Phil Dorroll
@phildorroll.bsky.social
Religious Studies professor in South Carolina; research on Islamic and Orthodox Christian theology in Turkish and Arabic; supports 🇺🇦
A must-read assessment of the state of modern Eastern Orthodox Christian theology via @publicorthodoxy.bsky.social “Orthodoxy might not die out, but it still might die inside."
On Living and Merely Surviving
A common misunderstanding of classical evolutionary theory is that the “fittest” organisms that natural selection favors are merely those who have mastered their environmental milieux. Even in Darwini...
publicorthodoxy.org
really cannot be emphasized enough that the drafters of the birthright clause very much considered cases analogous to undocumented immigrants and *included them too*
Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social · last mo.That's right.
![During the ratification debates, Senator Cowan took aim
at the Roma people too, characterizing them as undeserving
of birthright citizenship because they “wander[ed] in
gangs,” “infest[ed] society,” and “impos[ed] upon the simple
and weak everywhere.”49 And again, Senator Conness dismissed Senator Cowan’s prejudices: “The only invasion of
Pennsylvania within my recollection was an invasion very
much worse and more disastrous to the State, and more to
be feared and more feared, than that of Gypsies. It was an
invasion of rebels [at Gettysburg].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lzlqyldh7nfc34pfffvd24ko/bafkreihrli2ghfantwmdgc4pk4rr4ddt4ajq4xgnggxhs4qv4hojeppmpi)
Available for preorder this Fall @routledgebooks.bsky.social @riccardiswartz.bsky.social www.routledge.com/Orthodox-Chr...
I've just finished indexing what is one of this year's most eagerly anticipated books among historians and sociologists of religion (as well as Vatican-watchers) - 'Trads' by Stephen Cranney and Stephen Bullivant global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Hungary has signalled it will drop its long-standing opposition to Ukraine’s bid for EU membership, allowing it and Moldova to begin formal negotiations to join the bloc in the coming days, four diplomats told POLITICO.
Ukraine and Moldova on course to start formal EU membership talks in June
Hungarian officials have signaled they intend to drop their opposition to Ukraine’s EU membership bid, diplomats told POLITICO.
politico.eu
For the first day of Pride Month, a very short and very moving tribute to Imam Muhsin Hendricks, a courageous and humble advocate for all those oppressed and outcast, and the author of the first LGBTQ+ affirming Islamic theological arguments:
A Tribute to Muhsin Hendricks: A Life of Courage, Compassion, and Friendship
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ Translation: Indeed, to Allah we belong and to Allah we…
medium.com
Real hot take here, but it stand by it: Turkish tea is absolutely superior; Turkish coffee is fine
I think it’s helpful to realize that worldviews- political, ideological, religious, etc- are primarily used by people to imbue events in the world with meaning, rather than explain why they happen. People can easily tolerate a lack of understanding, but no one can tolerate a lack of meaning.
Tom Nichols@radiofreetom.bsky.social · 3mo agoThis is really what I was getting at. Talking to people about politics is to realize that most of them have no clue about how political choices end up creating the realities around them. They just can't fill in the blanks between who they voted for and what happens next.
Pope:”Reading nourishes the mind, helps cultivate a conscious and well-formed critical sense, guards against fundamentalisms and ideological shortcuts.” Reading is “an antidote to closed-mindedness which manifests in rigid attitudes and reductive views of reality.” www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news...
Pope Leo: Literature must be a 'school of fraternity and peace' - Vatican News
Pope Leo XIV sends a message to the Turin International Book Fair, taking place this week in the northern Italian city, reiterating that literature ...
vaticannews.va
“A recently published study in The Lancet, the British medical journal, forecast that at present rates the defunding will cost 9.4 million lives by 2030, including 2.5 million children under the age of 5.”
