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Delta Airlines 800-299-7264 Flight Reservations Phone Number

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

…a random sample size and therefore isn’t statistically representative. The number of individuals reporting victimization in Episcopal spaces is alarming nonetheless. However, I would argue the data is more likely to under- than to overestimate the scope of the abuse that occurs. To see why, the survey results must be interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+…

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Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

…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 (…

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Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…

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Power Up: Turn Off the Cell Phone

…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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We Went Through Amoris Laetitia Section by Section So You Wouldn’t Have To

…ualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist side by side with a growing fe…

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Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

…ark-eyed women. We all know that Mohammad Atta, who flew American Airlines flight 11 into the Twin Towers on 9/11, was inspired by this promise. But among progressives, the sex promised to the righteous in the Qur’an isn’t sex as we know it, but something mysterious and sublime for which sex is a poetic stand-in. Second, what happens to our bodies in heaven? This is my favorite part of the heaven conversation. For if you believe in heaven as a rea…

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God Dissolves into the Occupy Movement

…dated ourselves to these new circumstances, but not happily and with grave reservations about where this is taking us. And now it seems a mainly youthful Occupy movement is giving voice to all of our previously silent reservations and shouting out a very loud non serviam! It really leaves the establishment with very little to say. What’s their response going to be: domination is good for you??  It was a little more than three decades ago when Marg…

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Something So Broken: What’s Frightening About Beasts of the Southern Wild  

…Louisiana that fall outside the federal levee system. The seventh largest delta on the planet, these wetlands contain 37 percent of the marshland in the United States and the largest commercial fishery in the lower 48 states—to say nothing of the largest offshore oil production of any state. These wetlands are also the most endangered in the country, accounting for 90 percent of all coastal wetland loss in the lower 48 states. From 2004 to 2008 (…

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What Makes a Human Bomb Tick?

On Christmas Day, 2009, as a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam prepared to land in Detroit, passengers smelled smoke and heard a series of bangs or popping noises. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old man from a prominent Nigerian family, was attempting to ignite an explosive device sewn into his underwear. He succeeded only in igniting himself—after his arrest, he had to be treated for second-degree burns on his hands and crotch. Inst…

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The Faith that Faith Produced

…ty of indiscriminate violence. Too many people—not just dentists on Virgin Airlines—make statements like, “Muslims don’t do enough to reject terrorism.” It’s probable many of them have never met Muslims.  If they tried, they might be surprised. In fact, the reaction to my essay—you’ll read an excerpt below—has surprised me, too.  I wish I could find my airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good way. (I would accept La…

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