Search for "cheap airline tickets orlando paris phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Reporting from Paris: A Prayer for Polluters

By Donna Schaper

…ld be optimistic about COP21, the climate negotiations coming to an end in Paris. I can’t. Even if the world’s countries keep their promises — known, in the mind-numbing argot of the UN as Intended Nationally Determined Commitments — the climate reductions they are promising don’t go far enough. . . . These unenforceable “commitments” are, at best, a step in the right direction and, at worse, a way for government leaders to try to fool their citiz…

Atheist Nazis? The Pope’s Cheap Atonement

By Susannah Heschel

Adam Clayton Powell called it “cheap grace,” but we might call it “cheap atonement”: the effort by sinners to select which sins to acknowledge and repent. Pope Benedict XVI ended his heavily protested visit to England with a heartfelt apology for German bombings of England during the Battle of Britain; though he refused to accept Christian responsibility for the Holocaust, blaming it instead on pagans and atheists. Given that Cardinal Walter Kasp…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tred and discrimination.” From that perspective, the NAD’s response to the Orlando mass shooting stands out not only for its compassionate tone but also for its omission of any condemnation of homosexuality, and may signal a shift in the way the church is now approaching homophobia. Perla writes that “a new wave of students is breathing life into the type of activism last seen at the height of the Adventist civil rights movement,” including the cr…

“Religion, O Diabolic”: Lamenting Religious Violence, Then and Now

By Ed Simon

…ble of when they are told they are killing in the name of God. The precise number of casualties is hard to estimate (and largely depends on the ideological position of the source you are consulting). The numbers have been estimated between 2,000 to close to 70,000. One fact that is known for certain though—in Arles, downriver from Lyon, it was impossible to drink the water from the Rhone for three months, since it was so polluted with the remains…

Reporting from Paris During COP21: A Haunted Sabbath

By Donna Schaper

…also enjoy checking out this very lively church in the heart of the 8th in Paris. Both of the top clergy are female, which should begin to give you the drift. The Very Reverend Lucinda Laird, Dean of the Cathedral, gives a marvelously confident absolution after the confession. The Reverend Mary Haddad, Cathedral Canon, was away in Canada dealing with visa problems. I went to their site to get directions to the church and ended up listening to seve…

Glenn Beck’s Cheap Grace

By Karyn Carlo

…way from the hard work of repentance, who tickle our ears with promises of cheap grace, and offer a vision of the cross of Jesus that has nothing to say to the crosses, and lynching trees, of history. But, if we do, we will be settling for the gospel of Caesar, not the good news of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it is time to put down the chalk, stop drawing pyrotechnical conspiracy theories that play into our worst fears and listen, instead, for the diffi…

As New Poll Finds “Increased Xenophobic Streak,” Republicans Heighten Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

By Sarah Posner

…grants are a burden on the U.S. due to their economic impact and a similar number (58%) report that coming into contact with immigrants who do not speak English bothers them. After Paris, Trump, already on record for border walls and mass deportations, proposed surveilling mosques and even shutting some down. In an appearance on Morning Joe yesterday, Trump said the elimination of a New York Police Department program to spy on Muslims in the city’…

The Case Against Rebuilding Notre Dame

By Jay Rubenstein

…te community out of shared loss. The world watched and wept in sympathy as Parisians knelt in the streets, sang Ave Maria, and cried. Not just France, and not just Christians—as a symbol and as a place that welcomed (according to the most frequently cited number) 13 million visitors a year, Notre Dame is part of shared heritage, a link to the medieval past lying improbably at the heart of the world’s first great modern city. Right away, donors ope…

White Supremacy, Mental Illness, or Society: What’s to Blame for Religious Violence?

By Michael Schulson

…at revolved around whether French society or Islamism was to blame for the Paris attacks. Some version of this argument emerges after any high-profile act of religious or ideological violence against Westerners, whether in Paris, Jerusalem or Charleston, S.C. In the aftermath of such an attack, there’s a rush to explain it, usually according to one of three causes: ideology, psychology, or society. The explanations appear almost instantaneously, a…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…ore refused to discontinue a promotion which offers its customers discount tickets to a Christian magic show produced by Lawrence Khong, the anti-gay pastor of Faith Community Baptist Church: Mr Khong has claimed that gay people have “a shorter lifespan, more sexually transmitted infections and more health problems than the general population” and has warned of a “looming threat” of “homosexual activists” trying to repeal sodomy laws. Many custome…