Search for "cheap airline tickets from new york ny to grand rapids mi phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Transgender, Scientologist, “Cult Hero”

By Jay Michaelson

…ill. NRMs are no different, really—they’re just more obvious about it. I admit, I didn’t expect to think of any of these theological questions when I received my review copy of Kate Bornstein’s new memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger. I was hoping for a good read, and I got it—Bornstein is hilarious, honest, acerbic, and fearless in her writing. I was also hoping, if you’ll pardon my French, for a good genderfuck, and I got that too. Bornstein, wh…

In the Story of the New Testament We Are the Romans—No Matter Who Wins the Election

By Stephen Hinerman

…It’s the essence of “Empire” thinking. This simple change in emphasis illuminated so many things for me that evening, and in the years since, that they completely changed the way I read and thought about the Jesus stories. Rome did as Rome does I thought of this fundamental insight this summer, when President Trump’s Attorney General gave the order to clear the park near the White House with police, tear gas, and rubber bullets so the president c…

The Cubit Vs. “New Age Colbert,” JP Sears

By The Editors

…el, AwakenWithJP, where he’s developed a following for his wry send-ups of New Age culture via his alter ego “Ultra Spiritual” JP Sears, a kind of Stephen Colbert for the New Age set. Dressed in a purple T-shirt and pale green headband, with a flower tucked into his chest-length red hair. Ultra Spiritual JP delivers earnest, convoluted advice on everything from vegetarianism to ayahuasca to the psychology of the selfie, all in pitch-perfect deadpa…

The Surprisingly Short History of Popular Yoga

By Andrea R. Jain and Michelle Goldberg

…, she moved, again on her own, to Hollywood, a place not particularly welcoming to middle-aged women without a lot of money, and reinvented herself here. When she was in her eighties, she decided to start a new life in Buenos Aires. She never had children and never let either of her husbands tie her down, for better or worse. She defies almost every expectation there is for how a woman’s life is supposed to unfold, and rather than coming to ruin,…

Sam Harris and the New Islamophobes, Deconstructed

By Hamdan Azhar

…appropriated from Perle, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Fukuyama in which American military dominance, paired with Silicon Valley solutionism (brilliantly deconstructed as a corporatist regressive farce by Morozov and others) combines with Randian objectivism to usher in a new era of Pax Americana—with the silicon chip as the golden calf at the altar of modernity. To wit, liberals are now some of the most egregious proponents of indefinite detention, the…

The Breaking of Biblical Womanhood: The Problem With the Hot New Book Taking Aim at the Subjugation of Women in Evangelicalism

By Jill Hicks-Keeton

…back against the Christian patriarchy that constrained us. I pursued academia, earning a PhD in New Testament, to the disappointment of the young gentleman in the living room (though probably to the relief of my parents). Two decades removed, that moment in my parents’ living room feels like it’s from another world. But it helps me understand how I got to where I am today: a divorced mama too proud to admit she stayed in an abusive marriage becau…

What Did the Puritans Have Against Christmas?

By Bruce David Forbes

…ed: Germans, Scandinavians, and the Dutch who founded New Amsterdam (later New York). So Lutherans, Catholics, and the Dutch Reformed celebrated Christmas, along with the Church of England that continued restrained Christmas observances. As a result of this mixture, in the American colonies and then in the new nation, there was no national consensus supporting Christmas, and the disagreement was between Christians. American Christmas wouldn’t come…

Telling the World a ‘Big Story’: RD in Conversation with Karen Armstrong

By Laurie Patton

…ious material is immensely important to the world today. And the work of many academics is not always accessible to non-specialists and yet it is too important to be confined to the university. So I see myself as a “popularizer”—again that would be anathema to many academics! And yes, the Charter is a plea to look at the Big Story of humanity, see that we are one, that we need one another, and learn, as the Qur’an says, “To get to know one another…

Bristol Palin’s New Book Reveals Heterosexual Agenda

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…erated institution is the true agenda of heterosexuals who constantly undermine marriage by having babies out of wedlock, then dissing their baby-daddy in a new book. Bristol is Exhibit A for the true heterosexual agenda to destroy traditional marriage. Heterosexuals keep talking about how gays and lesbians practice “unsafe” behavior—but truly, it’s heterosexuals who “are undermining the health and safety of society.” Bristol may have been on the…

A Queer New Year

By Peter Montgomery

…ligious colleges. Look for all these stories—and some of the not-such-good-news we covered in 2012—to continue making waves in 2013. Civil Marriage and Uncivil Religion On New Year’s Day, same-sex couples in Maryland started getting legally married—joining those in Washington state and Maine, where voters had also given a thumbs-up in a remarkable set of November election victories. Pro-equality activists are working to build on those victories wi…