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YOU Are Spiritual But Not Religious: The Secret Spiritual History of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books

By Daniel Silliman

…es make choices all the time. The history of our species is amazing: fire, numbers, alphabets or pictographic language, medicine, architecture, money and banking, art, music, laws etc. Choices got us there. We are still making choices both as individuals and societies. Not all of them are good—but, we can change the bad choices, we hope. The children’s series that Montgomery helped to create put readers in exactly that position, again and again. T…

As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon

By Katherine Kelaidis

…de against Albanian Kosovars in the late 1990s. The fact is, a significant number of Serbs, and even a large number of others from traditionally Orthodox backgrounds, continue to harbor a great deal of anger about Western intervention in the Kosovo War, which they see as a failure by the West to comprehend the historical role-reversal that’s taken place, including the persecution of Orthodox Christians by Albanians and other majority-Muslim ethnic…

Elaine Howard Ecklund Wants to Dispel Myths Surrounding Religious Resistance to Science

By Sammy Feldblum

…a—I don’t know if I should say unusual, but I can say that there’s a large number of religious organizations in Houston. I think that’s patently obvious, but also true from the research. There are potential civic resources through those religious organizations. You saw it in the kerfuffle about Lakewood, the big church there on the freeway, opening its doors. And people saying “why isn’t this enormous church opening its doors for people as a shelt…

Trump’s “Muslim Ban” A Gift to Terrorists

By Ali Olomi

…eland Security to build a wall along the Mexican border and increasing the number of border officers, the president signed an executive order that, according to the New York Times “suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.” The re…

After More Mass Shootings It’s Time to Call Out White Supremacy in the Pews

By Peter Laarman

…what’s going on, but too few seem capable of saying it. We now have a fair number of political and civic leaders who are willing to say the word trauma and talk about the all-pervasive violence in this culture, not to mention the extent of mental disturbance and the fact that American civilians have more assault rifles in their possession than does the U.S. military. All well and good. But we have too few leaders who will talk about the deeper roo…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…y will bring about consequences like those faced by Sodom and Gomorrah. Ireland: Muslim Council invites LGBT Dubliners to Ramadan iftar The Irish Times’ Patsy McGarry reported this week that the Irish Muslim Peace & Integration Council has invited members of the LGBT community to its second annual community Iftar (Ramadan fast-breaking meal) in Dubin on Saturday. Ivory Coast: Activists appearing in US embassy photo attacked Gay men whose faces app…

Religious Practices on Trial in Arizona: The Problem With “Experts”

By Johnny P. Flynn

…troduced a bill to regulate native-style religious practices on non-Indian lands. The bill would require the State Department of Health to draft regulations in consultation with American Indian spiritual leaders. The state legislature of Arizona might be surprised to learn that they already regulate sweat lodges—in the Department of Corrections. American Indian inmates are required to follow rules which include pictures of sweat lodges built in th…

Show Me the Way of the Hebrews: The Making of an African American Rabbi

By J. Lester Feder

…another African American there, a man also born Jewish, who was answering phones. Someone stuck their head in the office to ask them to come pray—they were short of the ten Jews required to form the minyan. When they joined the group, the leader assumed the black man was a convert, and asked if he had fulfilled all of the process’s legal requirements. After that incident, she says, “my eyes [were] opened.” Regardless of their devotion to the fait…

An Extravagant Welcome For All: Believe Out Loud, a Faith-Based LGBT Campaign, Launches

By Peter Laarman

…h is also expected to attract the attention and involvement of significant numbers of Roman Catholics and younger evangelicals. Part of the idea is to remind individual Christians who totally embrace LGBT equality that there are millions more like them—a genuine “cloud of witnesses,” to use the biblical expression. [Full disclosure: I was significantly involved for over two years in the early development of this project; my agency was paid for its…

A Post-Christian America? Not Quite—Though Devoutly to be Wished

By Peter Laarman

…n, the amiable and well-informed Meacham said what I would have said: on balance, it’s a good thing that the various and dangerous forms of grievance associated with “Christian nation” thinking should now recede. It’s a good thing that more have come to appreciate the wisdom of separating church and state. And yet I’m not sure the road ahead is completely sunny. This morning I awoke with two thoughts in relation to Meacham’s piece: 1) There’s got…