UK Jewish Orthodox school criticizes for banning mention of evolution. read
Gene Zubovich: The strange and short career of Judeo-Christianity. “During the Second World War, a spirit of national unity finally made the notion of Judeo-Christianity common, as Jews and Catholics were publically welcomed as junior partners in the country’s national life…..As Herberg saw it, Judeo-Christianity arose because secularism had failed and three vibrant faiths stepped in to fill that vacuum…..Evangelicals, meanwhile, resisted the encroaching pluralism…..evangelicals now accepted Catholics and Jews as important allies in the fight against abortion, feminism and gay rights…..The short career of Judeo-Christianity has already lasted too long.” read
Jain saint travels to Chicago, Vasanath Vijayji Maharaj. read
Ronan McCrea argues that immigrations will further “hobble” religious influences within European politics. “In a more diverse Europe, the Christian flavour of public institutions is becoming increasingly controversial….Migration has pushed religion back to the centre of public debate, but has also placed pressure on the remaining legal and symbolic privileges held by Christianity in European states, pressure that may well have the effect of banning religion from legal and political life altogether….As populations of European states have become more religiously diverse, the ability of a particular faith to act as part of a shared national identity has diminished. In part this is because there are many ethnic communities who do not share Christian cultural loyalties, but it is also because numbers of self-declared atheists and agnostics are rising rapidly at the same time…..The intellectual historian Mark Lilla, professor of humanities at Columbia University, argues that separation of religion and politics is a product of a chance combination of historically specific factors, and anything but inevitable: it cannot be taken for granted. It has encouraged the development of an ideal of shared citizenship in religiously diverse populations and has been crucial to the advance of liberal principles such as gender equality and gay rights…..The more muscular religiosity of some migrant communities, among other factors, is provoking European governments to restrict religion firmly to the private sphere, and to render the public sphere a strictly secular one.” . read |