Search Results for:

cheap airline tickets to hong kong from san francisco phone number 1-800-299-7264

Morality and Marriage Vigilantes and More in Global LGBT Recap

…he goal is to reduce emotional trauma for sexual minorities and reduce the number of suicides and rates of substance abuse in that community, he says. Scotland: Anti-LGBT prejudice falls sharply The Scotsman reports that prejudice toward LGBT people has fallen sharply: Analysis of the 2016 Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey by ScotCen, shared with The Scotsman, reveal the proportion of people who say that they would be unhappy if a close relat…

Read More

Two Women and a Mosque: A Convert Community Grows in Panama City

…n its religious composition, but a 2009 international report estimated the number of Muslims at around 24,000, comprising less than one percent of the country’s population. Most are of Lebanese, Palestinian or Indian descent. Though small, Panama’s Muslim community has grown increasingly ethnically diverse. The first Muslims to come to Panama were African slaves brought over by Spaniards in the mid-sixteenth century to work in the mines. Throughou…

Read More

‘Cult’ Is an Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6

…News and One American News Network (OANN), along with a not insignificant number of elected members of Congress. A great deal of the concern on the part of white people is over their potential loss of status in America. This concern is being expressed in current Trumpist Republican efforts to curb access to voting by people of color and the social panic being fomented about “Critical Race Theory,” which has been turned into a pejorative term by p…

Read More

Ministries of Presence: A Report from Nepal

…25 other family members in Kathmandu on May 8, 2015. Photo by Cathleen Falsani. Over the course of the days that followed, I got to know Heuertz’s friends: a family of Nepali Christians—27 of them in one tall, blessedly sturdy house—led by Gautham Rai, a 42-year-old pastor who emigrated from Bhutan when he was a child, and his wife, Rheka, who have adopted or otherwise given a home to a number of girls and young women who have survived sometimes…

Read More

Who Would the Buddha Bomb?

…our own motives and aspiring to reduce harm and suffering for the greatest number of those at risk.” Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, another notable teacher and translator in the Theravada tradition, disagreed vehemently with Bhikkhu Bodhi’s position, writing a lengthy letter to Inquiring Mind in which he outlined various objections. “The common view—that murderous force is an unfortunate but necessary last resort—is what has caused so much money, time a…

Read More

Hobby Lobby: Key to a More Liberal and Less Religious America?

…te hearts and minds, and moving people out of the pews across America. The number of nones (people with no religious preference) is on the rise, with over 20% of all Americans claiming this status, and many point to the increased politicization of religion as the cause. This trend of legal victories will, in the long run, very likely create a more secular America. Recent data indicate that this process is already clearly under way. A poll just rel…

Read More

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

…exuals represent approximately .25 to 1 percent of the US population. That number does not include the transgender people who haven’t undergone sex reassignment surgery (a process many people call “the transition”), so the number of transgender-identified people is likely much higher. The term “transgender” encompasses anyone with a gender identity that is different from his or her birth sex. A transgender person could be someone who just cross-dr…

Read More

New Poll: Evangelicals Backing Trump

…ound one-quarter of the electorate ever since 2000. According to Pew, that number will be a bit lower this time around: about 20%, by their estimate. White evangelicals are losing ground to non-white voters just like all whites, and to the religiously unaffiliated, just like all Christians. Those unaffiliated voters—the “Nones”—now rival white evangelicals in size. About two-thirds of them support Hillary Clinton, making them a solid Democratic co…

Read More

Blood and Politics — Christian White Nationalism in the Age of Obama

…eliefs have been dissected over the years, the core religious beliefs of a number of White nationalist movement leaders has received far less attention. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream Leonard Zeskind Farrar, Straus and Giroux May, 2009 I recently had the opportunity to talk with Zeskind, a friend and colleague, about his new book, the role these religious beliefs played in the d…

Read More

Why We Won’t Let Jonestown (Or 9/11 or Sandy Hook) Die

…hen in the wake of our most recent societal tragedy: the shooting spree at Sandy Hook elementary. When the news first broke, there was just the horror. After the initial media coverage, though, journalists began to shift their focus to the ancillary aspects of the event, the small narratives inside the larger one. The little girl wanted to wear her cowboy boots that day; the teacher shoved the children inside a bathroom and told them to be quiet;…

Read More