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    Josh Fleet

    Josh Fleet

    Former Associate Editor, HuffPost Religion

  • 5 Religious Facts You Might Not Know About The Civil Rights Leader

    WASHINGTON (RNS) Frederick Douglass, whose seven-foot bronze statue was unveiled at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday (June 19), is known as the father of the civil rights movement. “We do this not only to honor a giant, but also to remind one another of how richly blessed we are that such a man lived to prove that courage and ambition are not gifts of status but gifts from God,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Douglass was licensed to preach by a congregation of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in New Bedford, Mass., and had many roles in the denomination.

  • ‘Princesses' Embraces A Stereotype And Leaves Some Jews Uncomfortable

    The show follows six unmarried 20-something Jewish women living with their parents on New York’s Long Island. “Everybody has a stereotype of a Long Island Jewish girl,” cast member Ashlee White said on the show’s June 2 premiere. “Most offensive to me is the further perpetuation of the old ‘Jewish American Princess’ stereotype,” said Reform Rabbi Marci Bellows of Temple B’nai Torah in Wantagh, N.Y. It’s a form of self-hatred that always makes her cringe, she said.

  • Pork-laced Bullets Designed To Send Muslims Straight ‘To Hell'

    SPOKANE, Wash. (RNS) Still angry about the idea of an Islamic cultural center opening near Ground Zero, a group of Idaho gun enthusiasts decided to fight back with a new line of pork-laced bullets. The bullets are coated in pork-infused paint, which the company states makes the ammo “haram,” or unclean, and therefore will keep a Muslim who’s shot with one of the bullets from entering paradise.

  • Counseling, Weddings And A Prayer Space For Gay Muslims

    Some weeks, nearly a dozen men and women gather at a Quaker hall in northwest Washington, D.C., where they kneel on prayer rugs laid out to transform the room into a Muslim place of worship. Other weeks, Abdullah, a convert to Islam, sits alone. The mosque is one of just a few in the world where openly gay Muslims are welcome, but even there, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people fear harassment, and often stay away.

  • Hispanic Christians Press Lawmakers On Immigration Reform

    WASHINGTON (RNS) With a July 4 deadline looming for an immigration reform vote on Capitol Hill, politicians and clergy at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast Thursday (June 20) pushed lawmakers to reach common ground. “It’s the right thing to do, it’s the Christian thing to do, but it’s also an incredibly practical thing to do,” said Vice President Joe Biden, addressing about 550 attendees. Many of the leaders attending the breakfast at the end of the three-day biennial conference had spent the previous day on Capitol Hill pressing for passage of immigration reform.

  • Religious Oppression Rises Despite Arab Spring

    WASHINGTON (RNS) People who hoped the Arab Spring would lead to greater religious freedom across the Middle East have been sorely disappointed, and a new Pew study confirms that the region has grown even more repressive for various religious groups. “In 2011, when most of the political uprisings known as the Arab Spring occurred, the Middle East and North Africa experienced pronounced increases in social hostilities involving religion, while government restrictions on religion remained exceptionally high,” according to the report by the Pew Research Center.

  • Pope vs. Pope: How Different Are They?

    VATICAN CITY (RNS) As a millennia-old institution, the Vatican is accustomed to change at a glacial pace. Now, 100 days into his pontificate, a debate is brewing in Rome over whether Francis has set a distinctly different course from his predecessor, or whether the visible differences in style and personality between Francis and Benedict XVI mask a deeper theological and ideological continuity.

  • How To Confront A Church Shooter

    WASHINGTON (RNS) For the first time, the federal government has issued written guidelines for houses of worship that are confronted with a homicidal gunman. Vice President Joe Biden released the new rules on Tuesday (June 18), six months after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 26 dead, including 20 children. Pryor Creek Community Church is one of a few dozen churches around the country that are offering concealed carry certification classes as a way to reach out to non-Christians or to attract new members.

  • Roles For Orthodox Women Take Leap Forward

    Sunday’s inaugural graduation at Yeshivat Maharat was no ordinary cap and gown ceremony. Rather, it was history in the making for Orthodox women. As Ruth Balinsky Friedman, Rachel Kohl Finegold and Abby Brown Scheier prepared to become the first women to hold the title maharat in the Jewish community, faculty members of the school and nearly 500 guests at the event, stressed that the historic nature of the June 16 event could not be understated.

  • Crucifixion No Longer Commands Auction Prices

    In January, a late 14th-century Florentine painting of Jesus on the cross estimated between $80,000 and $120,000 sold at Sotheby’s for $86,500. The previous December, Sotheby’s London sold a mid-16th century Netherlandish Crucifixion sculpture estimated at $31,500 to $47,000 for about $27,500.

