Search for "what is best rated cheap airline tickets phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Suicide Bombers and the Prozac God: A Review of Dying for Heaven

By Bruce B. Lawrence

…y pleasure, the unrecognized pathology that motivates suicide bombers. The best qualities of religion, according to Glucklich—trust in a life beyond this one, invocation of a source greater than human creativity or beneficence, for instance—are also its most dangerous. While it may be easy to decode the thesis from a mere glance at the book’s title and subtitle, it’s not quite so easy to accept the premise. Dying for Heaven, released today, is at…

‘Pure White’ Examines the White Supremacist Origins of Evangelical Purity Culture

By Emma Cieslik

…be a strong nation, it needs to have a moral core. And that moral core is best defined by evangelical Christian teachings. So, there you have this formula that allows White evangelicals to demonstrate their right to political power: If we don’t have political power, everything’s in trouble. So again, this is the White Christian nationalism that works, not just on the popular level, but also on the political level—and this has been so firmly ingra…

At the UN, Conservative Christian Agenda Cloaked in Human Rights Language

By Austin Dacey

…ide of the marital bond, and to promote the institution of marriage as the best environment for children. The article on religion is noteworthy for affirming a positive “Right to a Religion”—in contrast to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, the standard in accepted international instruments. Here again, the Declaration cites the UDHR but omits its crucial inclusion of the “freedom to change” belief and highlights “the right of parents t…

Democrats Have Seized the Narrative Frame From the GOP, But Can They Find a Better Story to Tell About an Inclusive, Pluralist US?

By Chrissy Stroop

…a key reason Democrats display such a lack of imagination in this area. At best, they give a nod to other religions while leaving Christianity front and center. The Christian privilege that permeates American society and politics needs to be dismantled just as much as White privilege, male privilege, and cis-het privilege in the pursuit of a genuinely democratic future. If Democrats hope to be the more inclusive party they can do so precisely by d…

Progressive Christians: Don’t Look to the Bible For Abortion Rights Arguments — Women’s Autonomy is Not a Biblical Value

By Rhiannon Graybill and Jill Hicks-Keeton

…w the Bible is not “pro-life” or “pro babies.” Other appeals are stronger: Numbers 5 offers a biblical sanction or even “recipe” for abortion. Numbers 5 does seem to offer the clearest description of an abortion in the Hebrew Bible. As interpreters often point out, this abortion is not condemned by God, but rather condoned. And, in a detail that resonates with our present abortion reality, the abortion in Numbers 5 is caused by administering abort…

Jewish Past/Israeli Future: A Review of The Invention of the Jewish People

By Shalom Goldman

…where it was published soon after it appeared in Israel, the book became a bestseller. Sand was given the Prix Aujourd’hui—a prestigious literary prize awarded to the best nonfiction book of the year. As French history is Sand’s field, and he is thoroughly at home in French language and culture, his television and radio appearances were quite successful. But the French Jewish establishment was quite critical of the book. From Brooklyn to Jerusalem…

Conservatives, Messianic Jews, and the Jews

By Sarah Posner

…ited for Israel and other Christian Zionist groups “the Jews’ and Israel’s best friends in the world,” also tried to blame liberals, not Messianic Jews, for challenges to Judaism. “For 40 years I have argued that Jews for Jesus pose little or no danger to Jewish survival,” Prager wrote. “We Jews should be preoccupied with all the Jews for Nothing, the Jews for anti-Zionism, the Jews for radical Leftism.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again h…

Top Ten Religion & Science Stories of 2009

By Lauri Lebo

…road to the Eastern Mennonite College at Harrisonburg and asked a similar number of Christian students the same question. Almost every hand shot up. 7. An Evangelical to Restore Scientific Integrity in DC? In August, much to the chagrin of new atheist Sam Harris, Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian who headed the Human Genome Project, was appointed director of the National Institutes of Health. As a prominent scientist, Collins speaks ofte…

#Occupy: A Deeper Form of Protest?

By Jay Michaelson

…ism is a point of pride for Occupy participants—or at least, by sufficient numbers of them to scotch anything that might look like an agenda. I doubt this will change. A Deeper Form of Protest Which leads me to the third and final #Occupy circular-ism, which can best be defined as spiritual. There’s an intuitive, cultural, emotive sense that another checklist of items would just perpetuate the wrong way of thinking, the wrong way of being. We don’…

Mitt Romney Plays the Tin Man at the NAACP Convention

By Anthea Butler

…ere possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring, best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president.” Well, Mitt, we really don’t understand who you truly are in your heart. You don’t know how to show us what’s really there. And If you can’t fully communicate what you believe is best for African Americans at the NAACP convention, you can’t do it anywhere. So what was this speech about? I belie…