Is the Roman celebration, Saturnalia, what we’re really celebrating when we celebrate Christmas?  Gift giving, mistletoe, and even the Christmas tree all come from Vikings and Saxons. “Christmas in December is a Western, Roman idea…” says Dr Matthew Nicholls, senior lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading in England.  Romans, he argues in this BBC article,  spent seven days from mid December partying. It was a celebration called Saturnalia  “Homes were decorated, parties held and slaves became masters –... Read more

Countries in red and orange have the largest differences between men and women’s rights. The map comes from the World Economic Forum and Caitlin Dewy of the Washington Post summarized what she thought were the seven most ridiculous restrictions.  For example, in Yemen women cannot leave their house without their husband’s permission and in Morocco rape victims can be charged with crimes. And here is a summary of the top most gender equal countries from the World Economic Forum. Read more

Were Methodist church authorities right to defrock a pastor who officiated a gay wedding (his son’s)? That’s exactly what happened this week.  The church told  Rev. Frank Schaefer of Pennsylvania that if he could not follow the Book of Discipline, he should resign.   He did not, so the church defrocked him this week. NPR’s The Two Way New York Daily News The New York Times Read more

Here’s a dated but good documenatry about Shinto from the Religions of the World series. This is part 1 of a four part series which is narrated by Ben Kingsley.  You can find the other three parts here. Read more

Former monk, Buddhist teacher and author, Jack Kornfield, sits down with Oprah for one of her Super Soul Sunday episodes. He discusses how to return your mind to its original state of goodness. He advises us not to get swept up by the past. “The past you can learn from, but to be awake is to live here so that when you are with the person you love, you’re really present,” he says. Read more

Here is an excellent clip on Sufism from the documentary “Sufism, The Heart of Islam.” Read more

Here’s an interesting and, for kids,an engaging review of the central beliefs of Islam.  It comes from True Tube, a British website that provides video and lessons for schools and religion classes.  Thanks to Ms. Clarke for the link which I found on her blog. Read more

Interesting BBC documentary on how Muslim soccer players impact their English soccer teams. Thanks to Ms. Clarke for the link which I found on her blog. Read more

Here’s an interesting clip about the expansion of Mormon missionaries from Religion and Ethics News Weekly. The Church recently lowered the ages for which young Mormon boys and girls can go out on missions. Read more

If you want to show your students the religious make-up of  America,  you should check out these awesome  maps from from the Washington Post. The map above shows the largest non-Christian groups in different regions. You’ll see that Islam is the largest, especially in the midwest and the south. Other maps will show you which counties have the largest number of adherents, which have the most religious participation,  and which have the most religious diversity.  Another map shows the total... Read more