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Sunday, October 25, 2015

Religion reads: Can teaching religion in public schools improve society? | OregonLive.com

Religion reads: Can teaching religion in public schools improve society? | OregonLive.com:

Religion reads: Can teaching religion in public schools improve society?






Good morning! "Religion reads" is a series of roundups where I share interesting religion stories I read during the week. I hope you'll use the comments section to share articles about faith and values you found particularly intriguing.
In this thorough interview, Linda Wertheimer examines the friction over teaching religion in public schools. Her conversation with The Atlantic provides insight into why some parents so strongly oppose any teaching about religion in public schools, how one district made it work and the myths that pervade about what's legal and what's not. "Some parents feared that if their children learned about another religion, they might fall out of love with their own faith. Or if a child came from an atheist or agnostic family, maybe he or she might suddenly want to embrace a religion," Wertheimer told The Atlantic's Melinda Anderson.
An Indiana imam behind a project to dissuade teens from joining ISIS said the young men who go abroad to join the extremists aren't evil -- they're looking for meaning in life. With that in mind, he's trying to give Muslim youth information that counters ISIS's claims. "My hope and vision for this project is not just about the videos, but it is that the videos are inspiring a movement, reclaiming the faith, reclaiming the true meaning of jihad," the imam said.
Members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church "have launched perhaps the strangest homophobe-on-homophobe attack imaginable," writes Rebecca Barrett-Fox, a researcher who has spend years studying the Kansas congregation. Westboro members picketed outside the courthouse where Davis works earlier this week. "Westboro Baptists argue that because Davis refuses to return to her first husband, she has made a mockery of Christian sexual ethics and needs to at least act with integrity as a hypocrite and issue marriage licenses to gay people."
A three-week-long summit on family issues at the Vatican ended Saturday, with bishops agreeing to be more inclusive of people who are divorced and remarried but not tackling whether or how to welcome gays. It was a tense synod revealing serious friction within the Roman Catholic Church.
-- Melissa Binder


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