Search for "how do i get cheap airline tickets phone number 1-800-299-7264"

“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

By Spencer Dew

…homas Simmons of the University of Iowa, it declared that Dylan Krieger’s Giving Godhead “will be the best collection of poetry to appear in English in 2017.” Simmons then went on to describe Krieger’s blend of “the religious with the obscene” as “a new form of the grotesque that marries autobiography to personal and national trauma,” calling the book “easily among the most inventive and successfully performative works to appear in living memory.”…

Heterosexual Martyrs and Gay Saints: Did AIDS Coverage Clear the Way for LGBT Equality?

By Diane Winston

Later this month more than 20,000 HIV activists and researchers will meet in Washington DC, 22 years after the last American gathering of the International AIDS Conference. With some 34 million men and women worldwide currently living with HIV/AIDS, it’s no longer possible to call the disease (as it was initially) a “gay plague.” It’s equally easy to forget amid growing support for gay marriage that just thirty years ago a sentence with the word…

Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ia: Profile of trans musician and activist explores her spiritual life Sentiido profiles Sarah Gonzalez, a musician and transgender activist whose “spiritual life is linked to a deep respect for nature, an idea enriched by Buddhist and shamanic practices.” Sarah says that struggling with her identity, she prayed to the Virgin Mary to be “fixed,” before understanding that Catholic doctrine was standing in the way of an authentic life. Italy: Activi…

Vatican Reverses Anti-Liberation Policies in Mexico

By Ruth Chojnacki and Jennifer Scheper Hughes

…to San Cristóbal where they encountered the Catholic teachings of Vatican II and, for the first time in Maya history, were entrusted with the Bible. After a period of church testing and consultation with local communities, Bishop Ruiz began ordaining some of these catechists to the permanent diaconate. As ordained ministers permanent deacons are authorized to baptize and preside at marriages and communion services in the absence of priests in the…

Milquetoast Liberal Religion Won’t Challenge Conservative Values: A History Lesson

By Sheila D. Collins

…problems beyond the scope of the private sector. Near the end of World War II, President Roosevelt, fresh from the experience of the Great Depression and having seen how economic desperation had led to fascism in Germany, called for an Economic Bill of Rights that began with the guarantee of what he subsequently referred to as the “paramount right”—the right to living-wage work that would “earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recr…

Clergy May Soon Find Taxes Soaring As Result of an Under-the-Radar Ruling

By Patrick Hornbeck

…se Gaylor v. Mnuchin this past Wednesday, declaring unconstitutional a provision of the tax code that’s made it possible for clergy to enjoy higher standards of living than their salaries might suggest. At issue is section 107 of the U.S. Tax Code, which contains two subsections pertaining to “the case of a minister of the gospel.” (The term was originally intended to refer only to ordained Christian clergy, but its meaning was later expanded by t…

Religious Exceptions Not So Exceptional According to New Study

By Patricia Miller

One of the assumptions behind those seeking a religious exception to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act—as well as behind religious exceptions in general—is that they are more or less exceptional. By that I mean that they are deployed in a narrow range of circumstances by a narrow range of actors who believe their religious liberty would be threatened by taking part in a specific act or service provision. Inherent in this argume…

Kirk Cameron Joins the Anti-Mormon Chorus
(Sort Of)

By Julie Ingersoll

…ding Imams, in a spiritual endeavor despite the clear biblical warnings of II Corinthians 6:14… The Mormon Church is now rejoicing over the public relations success that these undiscerning evangelical leaders have handed the Mormon Church by uniting with Glenn Beck in the two events that were promoted as spiritual. Cameron, known also for his part on the television series Growing Pains and more recently nicknamed Banana-man (along with Ray Comfort…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…ith the historically important Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville citing the church’s unequivocal commitment to LGBT inclusion. They did so in spite of Crescent Hill’s plea that the church be allowed to remain a part of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. In 2013 Crescent Hill, after a process of congregational discernment, announced that sexual orientation would not be a factor in future considerations about who they will ordain, hire, or pe…

The Prophet Amos on Unemployment and Our Leadership

By Peter Laarman

…ng financial regulatory bill.” So who do you suppose is buying high-priced tickets to these events? Well, you could get an idea about that from a profile in today’s Times on the rise and rise of corporate fixer Tony Podesta (“The Proud Lobbyist” reads the Times headline). Tony boasts that he lobbied on 25 different issues related to Wall Street regulation for major players like Bank of America. And yes, this proud lobbyist is indeed the brother of…