Search for "cheap airline tickets to miami flights.google.com phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Was Ghana Anti-Gay Scare Just Politics?

By Warren Throckmorton

…ed “to get rid of these people in the society.” Some observers believe the number of sexual minorities may have been inflated in order to whip up opposition to homosexuality which could advance the standing of conservative politicians. Graham Knight, a British blogger living in Ghana, recently wrote that the claim of 8,000 sexual minorities has little support in fact. Knight concluded, in a blog post titled Did Ghana register 8000 homosexuals? The…

Right Wingers Say “Gay” is Out, But Try Putting “Unnatural Vice” On a Bumper Sticker

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…eny minority of people may take away their right to tell gays and lesbians that God will send them to hell for all eternity — out of love, mind you. But, then again, anti-gay Evangelicals have a right to be afraid. After all, researchers say the actual number of Evangelicals may well be “as small as 7 percent of the total adult population.” Which means Evangelicals know just how effective a small number of people can be at taking away the rights o…

Feeding on the Faithful: How Supernatural Thinking Empowered the Third Reich

By Eric Kurlander

…s not easy. Scholarly disciplines have never been more specialized and the competition for grant money and publication more difficult. But if one wants to reach a wide public, one has to strike the right balance between historiographical complexity/originality and accessibility, between exhaustively documented, archival-based primary research and a story-driven narrative unencumbered by too much nuance or detail. If I’ve erred a bit toward scholar…

A collage of a Bible, Valdimir Putin, and the Kremlin and an outline of Russia

Putin’s ‘Year of the Family’ Declaration Blends Russian Nationalism with the Far-Right Rhetoric of the Global Pro-Family Movement

By Irina Smolevskaya

…percent of the total Russian population in 2021—according to the official numbers. When read against the dwindling numbers of some of Russia’s largest ethnic minority groups, such as Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Avars, Armenians, and Ukrainians, this data suggests that many Russian citizens do not feel safe enough to disclose their ethnic identity in the current political climate defined by the Russification of the nation. See Robert Coalson, “Russ…

Can The Religious Left Be Effective Again? Longer Answer: Quizás

By Daniel Schultz

…er immigration reform; but even factoring that in, Hispanic churches are becoming more politically active. The number of congregations might be few, but they may also be larger communities, representing a substantial number of people. In any case, the trend will only continue as Hispanics continue to grow as a part of the US population. Which brings us around at last to the joke in the headline: Can the religious left be effective again? Quizás, m…

Demonized and Demonizing No More.

By Joanna Brooks

…tions both within the atheist community and between atheists and religious communities. Of course, there are still a number of people who are, if not entirely resistant to the ideas in the book, at least deeply suspicious about or don’t see much value in them. One thing I find valuable about Faitheist is that it moves atheism away from the kind of polemic that ends up focusing on truth claims in a very literal way and so mirrors the religious fund…

“As Orthodox As They Come”: A Backstage Conversation With Rob Bell

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…the way that you understand yourself and the work that you do? How do you compare yourself to a stand-up comedian, or a musician, or a televangelist? I have no idea. I seem to be unable to stand outside of myself. And I’m wary of people who are like, “This is my role.” I just get Apple’s rainbow death wheel! You seem like a self-reflexive guy, you must reflect on… Daily survival is wake up, make the kids breakfast, take them to school, walk the d…

What do the January 6 Commission, Covid Deaths and Gun Massacres All Have in Common? God’s Chosen

By John Stoehr

…vent catching Covid, before there was a viable vaccine, was widely seen as commonsense. Commonsense, however, is not politically neutral when you believe the Republicans are good, because they are good, and the Democrats are bad, because they are bad. “Commonsense,” like calling for “doing the right thing,” is politics in disguise according to people who believe they are God’s chosen. Indeed, the more you insist on commonsense, the more they resis…

Competing Visions of Family & Freedom at UN; Methodists Try to Avoid Schism on Sexuality; Catholic Cardinal Denounces LGBT ‘Demonic Ideology’; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…of heartache, frustration, ennui, and burnout are rife within the activist community, while competition and antagonism between individual activists and among the diverse groups subsumed under the LGBTIA+ umbrella, together with stories of mismanagement, favoritism, and outright corruption, bedevil attempts to create effective collaborations. This essay is intended as an exploration rather than as a manifesto. We hope to provoke a more focused disc…

The Wrong Emperor: Why Ralph Reed’s New Pro-Trump Book Distorts the Bible to Cast the President as Tiberius

By Tony Keddie

…mp retweeted a curious meme of himself playing the violin back in March, a number of critics mocked him for acknowledging that he is like Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burns—a fiery critique of him golfing while numerous Americans, especially poor and racially marginalized Americans—died from COVID-19. Reed couldn’t associate Trump with a notorious persecutor of Christians, so he opted for Tiberius instead. This is an undeniable historical er…