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Giving Up God—Not Just a Spiritual Stunt

…imself an unexpected media darling. Becky Garrison caught up with Bell via phone to talk about his motivations, the reactions of his friends and family, and what he hopes to discover. BG: What’s your reaction to this surge of media coverage? RB: When I started this, I thought my blog would only be read by a few people. It’s been surreal. I have no clue how to make anything go viral, so this is totally unexpected. But eventually, I think this atten…

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If You Were Faced With Him

…picked up quickly and loaded the dishwasher, I said yes. Then I checked my phone. Like many people, I keep it on silent unless I’m expecting a call, so I missed a called from my youngest daughter. Instead she left a text message. It read: “your hajj packgat came” (sic) I burst out crying. So much so that my other daughter came forward and said, “What’s wrong?!” I couldn’t speak. I just showed her the text message and cried and hugged her. To her c…

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First it Was an Insurrection Flag, Now Supreme Court Justice Alito is Caught Flying Another Far-Right Flag — An ‘Emblem for an Extensive Spiritual Warfare Campaign’

…urge of pickpockets besieging Mom & Pop stores. But who knows? Some people phone a friend to unload about their annoying neighbor, so maybe Mrs. Alito’s way of coping with neighborhood strife is to hoist a flag flown by insurrectionists. Could it be true? Yes. But it is incredibly unlikely—just as unlikely as misogynist-in-chief Sam Alito allowing his wife to decide which flag is flown for days at his house, openly supporting the insurrection. The…

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Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

…n our side. Number 1 could be “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Number 2: “God doesn’t discriminate.” Number 3: “Sex is only for procreation.” And so on. We could get clever, of course, and assign separate groups of numbers to arguments pro and con or to thematic clusters. I can even imagine some seminary librarian proposing a sort of Dewey Decimal System to organize the arguments. This would allow long series of arguments to be cited b…

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The Sacred and the Dead: Operator, Can You Help Me?

…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. Where Pigpen called up the trusty telephone operator, I did my pining alone, with only the camaraderie of a searc…

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In the Aftermath of the “Himalayan Tsunami”

…(first as Uttaranchal) in 2000, the region has seen a massive rise in the number of visitors to the region, especially by the growing Indian middle class. Roads widened and hotels and visitor services grew exponentially. Building a new hotel or a restaurant by the side of the road felt like a smart investment—even when the road was near a river. Kedarnath saw the building of new cell phone towers, a railway reservation office, helicopter landing…

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Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

…nks. You have to determine that on your own.” Haggard’s weekly Oval Office phone calls and grip and grin NAE photo ops with former President George W. Bush are now mere vestiges of an old life, prior to what he calls the “crisis.” At New Life, which Jeff Sharlet described as “not just a battalion of spiritual warriors but a factory for ideas to arm them,” worship services were extravagant multimedia, fog machine-choked productions, in which Haggar…

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“You’ve Never Met a Muslim”

…slipped into the dorms we couldn’t get signed into, and posted hundreds of cheap notices printed on 8.5 x 11 paper. We’d invited a prominent imam to speak and ordered a delicious dinner, convinced that the perpetually elastic undergraduate stomach would be the gateway to the soul. The next morning, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were struck, thousands were murdered, New York City went into lockdown, and our community was sent reeling. Eve…

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“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

…armed against. War in the name of faith is a recurring theme, as with cell-phone videos of beheadings. Krieger reads such rage within a dichotomy of “fundamentalist repression” and its opposite, freedom. Alhough she prefers the phrase “over-pervy libertinism” as, for her, the dichotomy is spread wide, with ISIS on one end and the antinomian carnival of de Sade’s vacation home at the other. That’s a freedom worth fighting for, she implies, but it i…

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Swiss Priest Sacked for Blessing Lesbian Couple; Mormon Equality Advocate Excommunicated; Pope-Backed Anti-Gay Referendum Fails; Global LGBT Recap

…th hate from politicians and religious leaders seeking political power and cheap popularity.” She and more than 130 volunteers then distributed the magazine across the country and into some unlikely hands, including to Uganda’s Parliament, president, and other politicians, as well as churches and media outlets. Nabagesera says Bombastic has been a “big hit,” allowing her to attract correspondents in every country across the African continent. She…

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