Everyone has thought at some time or other, “Where do I come from?”, “What is infinity?”, “Is there a God?”. These are questions fundamental to life and belief and in today’s world the discussion has tended to polarise between an entirely materialistic understanding of life or one that has some form of intelligent creation to…
Whilst on the opposite side of the world the Christchurch murders of 49 members of Islam in their place of worship is a shocking reminder that some in the Western world are so far out of line with basic human values and human rights. We send our heartfelt condolences to all involved. We strongly condemn…
A new study from the well-regarded Pew Research Centre finds that people who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members of religious groups.The report is based on analysis of survey data from the United States and more than two dozen other…
The Assembly today expressed concern about the fact that “Sharia law, including provisions which are in clear contradiction with the European Convention on Human Rights, were applied either officially or unofficially in several member States”. It is concerned about the existence of informal Islamic Courts, citing in particular ‘Sharia councils’ in the United Kingdom, or…
Elizabeth Oldfield is Director of Theos and regularly features in the media, including BBC One, Sky News, and the World Service, writing in The Financial Times and delivering Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. In a recent article for Theos she succinctly states the case for religious freedom – for all…
Taken from THE GUARDIAN The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has ordered an independent, global review into the persecution of Christians of all nationalities amid claims that not enough is being done to defend the rights of nearly 200 million Christians at risk of persecution today. The unprecedented Foreign Office review will be led by the…
Taken from SSRN website Whereas gender, race and ethnicity have been placed at the very center of the rediscovery of European Union anti-discrimination law in the last decades, religion seems to stand in the backyard of the European Union Agenda. Efforts to tackle discrimination based on religious belief have not yet invested all areas of…
Taken from EURACTIV The fragile status of the EU’s special envoy on religious freedom is an unlikely topic of conjecture in the months leading up to next May’s European elections. On 6 December, European Parliament members called on the European Commission and EU member states to ‘institutionalise’ the special envoy’s mandate in a report drafted…
Here we present a quotation from the conclusion of an article by Dr. David Baer printed in the Hungarian Spectrum about unsettling results of legislation enacted by the Orban regime. “To sum up the obvious, Hungary’s new church law treats religious communities in a completely arbitrary manner by assigning rights and privileges on the basis of…
We highly recommend this TED talk by writer and Middle East reporter Lesley Hazleton. Lesley says she sat down one day to read the Koran. And what she found — as a non-Muslim, a self-identified “tourist” in the Islamic holy book — wasn’t what she expected. With serious scholarship and warm humor, Lesley shares the…
