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April 13th, 2013
02:38 PM ET
My Take: Nothing wrong with Nazi assignment
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN (CNN) - School officials in Albany, New York, are racing to control the damage after a teacher at Albany High School gave students a persuasive writing assignment that challenged them to defend the proposition that “Jews are evil.” After studying Nazi propaganda and rhetoric, sophomores in three English classes were instructed to imagine that their teacher was “a member of the government in Nazi Germany” and to prove that that they were “loyal to the Nazis.” But this unidentified teacher is now caught up in a propaganda swirl of his or her own.  A club official at Beitar Jerusalem cleans up after the arson attack on the club's offices.
February 11th, 2013
02:14 AM ET
Israeli football club torched after signing Muslim playersBy Paul Gittings, CNN (CNN) - Arsonists attacked the administrative offices of leading Israeli football club Beitar Jerusalem on Friday, police said. The attack occurred just days after the club signed two Muslim players. No one was injured in the fire, which was discovered around 5 a.m., police said. But the blaze damaged the club's trophy room. FULL STORY
October 13th, 2012
10:00 PM ET
Shining light on Emory school's past anti-Semitism prompts healing – and, for one man, questionsBy Jessica Ravitz, CNN Atlanta (CNN) – Sixteen years after Susan Shulman Tessel lost her father, she sat on a Southern college campus Wednesday night and couldn't stop thinking about him. Surrounded by hundreds in a packed ballroom, she cried because he was missing. He should have been there with her and her mother. He deserved to be. The late Irving Shulman was the only Jewish man to enter Emory University’s School of Dentistry in 1948. That was the same year someone else came to the school: the newly appointed dean, John E. Buhler. After one academic year, Shulman flunked out. Buhler stayed on for 13 years, leading what some Jewish students would refer to as a “reign of terror.” Between 1948 and 1961, when Buhler left, 65% of Jewish students either failed out or were forced to repeat up to two years of coursework in the four-year program. FULL POST
July 19th, 2012
02:15 PM ET
My Take: McCain takes down Bachmannism and stands up for America
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN (CNN)–One of Sen. John McCain’s better moments came in a 2008 campaign stop when a woman told him that she couldn’t trust Barack Obama because he was an Arab. Taking the microphone away from her, McCain said, “No ma'am, he’s a decent family man (and) citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.” He had another great moment this week, when he stood up on the Senate floor to defend Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, against McCarthyesque accusations leveled against her by his Republican colleagues.  A crowd gathers in Marion, Indiana, in 1930 to witness a lynching. This photograph inspired the poem and song “Strange Fruit.”
April 21st, 2012
10:00 PM ET
America’s ‘angriest’ theologian faces lynching treeBy John Blake, CNN (CNN) - When he was boy growing up in rural Arkansas, James Cone would often stand at his window at night, looking for a sign that his father was still alive. Cone had reason to worry. He lived in a small, segregated town in the age of Jim Crow. And his father, Charlie Cone, was a marked man. Charlie Cone wouldn’t answer to any white man who called him “boy.” He only worked for himself, he told his sons, because a black man couldn’t work for a white man and keep his manhood at the same time.  Jeremy Lin, right.
February 15th, 2012
04:02 PM ET
My Take: The real miracle of Jeremy Lin
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN I don’t believe in miracles. But I believe in Jeremy Lin. I grew up rooting for the Celtics so I have hated the Knicks ever since another Ivy Leaguer, Princeton's Bill Bradley, patrolled Madison Square Garden in the 1970s. But I tuned in last night to see “Linsanity” cross the border to Toronto. When Lin drained a bomb at the buzzer for three points and a Knicks win, I found myself cheering, almost against my will. Why? Why is this story blowing up? What is so “Linfectious” about Jeremy Lin? Obviously, there is what in political parlance is called his “base.” There are Knicks fans. There are Asian Americans eager to cheer on the NBA's first Chinese American. And there are evangelical Christians, who love Lin for loving Christ and, in his own quiet way, turning NBA courts across the nation into his own private mission fields.  The mystery of who stole the cross and set it afire has deeply disturbed the small coastal town of Arroyo Grande.
March 30th, 2011
10:37 AM ET
California town calls in FBI to help investigate cross-burningFirst, an 11-foot wooden cross was stolen from Saint John's Lutheran Church in Arroyo Grande, California. Then, weeks later, the cross was discovered set aflame in the middle of the night outside the bedroom window of a 19-year-old woman of mixed race. Now authorities are investigating the case as a theft, arson and hate crime, police said Tuesday. The burning cross was erected in a neighbor's large front yard adjacent to the house rented by the woman and her mother. Read the full story
March 22nd, 2011
02:03 PM ET
Victoria Jackson blasts ‘Glee,’ gays while waving BibleFormer "SNL" star Victoria Jackson explains her column criticizing the gay kiss depicted on "Glee." Watch the video above and read more about it on CNN's Marquee Blog.
March 1st, 2011
11:27 AM ET
Dior moves to fire Galliano after Hitler commentsParis (CNN) - Christian Dior has started proceedings to fire designer John Galliano after he was filmed making anti-Semitic comments in a Paris restaurant, the fashion giant said Tuesday. The company condemned his "deeply offensive statements and conduct" in a statement announcing the plan to fire him. The statement came hours after Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman condemned Galliano's praise of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. "I love Hitler," Galliano said in a video obtained by Britain's Sun newspaper. "Your mother, your forefathers would be f-ing gassed and f-ing dead." Read the full story about Dior moving to fire Galliano over his Hitler comments |
  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 "
