Search for "cheap airline ticket from orlando/miami to rio phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Renovating Marriage, One Gay Couple at a Time

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ose marriage equality on religious grounds. For them, I point to a growing number of religious leaders who also understand that gays and lesbians can do a lot to “redefine” marriage in beneficial ways. Rev. Ed Bacon, who leads the 4,000 member All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., told Oprah Winfrey this past weekend that marriage would be “enriched” by same-sex couples. I’ve never had a straight couple come to me and say, ‘My marriage is in trou…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…me, the historian in me, and the politically concerned citizen in me all say the same thing: we have to reckon with the dead, sometimes playfully, mostly with lugubrious seriousness, to better understand ourselves, our responsibilities, and our future. Trick or treat?…

Pop Culture Yogi B. K. S. Iyengar Dead at 95

By Andrea R. Jain

…rough an agonizing childhood in which he lost his father and siblings to various illnesses, and was afflicted himself with tuberculosis, typhoid, and malaria. Already decrepit at the age of sixteen, Iyengar went to the Karnataka city of Mysore to study yoga with his brother-in-law, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who was said to have constructed a yoga system meant to strengthen the body through sequences of onerous postures and breathing exercises. Th…

Will Iowa’s Abortion Ban Respect Religious Freedom?

By Christine Ryan

…aw. Religious exemptions from abortion bans offer relief to only a limited number of individuals and can never be a comprehensive legal solution to the country’s reproductive health crisis. Nor should the right to control one’s body depend on proof of one’s religious commitments; reproductive freedom is a right that depends on one’s humanity, not one’s religious beliefs. That said, attacking the status quo incrementally proved to be a winning stra…

Mormon Rejection of Trump Embarrassing for Evangelicals?

By Neil J. Young

…ghpoint, but rather as members of a heretical and unchristian faith. For a number of reasons, including Mitt Romney’s presidential run in 2012, those impulses have been largely diminished. But evangelical worries about Mormonism remain. That Mormons have so thoroughly repudiated Donald Trump while American evangelicalism wrestles with its complicated relationship with him only elevates evangelical leaders’ concerns about the strength of their fait…

Can Expelled Teach Us a Thing or Two?

By Arri Eisen

…ans would be attracted to, appreciate and consider careers in science (the number is decreasing annually). I bet we’d have more productive conversation among students and leaders of science and religion around the many profound issues in our nation that engage both: abortion, medical care, stem cells, homosexuality, and genomic research. The battle rhetoric would fade and, more than likely, movies like Expelled wouldn’t be made in the first place….

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

By Lisa Miller

…he book? I love the title. “Heaven” is such a delicious, powerful and mysterious word. You can’t do better. How do you feel about the cover? I love the cover. I was curious about how the publisher, HarperCollins, would get around the sky-clouds-angels clichés. When I saw this cover, which is adapted from a medieval drawing, I was instantly delighted. What book do you wish you’d written? I fell in love with my profession after reading a collection…

The Year of the Abusive Priest

By Anthea Butler

…being incidences of pedophilia, and 600 priests defrocked in a ten-year period. These cases, according to Monsignor Charles J. Scicluna, represented sexual abuse cases that had occurred over the last fifty years. Unfortunately, this is a very small percentage of the cases worldwide, in part because Scicluna states that between 1975 and 1985, “I do not believe that any cases of pedophilia committed by priests were brought to the attention of our C…

The Devil is in the Details

By Amina Wadud

…if lost or stolen, but only if you first write down each and every serial number. Then you have to keep this information somewhere that’s not the same somewhere you keep the checks. But then they really do NOT spend just like cash—especially abroad where we meet and mix with people in their own places. Such places are not subject to our being guests there. So I do tend toward keeping travel cash in an odd place. (No, I’m not gonna share with you…

Holy Father, You’re Not Helping: The Problem with the Pope’s Plan to Consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

By Katherine Kelaidis

…hief among them contention over the pope’s claim to universal authority. A number of violent incidents over two hundred years, from both sides of Christianity’s two halves, helped solidify the separation. These included the Byzantine massacre of Catholics living in Constantinople in 1182, the sacking of Thessaloniki by Catholics in 1185, and their pillage of Constantinople in 1204. Finally, the establishment of Rome-allied episcopacies in traditio…