The status of LGBTQ persons within faith communities can differ dramatically. After a contentious vote and an amendment to the denomination’s constitution passed in 2015, the Presbyterian Church (USA) joined the majority of mainline Protestant churches in the United States that now ordain gay and lesbian ministers and perform same-sex marriages. However, for the United Methodist Church, the future possibility of these changes may conflict with the growing worldwide church, which is theologically more conservative than the U.S. church (as has already happened in the Anglican tradition). The Catholic Church—which is subject to similar tensions among its diverse global membership—officially opposes same-sex marriage, but emphasizes in the catechism that LGBTQ individuals must always be “accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.” Similarly, the Qur’an and Islamic scholars have traditionally rejected homosexual acts for being non-procreative, but just over half of American Muslims believe homosexuality should be accepted by society. Within Judaism, the spectrum ranges from those who do not accept same-sex relationships to communities that welcome LGBTQ rabbis and recognize same-sex marriages. Hinduism and Buddhism, on the other hand, do not explicitly address sexual orientation, and approaches to LGBTQ issues vary widely.​

I feel myself questioning the meaning of femininity lately. Am I comfortable with my own? Or with that of others? I pride myself on being accepting of all women, however they choose to express their identities. But I am also curious to what extent the way individuals expresses their femininity is impacted by their society. Like people in the United States, Korean people are constantly flooded with the images of the ideal person. To some extent, I would say the problem is worsened by the homogeneity of the Korean society. The United States has its own problems with representation that are quite different because the population is very diverse and the size of the country is huge. In Korea, meanwhile, the country is relatively small and there is a very low level of diversity. According to government data in 2016, only 3.4 percent of the total population is “foreign.”

The accelerating collapse of the Venezuelan economy over the past few years has spawned political protests and has precipitated a humanitarian crisis. Poverty, starvation, and violence are rampant. Amidst this turmoil, 1.2 million Venezuelans have left the country in the past two years, the largest refugee movement in Latin American history. The vast majority of them have fled to neighboring states, especially Colombia, which struggles to provide for them. President Nicolás Maduro has warned Roman Catholic clergy to avoid speaking about the upheaval or criticizing the government. Pro-Maduro paramilitaries and protesters have targeted churches and threatened priests in a pattern of violent incidents, including an assault on the archbishop of Caracas. Meanwhile, humanitarian organizations, including several affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, are working to provide food and healthcare and help resettle refugees. However, this is complicated by the Venezuelan government’s ban on foreign humanitarian assistance.

Saba Mahmood, professor of sociocultural anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, passed away on March 10. Dr. Mahmood’s research examined the relationship between religion, secularism, and gender in postcolonial societies. In particular, she questioned traditional liberal assumptions about the limits of ethics and politics, freedom and agency, and the dynamics between the religious and the secular. Her work often analyzed the role of gender in these discussions and the significance of religious freedom for religious minorities.

In the twelfth century, theologian Thomas Aquinas declared that faith and reason were not in conflict and that the two were actually compatible. Aquinas even asserted that the human faculty for reason could support theological tenets of the Christian faith. Yet religious teachings and institutions have clashed with scientific discoveries in the past: In the 1600s, the Roman Inquisition found Galileo guilty of heresy; in the Scopes Monkey Trial of the early twentieth century, the debate about teaching evolution versus creation in schools suggested an inherent tension between science and religion that allowed one to believe in (and teach) either one or the other. Today, physicist Alan Lightman and others have attempted to reconcile science and religion and explore the ways in which both contribute to a search for truth and meaning. The scientific discipline, with its emphasis on empirical evidence, can answer important questions about how the universe functions, while religion can provide alternate explanations to fill gaps in scientific knowledge, and answer existential questions that science cannot.

The United Nations (UN) has long characterized the Rohingya as the world’s most persecuted population. Historically, the Burmese viewed the ethnic and religious minority as illegal immigrants permitted entry by their former British colonizers. Such historical context informs contemporary views of the group as “foreigners.” And that has helped justify decades-long persecution by both private and public actors culminating in the Rohingya’s legal exclusion as citizens and other discrimination codified in law. Despite the group’s pre-colonial ancestral ties to the land, messaging that Rohingya are “outsiders,” “Bengalis,” and even “terrorists,” has helped the government justify mass atrocity crimes. And, that comes with adverse global security implications for all.

On Wednesday, April 25, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Trump v. Hawaii case, in which the State of Hawaii is leading a challenge to an executive order preventing most people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, as well as certain visitors from North Korea and Venezuela from entering the United States. The Trump administration has argued that there are legitimate national security grounds for these restrictions, while critics argue that such widespread restrictions are religiously discriminatory (an assumption based largely on Trump’s own campaign calls for a Muslim ban). Yet, while several amicus briefs in opposition have been filed by religious groups from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions (both Catholic and Protestant), other religiously affiliated groups have filed with no position on the order.

Though the conflict in Syria has raged for over seven years, the recent alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime—and the joint U.S.-French-British military response that followed—has renewed debate about what course of action should be taken to end the bloodshed. Prior to the strike conducted on April 13, Catholic scholars, priests, and Church leaders were divided as to whether the intervention by the United States and its allies was allowable under the Church’s just war tradition. Already in 2013 some argued that the use of chemical weapons represented a paradigm shift that justified intervention, while others claimed this made little difference; attacks on civilians were equally abhorrent irrespective of the weapon used, and therefore a position on intervening should already have been taken. By contrast, a recent statement released by the patriarchates of Antioch and the East for the Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, and Greek-Melkite Catholic Churches said the current intervention will only make matters worse: Not only did the strikes violate international law, but they would also encourage terrorist groups to continue attacks. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s approval of the strike was met with criticism by Muslims, as Erdogan was questioned how, as a Muslim, he could support a Western nation bombing a fellow Muslim country. The lack of consensus from religious leaders provides mixed messages as to the moral and ethical implications of any decision made regarding Syria.

Understanding constructions of racial identities beyond the U.S. context is always a humbling reminder of the literal black and white lens in which I view the world as an American. The racial binary that operates within the United States is rare. Due to Western imperialism in academia, I have found that we are beginning to impose our racial discourse in contexts that have different—not necessarily better or worse—dynamics. For example, black Jordanians do not have a sense of peoplehood in the way that the black community has in the United States. There is no law in Jordan that explicitly addresses racial discrimination. While some explain that the lack of laws addressing racial discrimination is because Jordan a color-blind society, others find that this stifles conversation.

Although founded in the late eighteenth century as the headquarters for czarist Russia’s Chinese Eastern Railroad, and later serving as a refuge for White Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks, Harbin has over time become a deeply Chinese city. Since it is a unique place with religious influence from both East and West, a while ago I asked my program director about the city’s complex religious character. She arranged for me to chat with an instructor at the university with a relevant background.