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Celebrate Jesus with Weird Merchandise!

…tween the bunnies-and-eggs version of Easter, and the church-service version. Merchandisers are wise to define Easter by marshmallow chicks and colorful baskets, rather than bring theology into it. But there are always exceptions. One is the Oriental Trading Company. Founded to create cheap plastic toys for carnivals, OTC is now a leading supplier of cheap plastic stuff for church groups and Christian schools. Their party supply catalog always con…

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What Fidel Castro’s Death Means for LGBT Rights in Cuba and More, in This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

…d. Although Magufuli has not said anything publicly about homosexuality, a number of his appointees have made harsh remarks. Critics of gay rights say this nation — which has large numbers of Muslims and Christians — must protect traditional values. In an August speech, Paul Makonda, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, the capital, threatened to arrest people who were linked to gay men on social-networking sites. “If there’s a homosexual w…

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The End (of Religion) is Near, Scientists Say

…in the Czech Republic. The mathematicians seem far more surprised by these numbers than most religionists would be. The first and most obvious reason involves an important distinction that when you shift the language away from “God” or “religion” and turn to conceptions of “sacrality” or “the sacred,”’ whole new worlds of meaning and meaningful activity bubble to the surface. Lost in the debate is the large and growing number of thoughtful people…

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Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

…ger chilling effect in the American Jewish world, yes; I’ve gotten so many phone calls and voicemails [from people] who have had something happen to them—this summer I do believe it has gone off the rails.” Yet, Kleinbaum said, “I do think my job is to create a Jewish space in which this discussion can take place without saying this person is not a good Jew and another is a good Jew. That, I think, is a reachable goal for my community.” Many rabbi…

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Why Crux‘s Knights of Columbus “Partnership” is Problematic

…mpaigns in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. In 2005, they printed 800,000 postcards in Canada “in a campaign that [argued] that the redefinition of marriage to include gay and lesbian couples would promote pedophilia, pornography and unsafe sex.” As Marianne Duddy-Burke of the LGBTQ Catholic organization Dignity USA commented in a press release, “The Knights are deeply invested in advancing a particular brand of Catholicism, and I am con…

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Pentecostal Prayer Gangs: New Film Documents Religion in a Brazilian Prison

…ader. What was the culture of the prison? At night, there was one guard for 800 prisoners. In the Rio prison system there’s no real government presence; state control in the prisons is just a façade. The prison gangs are the most powerful presence, but the church exerts a strong influence too. There were about 400 inmates in the gang camp inside the prison, and 40 to 50 in the church camp. The rest were neutral people who kept to themselves in the…

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Teaching Love: Soulforce Takes it to the Quad

…w dozen yards of the riders and take pictures of the scene with their cell phone cameras. Traffic on College Avenue begins to pick up. “You’re protesting God!” a motorist hollers when he catches sight of one of the Soulforce banners. Finally a slender young man wearing a “CBC Soccer” jacket ventures all the way to the sidewalk. “I just kind of want to show them I care,” says Jonathan Jacobs, a junior at the college. Jacobs, whose family moved to C…

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Why I Wrote the Freedom Seder And Why It’s Still Necessary 50 Years After Dr. King’s Assassination

…tian radical A. J. Muste calling Moses the organizer of “Brickmakers Union Number 1” and a pacifist Russian rabbi named Tamaret—wove them all into a new Telling of the tale of freedom. In that Telling, the then ongoing, even now unfinished, struggle of Black America for freedom was interwoven with the ancient story of the Israelites’ struggle to end their slavery under Pharaoh. Where the old Haggadah had what seemed to me a silly argument about ho…

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A Muslim Reflects on Christian Theologian (and UCLA Coach) John Wooden

…er of the amazing things about him. He was approachable, answering his own phone and mail, meeting with complete nobodies like me. I thanked him for the basketball lessons that I had learned from him, but more importantly for the life lessons. His beloved wife Nellie had passed away in 1985 after 53 years of marriage, and my wife had died suddenly in 1992. Coach gave me a powerful model for dealing with that loss, a reminder that those we loved we…

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Hajj Journal: M & M

…though this, the men would hover around the tent entries, send notes, make phone calls, actually get their phone cords recharged, and send food and drink through every possible opening in the tent. As far as I could tell, it was always the men hanging around our tent and not the women hanging around the men’s tent. Pretty funny if you think about it. They were like lost puppies without their women. Yet patriarchy would have us think they are the m…

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