Search for "CNN International cleantalkorg2.ru Headlines Videos Stories and Videos on News breaking newstoday bbc news news word BBC News World"

Tea Party, Circa 1930s: A Response to Michael Kazin

By Diane Winston

…civic mentoring. Simply put, their work did not jibe with the traditional news media values of conflict, currency, and power. These were regular people doing everyday work in the hope of effecting incremental change. Their stories went unreported for the same reasons that much of the right’s small-bore organizing went unremarked in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s: reporting on evolutionary social change is tougher than writing up this week’s conflict,…

A Palin Pastor Primer

By Esther Kaplan

…e in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what’s going on in this unseen world called the spirit world.” On Palin’s election as governor: This was the result of a “prophetic call” by another pastor at the church, who prayed for her to win. “[He made] a prophetic declaration and there unfolds the kingdom of God, you know.” From 2002 on: Wasilla Bible Church, Pastor Larry Kroon When Palin ran for lieutenant governor in 2002, she switched Wasilla c…

Jay Bakker on LGBT Justice and the Demands of Grace

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…id you don’t even have to become more religious or believe more, just accept that you are accepted and allow that to transform you. I’ve found that to be true. I’ve learned to trust God in these situations and I’ve seen the power of grace….

Grace Under Pressure: Reclaiming Hope for Progressive Religion

By Daniel Schultz

…special duty of progressive believers; conservative responses to the daily news run mostly to cynicism, despair, and waiting for the Lord to return in his glory to judge our failures. And if belief is to provide any kind of witness to our diverse society, it must be able to articulate a meaningful alternative to what we see all around us. In a sense, I am advocating that progressive believers reclaim “hope” as a theological category. First we will…

As We Survey the Damage of Yesterday’s Violence, What Will Christian Nationalist Politics Look Like in 2021? New Report Offers Clues

By Chrissy Stroop

…ormally certifying the Electoral College vote, a process already being obstructed by Cruz and some other Republican lawmakers. And, given that these pro-Trump terrorists carried not only American, Confederate, and Trump flags, but also explicitly Christian symbols along with signs and flags bearing anti-choice, QAnon, and right-wing Christian slogans like “The Children Cry Out for Justice” and the not-so-apolitical after all “Jesus 2020,” the rele…

How ‘The Seven Missions’ of the ‘Doomsday Couple’ Connect Them to the Larger LDS Prophecy Subculture

By Christopher James Blythe

…ion is to “ordain individuals to translation as the camps begin.” In other words, they would officiate in a ritual that would make select people immortal. The selection of these translated persons relates to Joseph Smith’s understanding of the Book of Revelation’s 144,000. Smith believed this body would be a missionary force that would be sent out at the time of global cataclysm “to bring as many as will come to the church of the Firstborn.” (D&C…

Michigan Dem Attempts to Resurrect ‘Democrats Don’t Get Religion’ Trope — The Real Question is: Do Dems Get Nonreligion?

By Chrissy Stroop

…t unfortunately, such lazy and casually (if unintentionally) racist broad-brushing about the “godless” Democratic Party—the same party whose very Catholic president remarked at the 2023 National Prayer Breakfast “that joy comes when we apply the commandments of Scripture” and referred to America’s racial, religious and gender diversity as a sign of “the infinite creativity of God”—is just standard fare for American political discourse. Pundits and…

Clergy Shouldn’t Be Able to Steal Funds for Grindr or Dolls

By Andrew L. Seidel

…t “as much as 95% of fraud within churches goes undetected or unreported.” Headlines reflect this truth. One Catholic priest in Michigan embezzled about $5.4 million from the diocese. A Catholic priest in Connecticut admitted to stealing $1.3 million from the church. Sadly, though not unusually, the diocese forced out employees who uncovered the fraud for exposing it publicly. Another Connecticut priest also stole $1.3 million, some of which he sp…

Should NASA Have Given $1.1 Million to a Theology Institute?

By Michael Schulson

…y did not make any officials available for interview, and Mary Voytek, who runs the Astrobiology Program, did not respond to an interview request). Since 1998, part of the Astrobiology Program’s role has been to address the societal implications of the field, mostly through a series of initiatives at the Library of Congress (although there’s also an astrobiology-themed, NASA-funded student debate competition. Most recent topic: “Resolved: An overr…

Let’s Stop Calling Rape and Harassment by Bikram Yoga Founder Just Another “Guru Scandal”

By Andrea R. Jain

…der, that he is now nearly bankrupt. Well, as we have learned from Donald Trump, bankruptcy is not sufficient to destroy the super wealthy in the United States and, considering that American police arrest someone for marijuana charges every 42 seconds, many of whom, especially black youth, end up serving prison time, this cost to an entrepreneur of Choudhury’s magnitude strikes me as a mere slap on the wrist for charges of serious, harmful behavio…