  • Turban Ban Lifted, But Allegations Of Intolerance Linger

    TORONTO (RNS) Quebec’s much-criticized ban on turbans on soccer fields ended this weekend after the game’s world governing body ruled Sikh headgear permissible. The Quebec Soccer Federation lifted the ban Saturday (June 15), a day after the Canadian Soccer Association sent out word that FIFA, the international governing body, approved the headgear. “It’s unfortunate that it took this long and this much effort for the QSF to realize that Sikh children should be allowed to play,” said Prem Singh Vinning, president of the World Sikh Organization of Canada.

  • From Kissing Elvis To Joining The Convent

    WASHINGTON (RNS) The way fans reacted to Dolores Hart’s decision to become a cloistered nun, you might have thought the movie star had announced her intention to kill herself. As if to test her resolve in those weeks before she left Hollywood, Universal Studios offered her a role opposite Marlon Brando, a role she turned down shortly after she broke off her engagement to Don Robinson, a kind and handsome businessman who loved her intensely. This is absolutely insane to do this,’” Mother Delores Hart remembered in a recent interview, conducted 50 years after she entered the Order of St. Benedict.

  • LOOK: The Eucharist In Medieval Art

    Illuminating Faith: The Eucharist in Medieval Life and Art will be on view at New York's The Morgan Library & Museum from May 17 to September 2, 2013. The following introduction comes courtesy of the exhibit's curator, Roger Wieck. When Christ changed bread and wine into his body and blood at the Last Supper, he instituted the Eucharist and established the central act of Christian worship.

  • Amma's Multifaceted Empire, Built On Hugs

    THERE are entourages -- and then there is the retinue of Mata Amritanandamayi, a 59-year-old Indian guru known simply as Amma, or “mother.” On Friday, she began a two-month North American tour during which she will be accompanied by 275 volunteers. In India, however, what Amma offers is far more significant and complex.

  • 'Jews A Race' Genetic Theory Comes Under Fierce Attack By DNA Expert

    For years now, the findings of Ostrer and several other scientists have stood virtually unchallenged on the genetics of Jews and the story they tell of the common Middle East origins shared by many Jewish populations worldwide. Jews — and Ashkenazim in particular — are indeed one people, Ostrer’s research finds. It’s a theory that more or less affirms the understanding that many Jews themselves hold of who they are in the world: a people who, though scattered, share an ethnic-racial bond rooted in their common ancestral descent from the indigenous Jews of ancient Judea or Palestine, as the Romans called it after they conquered the Jewish homeland.

  • 'Liberated For All Jewish People'

    JERUSALEM (RNS) Women who want to wear prayer shawls while praying in the women's section of the Western Wall are not breaking the law, according to a landmark decision handed down Thursday (April 25) by the Jerusalem District Court. Israeli police arrested five women on April 11 who were dressed in prayer shawls while praying with Women of the Wall, an activist group that prays at Judaism's most sacred site once a month. The Western Wall is a remnant of the Second Temple that was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago.

  • POLL: Christians Say Smoking Pot Not A Sin

    WASHINGTON (RNS) American views on marijuana are evolving much like their views on gay marriage, according to a new poll, with many people ambivalent but growing numbers in favor of legalization. The poll, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service, found that 45 percent of those surveyed support the legalization of pot, compared to 49 percent who don't. As with the gay marriage debate, older Americans and white evangelical Protestants are most opposed.

  • Jewish Alumni Enraged Over Peace Honor For Former President

    Enraged alumni have threatened to physically block Jimmy Carter from entering Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, where he is due to receive a peace award on April 10. Daniel Rubin, 62, said about a dozen former alumni are planning an act of civil disobedience to prevent Carter, a harsh critic of Israeli policies on the occupied West Bank, from picking up the International Advocate for Peace Award, given annually by Cardozo’s Journal of Conflict Resolution. “Mr. Carter ain’t going to get anywhere,” Rubin said.

  • Counting The Omer: 49 Days Of Jewish Spiritual Reflection

    On Passover, perhaps Judaism's most widely observed holiday, secular and religious Jews alike recall the story of the Israelites' exodus from slavery in Egypt. On Shavuot, perhaps Judaism's most-important-least-observed festival, a smaller contingent of the Jewish people celebrates receiving the Torah. In between these joyous mile-markers of past desert wanderings, even fewer modern Jews observe the Counting of the Omer, a 49-day period of self-reflection and spiritual renewal.

  • How Is The White House Seder Different From All Others?

    President Obama’s upcoming Passover Seder, scheduled for March 25, will host just 20 or so participants this year -- more or less the same core crowd that has been attending it since 2008, when three young staffers began the tradition while on the campaign trail and then-senator Obama surprised them by dropping in. In many ways, this presidential Seder resembles that of many families, if you can look past portraits of former first ladies adorning the walls, the elegant crystal chandelier hanging over the guests’ heads and the White House china on which the gefilte fish is being served. The Haggadah of choice is Maxwell House, and the Passover fare is traditional, featuring classics like matzo ball soup, brisket and kugel.