Nick Kristof@nickkristof.bsky.social · 3mo agoHaving destroyed America's aid agency, President Trump is now withholding GAVI vaccines from poor countries--like a $3 vaccine against malaria, and a $4 vaccine against cervical cancer. Countless thousands will die. Destroying aid is Trump's single most lethal policy: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/o...
St. Jacob of Serugh (Suruç in modern Turkey; 451-521) on the love of God
Reflections on a major figure of Islamic history whose traces I've been encountering for most of my scholarly career but who always seems to evade any firm academic grasp- a good thing really in my estimation:
Searching for 'Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī
The Muslim Saint Who is Everywhere and Nowhere
jonathanparkesallen.substack.com
U.S. intel also indicates that Iran retains about 75% of its pre-war inventories of mobile launchers & about 70% of its pre-war stockpiles of missiles, per a U.S. official. The regime has also been able to recover underground storage facilities & repair damaged missiles
Spring in Vienna. -- My favourite tulip in the Liechtensteinpark. #photography #Vienna #photographyOnBlueSky #Austria
What’s happening in Texas is indeed very concerning. It is tho reminiscent (and likely derived from) the organized Islamophobic activism that followed the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy in 2010 and the included proposed bills in TN that would have banned Muslim ritual practice entirely.
Nikolaj Bill@nikolajbill.bsky.social · 3mo agoMaybe, I white washed it in my memory, I don't think I am, but it's possible. But as bad as the anti-Muslim racism was after 9/11, I don't remember it at this level.
“The dismantling of USAID, according to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children,” Gawande wrote.” hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-s...
USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, accord...
hsph.harvard.edu
Joshua Foust 🪖🎮@joshuafoust.com · 3mo agoThe single most defining thing Elon Musk has ever done is killing untold numbers of people by having DOGE illegally raid and disband USAID. Not rickets, not cars, not even the CSAMbot on X. It’s this, and so many media pundits just choose to unsee it.
Despite pressure, Gov. Henry McMaster won’t call special session to redraw SC’s congressional map www.postandcourier.com/politics/mcm...
Despite pressure, Gov. Henry McMaster won’t call special session to redraw SC’s congressional map
SC Gov. Henry McMaster won’t call a special session to redraw the state’s congressional districts, even as national Republicans push for mid-decade redistricting following a Supreme Court ruling.
postandcourier.com
Really interesting thread on South Carolina politics from a genuine expert:
David Darmofal@daviddarmofal.bsky.social · 3mo agoMy sense on why SC isn't doing what other Southern states are doing. First, it's actually very difficult geographically to redistrict w/o risking a 5-2 R map instead of the current 6-1 map. Also, Rep. Clyburn has enormous influence here. You don't just redistrict him out. & SC really is...1/
The original Star Wars has to be the “best” if only bc its main themes are the precondition for the success of any following work However, just in terms is sheer quality, absolutely nothing is in even the same universe as Andor- except Rogue One
it’s ya boi Nixo 🌈@nixostorme.bsky.social · 3mo agoHappy nerd holiday
Pope Leo reading the book 'Free Under Grace', which brings together speeches, homilies, letters, and messages from his early ministry as Robert Prevost. Currently available in Italian, the book will be released in several languages in the coming months.
This article is so British it jumped through my phone and drew lines around my living room so that it could be divided into several new nation states
Shadow Hedgie 🌻@shadow.hedgie.social · 3mo agoSCANDAL: fish sold as fish
Generational tweet that might even spawn a school of architecture.
Maybe if Moldova joins the EU, it will also set an example of good practices in press freedom for its neighboring EU member states. 🫣 2026 RSF Index: press freedom at a 25-year low rsf.org/en/index
(RNS) — Thousands of people are missing in South Sudan. Church leaders are shining a light on this scourge on the second anniversary of a Catholic priest’s disappearance.
A priest vanished two years ago. South Sudan's churches say he's not alone.
(RNS) — Thousands of people are missing in South Sudan. Church leaders are shining a light on this scourge on the second anniversary of a Catholic priest’s disappearance.
religionnews.com
