Religion Dispatches
…ort and through security, I was too tired for breakfast. I slept the whole flight from RDU to Charlotte, but once I’d landed in Charlotte, with only twenty minutes to transfer to my Milwaukee flight, I was starving. Famished. Broken. But the only breakfast option I trusted was Starbucks, and every single Starbucks had a line that resembled a breakdown of civilization at the baggage claim. So I did not do that. I stopped at a newsstand slash conve…
Read More…at has only in the last few months publicly acknowledged the errancy of its 130-year ban on ordination of men of African descent (and has never apologized for it, unlike other religions with racist histories) is not anti-Mormonism. And when supporters of women’s rights and gay rights express reservations about voting for a member of a church that has gone on record against, devoted resources to, and directed its members to oppose progressive gende…
Read More…wish heritage but were not religious. She became interested in Vodou in the 1970s and received initiation in Haiti in 1995. Glassman is a vegetarian and does not allow animal sacrifice in her temple (common in some other Afro-Caribbean religions). She also designed and painted her own “New Orleans Voodoo Tarot Deck.” (Ina Johanna Fandrich uses the word “Voodoo” rather than “Vodou” to describe the uniquely New Orleanean fusion of traditional Africa…
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…peakers from US-based conservative Christian culture war groups: A November 17-18 WCF Caribbean Conference will be held in St. Lucia. In addition to Rebekah Ali-Gouveia, WCF’s regional coordinator, the conference is being organized by Sarah Flood-Beaubrun, a member of the St. Lucian Parliament and founder of the Caribbean Centre for Family and Human Rights (CARIFAM), a group that says it works to “promote fundamental human rights” but criticizes “…
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…as a Master’s student at Fuller working the switchboard part-time, and the number one phone call that came through went something like this: “Can you connect me to C. Peter Wagner’s Church Growth Institute? I’d like to buy some materials.” No one was happier than I was when he retired from Fuller and moved to Colorado Springs! I felt like I worked at a catalog call-in center. Seriously. I would never have expected to be talking about Wagner in con…
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…those victims who did report their victimization to Episcopal leaders, the number one assessment from both trans/non-binary and cisgender respondents was that “little or no change” came about as a result. 20.6% of transgender and non-binary survivors reported that they simply left the church altogether. By comparison, “only” 10.7% of cisgender women felt they had to leave. (Curiously, there’s no data on this front for LGB-identified Episcopalians….
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…ine had come to a full stop, even though that was the line for people with reservations. (Reservations? Who knew?) We had gone for the show, not the protest. Being the kind of people who can neither climb poles or stand in long lines, or wait to get busted by the French riot police (they don’t seem to have read Thoreau on civil disobedience) we went across the street to the Petit Palais, where we enjoyed a wonderfully quirky permanent collection (…
Read More…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
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…vered in Egypt in 1945, was first published in English by James Robinson in 1977, with a paperback version appearing in 1981. Public awareness about the Nag Hammadi materials grew consistently in the following two decades, but exploded in 2003 with the publication of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code which, more than anything, showcases Brown’s muddled if provocative incorporation of the Gnostic worldview into the novel. Fans of The Da Vinci Code don’…
Read More…f 116 to 22 in August 2011, which came shortly after PCUSA passed Amendment 10-A — preceding Amendment 14-F by nearly four years. “The Mexican delegates also voted not to re-establish any relationship with the PC(USA) until 10-A is rescinded,”Presbyterian Outlook’s Leslie Scanton reported. “The PC(USA) representatives were hopeful that the Mexican Presbyterians might give the relationship more time ― but that was not to be.” Mexico, Brazil and Per…
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