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 Rabbi Michael Broyde, a high-profile Jewish and legal scholar based at Emory Unversity, has apologized for deception.
April 16th, 2013
12:12 PM ET
With fake name revealed, top rabbi faces heatBy Jessica Ravitz, CNN Atlanta (CNN) – A top-tier rabbi and expert in Jewish law and ethics is now under the microscope for what many see as his own ethical transgressions. Rabbi Michael Broyde was outed last week for having created a fake identity that he reportedly used for about two decades. Broyde has long served on America’s highest Modern Orthodox rabbinical court and was said to be a finalist to become the next chief rabbi of the United Kingdom. FULL POST 
January 8th, 2013
09:25 AM ET
Christians divided on gun controlOne of the most intense battlefields in today's gun control debate is happening inside Christianity. Christians of every stripe; conservative, moderate and liberal tend to agree with the Gospel's message of love and peace. However, they don’t agree on what that Gospel message means. FULL STORY Tibetans at a protest in Taipei in 2011 display portraits of people who killed themselves by self-immolation.
January 2nd, 2013
07:00 AM ET
My Take: Blood on Chinese hands in Tibetan self-immolations
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN (CNN) –China Daily, an English-language newspaper and a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, last week published an article called “Western Voices Question Tibetan Self-Immolation Acts.” The first of the voices quoted was mine—for a Belief Blog piece I wrote last summer criticizing the Dalai Lama for averting his gaze from the spate of self-immolations protesting Chinese rule in Tibet. "If the Dalai Lama were to speak out unequivocally against these deaths, they would surely stop. So in a very real sense, their blood is on his hands," I wrote in a passage quoted in the Chinese Daily piece. In my post, I wrote of an “epidemic of self-immolations,” noting that from mid-March to mid-July 2011 more than 40 Tibetans had set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Since then, the pace of these protests has accelerated. According to the International Campaign for Tibet, 94 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011, and the pace in November was nearly one a day.  A man pauses at a memorial of crosses near the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, the scene of last week's mass shooting.
July 26th, 2012
02:49 PM ET
My Take: CNN readers' 7 answers to 'Where was God in Aurora?'
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN Over the last few days, CNN’s Belief Blog has received more than 10,000 responses to its question, “Where was God in Aurora?” The underlying concern here has vexed theologians for centuries: How can evil happen in a world that is lorded over by a good and all-powerful God? As CNN's readers struggled to make sense of God's presence (or absence) in the Aurora, Colorado, massacre, I counted seven different answers to this question: 1. There is no God. Self-professed atheists may make up only 2% of the U.S. population, but they are extraordinarily active online, and on CNN's Belief Blog. A commenter who identified as Jason spoke for them when he wrote, “Where was God? He was where he has always been. Nowhere because God does not exist.” Bob Dobbs agreed: “God is imaginary. The question is moot.” 
July 21st, 2012
08:46 AM ET
My Take: The Batman killings and the evil that we do
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN (CNN)–Friday both President Obama and Mitt Romney used the word “evil” to describe the killings that took place early Friday morning at a showing of the new Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado. In perhaps his most theological speech to date, Romney referred to these Batman killings as “a few moments of evil." “Such violence, such evil is senseless,” Obama said. Tibetans at a protest in Taipei in 2011 display portraits of people who killed themselves by self-immolation.
July 12th, 2012
09:28 AM ET
My Take: Dalai Lama should condemn Tibetan self-immolations
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN When the Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Duc immolated himself in Saigon in 1963 to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem, the world took notice. Malcolm Browne’s photograph of the monk becoming a martyr won the Pulitzer Prize, and Diem's Roman Catholic regime fell before the year’s end. Today, Tibet is witnessing an epidemic of self-immolations. In fact, since March 16, 2011, more than 40 Tibetans have followed Thich Quang Duc’s lead, setting themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Westerners react with revulsion to sati, the Hindu practice of widow-burning outlawed by the British in 1829, and of course to Islamist suicide bombers. The New Atheists are right to protest all this killing in the name of God (or the Buddha) – the way believers both prompt violence and justify it in the name of some higher good. So where are the protests against these Tibetan protesters?  The Vatican publicized its condemnation of Sister Margaret Farley on Monday.
June 4th, 2012
01:20 PM ET
My Take: Vatican is unjust to condemn nun's 'Just Love'
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN A few years ago I sat on a book prize jury and weighed the merits of the book "Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics" by Margaret A. Farley, a nun in the Sisters of Mercy order. I thought it was well-researched and well-argued, and I was not surprised when it won the 2008 Grawemeyer Award in Religion (and with it a $200,000 prize). On May 21, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith forwarded to Sister Patricia McDermott, president of Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, a Notification condemning Farley's "Just Love." On Monday, the Vatican published that Notification online. Not surprisingly, the matter preoccupying the Vatican here is not poverty or hunger or oppression. It is sex.  Orthodox rabbis have concluded that cosmetic surgery is religiously acceptable in many instances.
April 2nd, 2012
06:46 PM ET
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me … a nose job appointment?By Jessica Ravitz, CNN (CNN) – The problem for Orthodox Jewish singles, when it comes to meeting “the one,” might be right in front of them. Literally, as in staring them in the mirror. So says a Miami plastic surgeon who recently announced surgery “scholarships” for single men and women in the Orthodox Jewish community. Doing his part to help bring couples together, Dr. Michael Salzhauer launched this pro-bono campaign for his fellow Jews. Call it nose jobs for nuptials. “A big nose worked for George Washington,” he said. “But there are standards of beauty that go across all cultures.” Like it or not, the stereotypical “Jewish nose” is a subject fraught with complex history.
December 15th, 2011
01:32 PM ET
Gingrich vows to be faithful to wife(CNN)–CNN's John King talked with Pastor Jim Garlow of Skyline Church in La Mesa, California and Richard Land, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, about morality and the role of religion in the GOP race for 2012. Land recently wrote an open letter to Newt Gingrich calling on him to, "Promise your fellow Americans that if they are generous enough to trust you wit the presidency, you will no let them down and that there will be no moral scandals in a Gingrich White House."
November 12th, 2011
10:00 PM ET
My Take: Keep government out of mind-reading business
By Paul Root Wolpe, Special to CNN (CNN) – “My thoughts, they roam freely. Who can ever guess them?” So goes an old German folk song. But imagine living in a world where someone can guess your thoughts, or even know them for certain. A world where science can reach into the deep recesses of your brain and pull out information that you thought was private and inaccessible. Would that worry you? If so, then start worrying. The age of mind reading is upon us. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke and Eric Marrapodi with daily contributions from CNN's worldwide newsgathering team and frequent posts from religion scholar and author Stephen Prothero.  |
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Editor's note: Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "
Editor's Note: 
