Category: Religion

Kerry Grovels over Israeli ‘Apartheid’

Exclusive: Secretary of State Kerry gets to say whatever half-truth or fiction comes into his head about Syria, Russia or other “designated villains,” but when he cites the inconvenient truth of Israeli “apartheid,” he must scramble as fast as he can…

Pope Francis Signals Eased Moral Strictures

For decades, the Catholic Church has alienated many followers with its rigid stance on sexual behavior and marriage. But there are indications that Pope Francis is seeking a less judgmental approach toward these issues, as moral theologian Daniel C. Maguire…

Telling the Truth about Easter

Jesus, a radical preacher who advocated for the poor, was crucified for turning over money tables at the Temple and other insurrectionary acts. His body was likely left to wild animals, but his chroniclers sought to glorify his ending with myths…

Misunderstanding Jesus’s Execution

From the Archive: Over the centuries as Christianity bent to the interests of the rich and powerful, the story of Jesus’s fateful week in Jerusalem was reshaped to minimize its pivotal event, overturning the Temple’s money tables, a challenge to religious and political power, says Rev.…

Israeli-Palestinian Talks Founder, Again

President Obama pondered freeing Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to keep Israeli-Palestinian negotiations sputtering along, but Israel’s demand to be called a “Jewish state” and its refusal to free more Palestinian prisoners have pushed the talks to the brink, notes ex-CIA…

Tolerating Saudi Arabia’s Intolerance

The U.S. government insists that it abides by principles of international law, democracy and respect for national sovereignty, but its actions often belie its words, with the U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s monarchy a stark example of the hypocrisy, writes…

Standing Up to Militarism

A federal judge meted out multi-year prison terms to three anti-nuclear activists from the Transform Now Plowshares group for a symbolic protest at a U.S. nuclear facility in Tennessee. The protesters had been inspired by the courageous White Rose movement…

Oklahoma as the Vanguard of the Right

Exclusive: As Tea Party and Evangelical right-wingers consolidate control over Republican “red states,” the GOP is dividing into something like two political parties, pitting the very conservative against the very, very conservative, as Richard L. Fricker observes in Oklahoma.

Israeli Rabbis Warn Kerry of God’s Wrath

Exclusive: Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiations to resolve the generations-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict may look like a quixotic pilgrimage into endless frustrations to many. But it is causing worries among nationalists on Israel’s Right, Robert Parry reports.

MLK and the Curse of ‘Moderation’

When Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. went to jail to focus national attention on the injustice of segregation, he was stung by criticism from Christian clergy who feared upsetting the status quo and urged “moderation,” prompting his historic rejoinder from the Birmingham…