Sri Lanka, the Spiral of Violence, and Global Turn to Strongmen Messianic Solutions: The Temptation of This Moment

I grieve — so very much — the carnage we've just seen enacted in Sri Lanka, on the day many Christians consider the holiest day of the liturgical calendar. I grieve above all the enormous loss of life, the manifestation of gross religious hatred we see on full display in this event, and the way in which it's very clear that this latest act of religious hatred is immediately rooted in the atrocious act of religious (and white supremacist) hatred we saw recently in New Zealand. As Dom Hélder Câmara reminded us over and over, violence spawns more violence in an endless chain of reaction until someone finally has the courage and compassion to break that chain.

Killing of John Allen Chau, Controversy re: Pope Benedict's View of Jewish-Christian Relations, Claim of Franklin Graham That Trump Defends the Faith: Idea of Religious Mission Now in News

With the killing of John Allen Chau on North Sentinel Island and controversy about EPope Benedict XVI's understanding of Jewish-Christian relations in the news right now, religious missionizing is unexpectedly in the spotlight of the mainstream media. In the current conversations about Christian mission, it would be short-sighted not to recognize that these conversations are taking place against the backdrop of great fear in some quarters that Christian cultures are being overtaken by Muslim ones, and that Christianity needs to compete with Islam in a way reminiscent of the "Holy Wars" period in the past.

"All I Hear in These Conversations Now Is Death": Queer People Continue Engaging World Religious Leaders and Their Institutions in Light of Orlando

.@JamesMartinSJ on solidarity w/#LGBT community in wake of #Orlando shooting | https://t.co/k58PvyCGhL pic.twitter.com/Ny6Ye1Uaan

— Ignatian Solidarity (@IGsolidarityNET) June 13, 2016

In what I just posted about Garrard Conley's book Boy Erased, I noted that one of the important developments both in the U.S. and internationally following the Orlando atrocity is that a significant conversation has developed about the interplay between toxic conservative religious ideas and anti-LGBTQ violence. As Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry said several days ago (I discussed these comments here), 

"LGBT Experiences Have Been Erased and Nullified": More on Who's Erasing Queer People from Discussion of a Massacre of Queer People, and Why This Is Being Done

More observations on who's erasing queer people from the massacre of queer people in Orlando, and why they're doing this:

Orlando Atrocity As Teaching Moment for American Culture: Religious Roots of Toxic Definitions of Manhood, Homophobia, Transphobia, Misogyny, and Racism

I know that many regular readers of this blog are highly informed people who read and think about news reports on a daily basis. I don't mean to be an irritant in offering you these newsfeed-type postings following the atrocity in Orlando. I do think, however, that many people come to this site to get a feel for conversations going on about religion and issues of sexual orientation or gender. And for those folks, who may often hear only stale, one-sided representations of these matters in the mainstream media and at church-affiliated media sites, I want to keep offering some resources I'm finding as I read and think about Orlando.

Alan McCornick on Why Religion Is the Problem: "Imagine a World Where Cherry-Picking Does Not Take Place and You Have the Kind of World Which ISIS Is Trying to Create"

An early Christmas gift: Alan McCornick's smart, wonderfully dense (think an outstanding slice of dark, rich fruitcake), fetchingly written essay about religion as the problem at his Hepzibah site yesterday. Precisely because Alan's essay is dense and so well-written, it's hard for me to select a passage to try to tempt you to read it in its entirety. Here's one that does leap out at me, since it so well summarizes the primary point Alan is making in the essay — that religion is the problem when adherents of a particular religion (and the culture at large) permit any given religion to rest easy with the reduction of its complex message to something like the obligation to kill one's perceived enemies: Alan writes, 

"The Whole Thing Is Simply Beyond Comprehension": Post-Paris Discussions and Lessons from History Not Learned and Unlearned

US Jul ’38: What’s your attitude towards allowing German, Austrian & other political refugees to come into the US? pic.twitter.com/7hMfLbXWFE

— Historical Opinion (@HistOpinion) November 16, 2015

bell hooks on Worship of Death As Central Component of Patriarchal Thinking: The Events in Paris and Our Response to Them

On my retreat the last two weeks, I read bell hooks' book All About Love: New Visions (NY: William Morrow, 2000). The following passage has profound resonance for me now, after the events several days ago in Paris:

Christianity, Islam, Violence: Three Thoughtful Reactions to Mr. Obama's National Prayer Breakfast Remarks

Three thoughtful quotes from three thoughtful articles responding to the manufactured right-wing outrage after President Obama told the attendees of the National Prayer Breakfast that Christianity, too, has its heritage of violence with which to contend:

Islam, Christianity, and Barbaric Violence: Discussion of the Issues in a U.S. Catholic Forum, National Catholic Reporter

In response to an article by Sister Maureen Fiedler in National Catholic Reporter this morning about the bogus controversy following President Obama's statements that Christianity has its own history of violence to face, a Catholic regular at NCR who is ever ready to demonize Muslims, one Purgatrix Ineptiae, writes,*

Commentary on Charlie Hebdo Attack: Freedom of Speech, Economic and Social Oppression, Violence, and Religion

Here's a selection of commentary (running a wide gamut) that has caught my eye about the murder of the staff of Charlie Hebdo by terrorists in Paris this week:

Richard Rodriguez, Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography: "Until the Desert Religions See the Woman as Father, the Father as Woman, Indistinguishable in Authority and Creative Potence," They Will Continue Opposing Homosexuality

I'm reading Richard Rodriguez's book Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (NY: Viking, 2013) right now. A theme running through the book is the distinctiveness of the monotheistic "desert religions" — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — all of which were born in the same desert crucible, are closely genetically related to each other, and focus on God's self-revelation in scripture (and there's significant interplay between the sacred books of all three desert religions). As a gay (and practicing) Catholic, Rodriguez is interested, in particular, in the jealous, vengeful maleness of the deity of the desert religions, and their seeming imperviousness to gay people (which is, he argues, intrinsically connected to their obvious allocation of second-class status to women).

Wil Gafney on Rape Culture, Kidnapping of Nigerian Schoolgirls, and the Bible:" We Must Teach the Bible’s Iron Age Theology Because It Permeates Our Culture and Society"

I find Wil Gafney's approach to the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls to force the girls into rape-marriage illuminating. Gafney's essay is at Religion Dispatches, and follows on the heels of one by Anthea Butler telling the story of the recent kidnapping of some 200 girls in Nigeria by the Islamic theocratic group Boko Haram, which Gafney cites.

Week's-End News Round-Up: Catholic Bishops and Shutdown, Exporting of Anti-Gay Hate by U.S. Religious Right, Malala Yousafzai

As the work week ends, valuable news commentary I've noticed in recent days, which adds new information to discussions we've had here in the past:

Benedict Builds Alliance with World Religions to Combat LGBT Rights and Shore Up Patriarchy

In linking this article to his Facebook feed, my friend and fellow theologian Michael J. Iafrate observes,