Issue

Religion

Religious faith is central to the lives of billions, a driving force in everything from family structure to relationships within and among the world’s nation states. It is also the venue, and often the source, of conflict.

Religion presents Pulitzer Center reporting on these themes from throughout the world—from the explosive growth of megachurches in Africa and Latin America to intra-Islam schisms of the Middle East, to the self-immolation of Tibetan Buddhist monks and Buddhist soldiers running roughshod over the rights of Burmese Muslims, to the struggles of faith groups everywhere to come to terms with human sexuality.

In some parts of the world, notably China, governments that long suppressed religious expression are now invoking those traditions as part of the solution to environmental and other challenges. Elsewhere, from majority-Catholic Philippines to Muslim Indonesia, religious doctrine on issues like reproductive rights is in uneasy dialogue with the forces of modernization and globalization.

In Religion, we aim for reporting that tackles these tough, core issues—but without the easy stereotypes and caricature that too often make journalism a tool for demagogy. In the Pulitzer Center reporting presented here we seek instead to be a force for understanding.

The Pulitzer Center’s reporting on religion and public policy issues is made possible through the support of the Henry Luce Foundation, the Kendeda Fund, and other Pulitzer Center donors.

 

Religion

Iraq: Death of a Nation?

black smoke billows into a starless sky.

we were the ones who dried the canals and planted death in the river bank - powder and steel among the reeds. smallpox in a dakota blizzard. boot leather on the slave-bricked streets.

custer's 7th cavalry dismounts in fallahat.a hand pressed to the heart, just above his 9.

black points float in clear blue irises.her rank is missing from her uniform.

why does nothing taste good?

Custer's cavalry

Richard Rowley, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

black smoke billows into a starless sky.

we were the ones who dried the canals and planted death in the river bank -
powder and steel among the reeds.
smallpox in a dakota blizzard.
boot leather on the slave-bricked streets.

custer's 7th cavalry dismounts in fallahat.
a hand pressed to the heart, just above his 9.

black points float in clear blue irises.
her rank is missing from her uniform.

why does nothing taste good?

TSD

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

Kid

I filmed this kid after a car bombing on Sunday. He died at the hospital later of internal injuries.

In the country of death, we are always embedded

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

The break in blogging is due to Rick and I being on an embed and not having the time to blog or a regular internet connection. But as we come off the embed, I want to address that subject. Some people still maintain it is impossible to tell an accurate story embedded, I see it as the only way possible to find out what's going on with the military.

Iraqi Tribes Reach Security Accord

U.S. forces have brokered an agreement between Sunni and Shi'ite tribal leaders to join forces against al Qaeda and other extremists, extending a policy that has transformed the security situation in western Anbar province to this area north of the capital.

The extremists struck back yesterday with a suicide car bomb aimed at one of the Sunni tribes involved in the deal, killing three militiamen and wounding 14.