Search for "American Airlines 1800-299-7264 Manage Flight Booking"

Pope Benedict’s 2006 Islamophobia Controversy Wasn’t an Isolated Incident — Islamophobia is an Integral Part of His Theological Legacy

By Wendy Mallette

…ticulturalism” that’s led to a “pathological” form of “self-hatred” and “a flight from one’s own heritage.” Throughout Benedict’s narrative, from the Holy Roman Empire through the Crusades and contemporary Europe, Islam represents Europe’s threatening, external other. Benedict’s account of European history, as Columbia University’s Joseph A. Massad writes, “recode[s] European forms of despotism as democracy”—for example, portraying the Crusades as…

Pope Francis Walks With LGBTQ People, One Step Forward, Big Steps Back

By Kaya Oakes

…ender reflect his complex responses to the pervasive machismo of the Latin American culture in which he was raised. When Argentinian president Christina Kirchner helped push through legalized same-sex marriage in 2010, Francis—then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio—lead a march against same-sex marriage and sent a letter to all Argentinian priests asking them to speak against the law for the “unalterable good of marriage and the family.” In response, Kirch…

God May Weep For Church Sexual Abuse, But Bishop Chaput Prefers to Bark

By Anthea Butler

…tect children,” but because it was the first time he met with survivors on American soil. The Pope’s post-meeting remarks to the assembled Bishops, that “God weeps,” may be a hint of what the next phase of the sexual abuse scandal holds. In his words to the Bishops gathered, Pope Francis said, “The crimes and sins of sexual abuse of minors may no longer be kept secret; I commit myself to ensuring that the Church makes every effort to protect minor…

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Heretic: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Jihadis?

By Haroon Moghul

…“because my Savior never engaged in those kinds of actions.” Of course, no American Muslim I know has these conversations, not in many years—the debate in favor of democracy was long ago decided. But clearly some people think we haven’t made up our minds, assuming that because people somewhere else are questioning democracy, we must be, too. (The next time this question comes up I’m going to ask whether we can trust American Christians because of…

The Blame for Ferguson: A Response

By Stephanie Gaskill

…blaming of black individuals is actually based on judgments about African Americans at the collective level. Politicians, pundits, and pastors, white and black alike, consistently argue that the criminal behavior of black individuals is in part attributable to deficiencies in “black culture.” Crime would not be so high in black communities, they suggest, if African Americans properly valued marriage, family, and work. By contrast, the financial c…

Blame Series Bonus: How Federal Policy Created America’s Fergusons

By Andrew Aghapour

…gained none of that equity appreciation. The result is that today, African American family incomes are about 60% of white family incomes, but African American wealth is about 5% of white family wealth. And that difference is heavily attributable to federal race-based housing policy. The desperate conditions of many families in inner city ghettos today is largely attributable to desperate economic disadvantages that can be traced directly to federa…

How Postwar Germany’s Witchcraft Trials Can Help Us Understand QAnon And Other Conspiracy Theories

By Monica Black

…aft accusations did not involve carnal relations with the Devil, nocturnal flight, or being able to fall down stairs without sustaining injury. Though they imputed magical evildoing, the accusations mostly involved more mundane human problems, like suspicion, resentment, and festering doubt. This characteristic aligns with what anthropologists and historians who work on comparative witchcraft have made clear: that while witch fears can take quite…

The Sacred and the Dead: ‘Friend of the Devil’ is a Love Song

By Pitman B. Potter

…life in jail.” The theme of alienation is expressed in the song’s focus on flight—from the law, from society, even from friends. And yet we are drawn to identification with an outlaw so alienated from the rest of the world, he believes the Devil is his only friend. In my ministry as an Anglican deacon, leading ministries that offer food, clothing and, most important of all, fellowship to homeless folks living on the streets of Vancouver’s West Sid…

Ministries of Presence: A Report from Nepal

By Cathleen Falsani

…wrecked havoc on the tiny Himalayan nation of Nepal. Joining me aboard the flight from Singapore were a few other journalists from the United States and Europe, a team from the China Lingshan International Rescue in their distinctive fire engine red uniforms, and several dozen surgeons from South Africa who had come to Nepal with Gift of the Giver organization, an NGO founded in 1992 by a Sufi sheik from Istanbul. Among us were Christians, Hindus,…

Hicksters, Stickers, and Affection: Why I Left D.C. for the Family Farm

By Timothy King

…an’s existence.” Ralph Borsodi, a lesser known if formidable figure in the American story of returning to the land, was born a little more than 20 years after Thoreau published his Walden. He has been credited by his acolytes for inspiring hundreds of thousands of people to embrace the “simple life” during the Great Depression and the years that followed. Originally published in 1933, Borsodi’s Flight from the City: An Experiment in Creative Livin…