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Pope Praises ‘Complementarity’ & Resists Gay Ambassador; Irish Religious Leaders Spar Over Marriage; Colombian Atty Gen Cites ‘Bogus’ Study Opposing Adoption; Global LGBT Recap

…venues, the Black Cap pub, paying public tribute to “the drag queens of Stonewall.” Pink News reviews the LGBT stances of Northern Ireland’s political parties on LGBT issues and so-called “conscience clause” legislation, noting that North Ireland is the only part of the UK without marriage equality. Naith Payton writes that the largest, the Democratic Unionist Party, “has not mentioned LGBT issues at all in their manifesto.” They have historically…

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Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

…guilt. But sending another perfunctory, apologetic note wouldn’t suffice now, if ever. I was tired of that detour. As I walked back to my room—a small bungalow—the only thing I could do was think of my mom, sautéeing vegetables while watching the evening news; my dad, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee at the table; my boyfriend, practicing the piano. I could only see them in my mind’s eye and love them. With my phone and laptop stowed in m…

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Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

…y from Victorian sentimentalism. Such angels are on sale at reduced price; cheap wares for cheap faith. It would be an error, however, to fully dismiss pop culture angels. Despite the fact that representations of angels in film and television, comics and music, paperback novels and posters, are filtered through market concerns, such pop culture can still speak to human meaning—and because of that they merit our attention. Besides, the bulk of art…

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Rent-Free Religion in New York’s Public Schools

…isely, I started going to the churches—dozens of them—that were located in New York City’s public schools. I attended services all over Manhattan, in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. I watched as congregants prayed over pictures of children from diverse families that lined the school’s hallways. In public school classrooms, I learned about creationism and was taught that all children who do not believe in Jesus will go to hell, along with their pa…

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Is Covid-19 Introducing a New Generation to Fears of ‘Jewish Contagion’?

When news first broke of COVID-19’s presence in New York City, it centered on the city of New Rochelle and its Orthodox Jewish community as the source of the contagion. New York health officials announced that the state of New York would issue a containment zone one mile in every direction around an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in New Rochelle, called Young Israel of New Rochelle. A week after announcing this initial containment zone, the synagogue…

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Leper Messiah: A Jesus Freak’s Search for the Meaning of Bowie—A Critical Novella

…ving the bored teenage souls of Madeline and her friend Lisa, somewhere in New York. Down the hall, my parents are asleep. It’s past midnight, and I know, somehow, that I’m the only kid in my chicken-coop suburb beholding this miraculous visitation, wondrous as the presentation of the hermaphrodite in Fellini’s Satyricon. To be sure, Bowie’s a freak—code for “fag” among the real-life Jeff Spicolis in my junior high class, righteous dudes whose ide…

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How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

…cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme that Rod Dreher can toss into his debate with Andrew Sullivan without…

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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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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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“Saints Are Only Human”: Leaving the Church, But Heeding this Pope’s Lessons

…of thousands of students who entered a lottery, she had received one of 80 tickets. As the only entrant she knew who was a practicing Catholic, she felt a divine hand played a role in her presence. “You study anthropology and history,” I said. “How do you feel about canonizing Junipero Serra?” “For me, this is all so amazing,” Rebecca confessed. “I grew up in California. And I am a descendant of the Mescalero Apache tribe. I’ve visited many missio…

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