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Tweeting the Bible, A New Generation of Judaism, and God Revised: Next State of Belief Radio!

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On the next State of Belief Radio – Tweeting the Bible. Jana Riess did it, 140 characters at a time. It took three and a half years, but she lived to tell about it. Which is exactly what she’ll do on this weekend’s show!

Also, The Daily Beast named her as America’s most influential Rabbi. Sharon Brous serves as the founding rabbi of IKAR, an innovative community in Los Angeles tasked with “reanimating Jewish life through soulful religious and spiritual practice that is rooted in a deep commitment to social justice.” She’s on State of Belief to talk about that, and about her work with the Women of the Wall in Jerusalem.

And the author of the new book God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age. Galen Guengerich will explain how he sees that as being necessary, and more importantly, as being possible!

That’s all coming up this weekend on State of Belief! Here’s how to listen.

LGBT Families and Immigration Reform; Faith Leaders Without Faith; and The Case for Children: Next State of Belief Radio!

Welton with Bend the Arc's Hadar Susskind

Welton with Bend the Arc’s Hadar Susskind

On the next State of Belief Radio – is there room for bi-national gay couples in Comprehensive Immigration Reform? Hadar Susskind of Bend the Arc will be here to talk about the chances of – and the need for – an inclusive policy for same-gender families, and the chances of language from the Uniting American Families Act making it into an amendment to the legislation currently before the Senate.

Also, an organization dedicated to helping faith leaders who have lost their faith. You’ll meet Catherine Dunphy, former Catholic chaplain and today Executive Director of The Clergy Project.

And the always-entertaining Rabbi Simcha Weinstein. His new book is The Case for Children: Why Parenthood Makes Your World Better.

Be sure to tune in, for religion and radio – done differently!

Here’s how to listen.

A long-sought victory: FBI to start tracking bias crimes against Sikhs, other minority religious groups

It would be great if we didn’t need to compile statistics about hate crimes motivated by religious bias. But as long as such crimes are happening, it’s essential to know who’s being targeted.

On Wednesday, according to Jaweed Kaleem, writing in The Huffington Post,

“…an FBI advisory board voted to expand standard hate-crime incident reports used by thousands of police departments across the country to include crimes motivated by bias against the two religious groups, as well as Arabs. [...] The FBI currently tracks reports of hate crimes against Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and atheists/agnostics.”

For an explanation of why this move is so important, here’s our recent interview on the subject with Amardeep Singh of the Sikh Coalition.

We taped this in late 2012, when Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois convened a hearing on behalf of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights to look into domestic extremism and hate crimes. Interfaith Alliance was honored to be invited to contribute written testimony for the hearing.