comes to dealing with global warming. According to University of British Columbia social psychologist and author Ara Norenzayan, religion primes cooperation. In his work, Norenzayan has found religious societies to be more cooperative than non-religious societies — particularly where a group's survival is threatened.
This month, French authorities have been demolishing the 'Jungle,' a toxic wasteland on the edge of Calais. Formerly a landfill site four kilometers square, it is now populated by approximately 5,000 refugees pushed there over the last year. A remarkable community of 15 nationalities adhering to various faiths comprises the Jungle. Residents have formed a network of shops and restaurants which, along with hamams and barber shops, contribute to a micro-economy within the encampment. Community infrastructure now includes schools, mosques, churches, and clinics.
Church closings are nothing new in the United Kingdom.
In the past six years, 168 Church of England churches have closed, along with 500 Methodist and 100 Roman Catholic churches.
“Christianity in Britain has seen a relentless decline for over 100 years,” says Linda Woodhead, a sociologist at Lancaster University.
As a social concept, humanism isn’t a threat to religion, nor actively working against it — humanism is simply a growing alternative in terms of spiritualism and rationalism. These six burial practices of humanist funerals can help us understand why.
The leader of the “Moral Mondays” movement and a prominent New York minister are joining forces for a 15-state “moral revolution” tour to counter the nation’s conservative voices.
“Way too much of our national discourse has been poisoned by hateful language and policies,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, who brought thousands to weekly protests at the North Carolina General Assembly, in an announcement.
An annual “snow bird” sojourn to South Africa was convicting. The constant news highlighted the American political “silly season” along with the drumbeat reports of President Jacob Zuma’s illegal brutish behavior. An African storekeeper exclaimed, “Do Republicans not see the Trump antics are undermining the good feelings we have because of President Obama’s accomplishments? We are afraid for all of us.”
Attorney General Roy Cooper said March 29 that he will not defend the new state law that prohibits local governments from approving LGBT protections, reports The New York Times. Lambda Legal and the North Carolina ACLU have filed suit against the state.
On March 29, public sector unions narrowly avoided a severe blow as the Supreme Court handed down a 4-4 ruling in the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers’ Association. The split ruling in the case, which dealt with the use of “fair-share” fees by public unions to fund their collective bargaining on behalf of all employees (including non-union employees).
The split ruling means that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in favor of the teachers’ union and their use of such fees will stand, though no new precedent will be set.