Search for "where can i buy cheap airline tickets phone number 1-800-299-7264"

More Than Big Hair and Money: Jim, Tammy Faye and the Media “Holy Wars” of the 80s

By John Wigger

…anted to know was how PTL’s rise and fall were connected. How does deep religious devotion become so entwined with money, sex, and celebrity on a Hollywood scale? A short synopsis might help: Jim and Tammy started the PTL network with half a dozen employees in a former furniture store in 1974. By 1986 PTL had annual revenues of $129 million, 2500 employees, a 2300-acre theme park, Heritage USA, and a private satellite network that reached into fou…

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…rased difference and imposed uniformity for the purposes of power and classification. As Easter approaches and I read through the news, absorbing the cultural trends of the day, a lingering, increasingly vexing question comes to mind: what do “the Christians” believe? Over the span of a 24-hour news cycle, one hears about Christians in action with all sorts of spoken and unspoken moral commitments and sacred investments, but at the end of the day…

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

…gin Mary to announce that she would bear Christ. It is a date of great significance to Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, one of the major feasts focused upon the Virgin Mary. The Vatican has announced that this year on the Feast of the Annunciation the Pope will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. While it would be unfair to assume bad intentions, it’s yet another glaring misstep in the pontiff’s handling…

Glenn Beck’s Salvation Army

By Peter Montgomery

…ts of broadcaster Glenn Beck’s recent moves to transform himself into a religious leader as well as entertainer and “educator” has been his intense attacks on President Obama’s theology of salvation, which he has called “evil” and “satanic.” The nature of salvation is not typically the topic of choice for political pundits. But Beck has latched onto it with a fury because he insists that President Obama’s liberation theology-influenced view of sal…

Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

By Paul Berger

…and the abuse, according to the New York City Police Department, has been limited to incidents within the rabbi’s family. But the hunt for Kranczer comes at a time when federal agencies are taking a more proactive approach to prosecuting abuse in the Orthodox community. In Brooklyn last year, about 25 Orthodox men were arrested on sex abuse charges. This year in Lakewood, New Jersey, a predominantly Orthodox community, the local prosecutor has lau…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…the 27-year-old computer science student was convicted for “contempt of religion” in Cairo. Saber was taken into custody on September 13 by the police after an enraged mob stormed his house, beating him and threatening his mother, a Coptic Christian. Saber was rumored to be circulating the Innocence of Muslims film trailer on his Facebook page. In a video blog, he spoke of the importance of exercising critical reasoning about religious matters. W…

My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

By Howard M. Friedman

…Minnesota-based medical device company, Annex Medical, Inc., lost its preliminary bid to avoid offering its employees health insurance policies that cover contraception. Because Annex has only 16 full-time and two part-time employees, the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” does not require it to provide health insurance to its workers at all. (Only businesses with 50 or more employees are required by the new law to provide insurance.) However,…

Dear White Evangelicals: A Black Square Ain’t Gonna Cut It

By Jhas Williams

…inful.” Obviously it wasn’t always the overt-racism that communicated such idiocy, like being called a nigger to my face by white men who claimed to have a closer relationship with God than I did. (Although for the record there were countless instances of that too.) But most times, and perhaps more scarring, there were countless microaggressions, such as auditioning for the church play only to be told that I likely wouldn’t get it, while throwing…

Jesus Christ and Super Stars: How The Holy Rolled Mainstream in Pop Music

By Alana Massey

…se that he began, “First off, all glory to God, that’s for sure.” This tradition has often been fodder for comedians remarking that these are empty gestures and that, of all requests sent to God, an artist winning a Grammy is likely low on the list of priorities. But this year the wisecracking set were largely silent on the issue, as Kendrick Lamar has demonstrated his Christian credentials time and again in his music and public declarations. In a…

Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

By Patricia Miller

…ou just have to “ask around” Boston to find folks who know someone who’s thinking about returning to the church or who feels less horrible about the church than in the darkest days of the U.S. clerical sex abuse scandal, which had Boston at its epicenter. That’s a pretty low bar, but of course no one denies that Francis is a change for the better. As Jon O’Brien, head of Catholics for Choice, told The Guardian, Francis isn’t so much “a breath of f…