Christian militias in the Central African Republic (CAR ) are attempting to purge Muslims from their war-torn country. Amnesty International calls it ethnic cleansing and says that the militias are forcing “a Muslim exodus of historic proportions.” Why and why should anyone care? The CAR is a former French colony. Last year, Muslim rebels (known as Seleka) ousted the president. Christian militias then began fighting Muslims and forcing them out of the country. Peacekeepers include about 1600 French troops and... Read more

Radiocarbon dating of camels suggest they were not around when Genesis says they were. That means that Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph were not camel riders as Genesis says they were. According to the New York Times , archaeologists “used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the earliest known domesticated camels in Israel to the last third of the 10th century B.C. — centuries after the patriarchs lived and decades after the kingdom of David.” The historian, Juan Cole, has an interesting story about... Read more

Check out these beautiful Persian manuscripts at the The British Library.  Most are small paintings designed to go into books.  You can read posts about some of the manuscripts which explain them in great detail. For example, you can read a famous poem by Manṭiq al-ṭayr, and examine the image, which is a Sufi allegory of the quest for God. And you can zoom in on most of the images and see awesome detail. According to the Library, “the manuscripts were selected... Read more

Many American universities have fraternities but until recently, none had a Muslim fraternity. According to this story in the New York Times, that’s changing. The first Muslim fraternity was started this fall at the University of Texas. Called Alpha Lambda Mu (“named for three letters that start several chapters of the Quran: Alif Laam Meem”), it has spread to other campuses. Read more

Teaching Hinduism? Here’s an interesting report from Religion and Ethnics News Weekly about the sacred cows today and the conflict the cows pose. Read more

Should Israel divest itself of land it occupies in the West Bank? That’s what a relatively new movement wants Israel to do. Called the BDS movement, it uses  boycotts divestment and sanctions in an effort to get Israel to divest itself of occupied land on the West bank. Israel calls it the “delegitimization” movement.  And a number of articles suggest that Israel is starting to get nervous. Why?  Here are two reasons. The Dutch pension fund PGGM recently divested Israeli banks... Read more

Wow!  What a difference a century makes! In 1910, most of the the world’s Christians lived in Latin America and Europe, as you can see in the Pew Research graph above.  Not in 2010. Almost half of the world’s Christians now live in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa! You can see the changes in the numbers for the Global North and the Global South. In 1910, the Global North had about 5 times more Christians than the Global South. That... Read more

Here’s the story from the Huffington Post. Read more

Bill Nye, the Science Guy, and Ken Ham (a best-selling Christian author and president/CEO of “Answers in Genesis” (AiG), debated evolution and creationism last night. Where do most Americans fall on that debate? The Pew Research for Religion and Public Life asked that question last year. You’ll see, for example that 64%  of white evangelical Protestants believe that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. The way people view evolution and creationism also breaks down politically.... Read more

The debate was long, over two hours. And lots of people watched it live. You Tube showed over 500,000 watching at one point.  CNN moderated the debate and has an excellent summary here and here.Reddit also lit up during the debate and you might find some of the entries there entertaining. Time Magazine offers a minute by minute review and the page already has over 500 comments. NPR also has a good summary of the two as does the Washington Post. Nye... Read more