IARF News Digest

This is the conference website for the 8th ICLARS Biennial Conference in Palermo, Italy. It announces a 2026 academic meeting on state neutrality and cooperation with religion, with details on the conference theme, program, registration, venues, and accommodation.

The Székelykeresztúr Unitarian Church District held its 10th Firtos meeting at the renovated Firtos lookout on June 13, bringing together nearly a thousand participants from local congregations and nearby communities. The event featured worship, speeches, cultural performances, communal meals, youth activities, and the inauguration of the new lookout, which symbolized Unitarian presence and community cooperation. The gathering emphasized fellowship, shared service, and the strength of communal unity.

Liz Slade’s June 2026 letter reflects on Pride Month, religious freedom, and the historical struggles of dissenters and LGBTQ+ people for equal rights. She highlights the importance of inclusive faith communities, criticizes growing anti-trans rhetoric, and argues that genuine in-person dialogue and welcome are essential for dignity and liberation. The letter closes by affirming that freedom for one group is bound up with freedom for all.

The article describes a peace walk in Sri Lanka by 12 Buddhist monks, joined by Christian, Muslim, and Hindu leaders, as a symbol of interfaith solidarity. It also places the gesture in the context of ongoing religious tensions, discrimination against minorities, land disputes, and the government’s challenge of maintaining social cohesion.

This article reviews Koert van der Velde’s book arguing that people can be religious without believing literal religious claims. It explains his distinction between belief and religion, and how rituals, wonder, and symbolic practices can still create meaningful spiritual experiences.

The World Bektashi Leader, Haxhi Dede Baba Edmond Brahimaj, delivered a speech at the 30th Berlin International Meeting in the German Bundestag on the theme of responsibility before God and humanity. The address emphasized moral accountability, justice, compassion, interfaith dialogue, human dignity, and the Bektashi tradition’s commitment to peace, tolerance, and service to others.

Interfaith Alliance announces an updated report on same-gender marriage and religious freedom, released during Pride Month and a decade after Obergefell. The report argues that marriage equality and religious liberty can coexist, encourages faith communities to defend LGBTQ dignity, and urges continued debate with opponents of marriage equality.

The article argues that Buddhist fundamentalism in post-coup Myanmar is not separate from military authoritarianism but works alongside it to legitimize repression, especially against women’s, gender, and sexual minority rights defenders. It describes three main mechanisms of repression: using legislation and religious rhetoric to criminalize activism, enabling physical attacks by security forces, militias, and mobs, and coordinating online harassment, doxing, and surveillance. The piece also discusses how WGSM groups are responding through digital security, relocation, networks, and partnerships, but notes that these measures are strained by fragmented civil society, reduced international funding, and the junta’s efforts to normalize itself through the 2026 elections. It concludes that pluralism, gender justice, and religious freedom are essential to any genuine democratic recovery in Myanmar.

The article argues that India’s current rule denying Scheduled Caste status to Dalit converts to Islam or Christianity is too rigid and may be constitutionally under-inclusive. It explains that the legal framework under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 ties SC recognition to religion, which causes converts to lose reservations and anti-discrimination protections even though caste-based discrimination often persists after conversion. The piece cites NCRB data, sociological evidence, and multiple commissions and court cases to show that caste does not disappear with religious change. It concludes that the Supreme Court’s reaffirmation of an “absolute bar” prioritizes formal doctrine over social reality and may amount to penalizing freedom of religion.