Religion

By Dan Arel   What began as a student project about a Christian boarding school in the Dominican Republic turned into a horror story when the young filmmaker Kate Logan uncovered the real story happening inside. Ms. Logan who herself in an evangelical, wanted to create a positive documentary about Escuela Caribe, a now defunct school that …

By Timothy Egan He’s had a busy summer. As God only knows, he was summoned to slaughter in the Holy Land, asked to end the killings of Muslims by Buddhist monks in Myanmar, and played both sides again in the 1,400-year-old dispute over the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad. In between, not much down …

By David Edwards Televangelist Pat Robertson advised a mother on Monday that she could cure her son’s stomach pains by finding someone to cast out demons that were possibly caused by an ancestor who practiced witchcraft. In an email, a viewer named Dianne told the TV preacher that her son had “painful shock-waves thru his …

By Herb Silverman   The phrase “More Catholic than the Pope” usually refers to someone who is more religiously strict than the Catholic Church requires. Gordon Klingenschmitt, Republican nominee for Colorado House of Representatives District 15, is not Catholic, but I’d add him to the club. Klingenschmitt was upset when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld …

By Sarah Jones   A Delaware school district recently voted to remove a book from a high school’s approved reading list over complaints about profanity. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth had been recommended reading for rising freshmen in Cape Henlopen. NBC’s local affiliate reports that parents objected to the book’s use of strong language, and in …

By Mitch Horowitz Most people believe that the persecution of “witches” reached its height in the early 1690s with the trials in Salem, Mass., but it is a grim paradox of 21st-century life that violence against people accused of sorcery is very much still with us. Far from fading away, thanks to digital interconnectedness and economic …

By Charity R. Carney   It was the most difficult job I’ve ever had. I’ve been a history professor for years, toiled as a graduate assistant before that, and even did a stint as an IT technician. But the three months I worked at Hobby Lobby stocking googly eyes and framing baseball cards takes the …

By Dave Niose   The Supreme Court made a very important statement that seems to have gone largely unnoticed in its landmark Hobby Lobby ruling on Monday. When it comes to religious freedom, the justices declared, the Constitution doesn’t matter. You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. The court unambiguously said that, in considering whether someone’s religious freedom is …

By Ciaran Jones The charity watchdog has launched a probe into a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses where a church elder sexually abused women and children. Paedophile Mark Sewell, 53, faces a “very substantial” prison term when he is sentenced tomorrow after being found guilty of eight historic sex offences. The disgraced businessman and former Butlins holiday …

By Andrew Buncombe   Police in Pakistan have launched a murder inquiry after a young woman was reportedly beaten to death by a Muslim holy man who was trying to “exorcise demons” from her. Reports said the 24-year-old woman from Lahore, Zeenat Bib, had been suffering from undiagnosed problems for some time and that her …

By The National Secular Society Eleven children whose parents refused places at a Hindu faith school in the London borough of Redbridge have been left with no school place for September. Families of children allocated places at Avanti Court Primary School in Essex refused the places, saying the school’s religious ethos is at odds with …

By National Secular Society The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a French law banning the wearing of the full-face veil in public, ruling that the law does not breach the European Convention on Human Rights. A 24-year-old French woman, identified by her initials ‘SAS’, had argued that the ban on wearing the veil …