Search for "cheap airline tickets from new york ny to grand rapids mi phone number 1-800-299-7264"

“LGBT People Have a Lot to Teach Christians”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…names of those for whom prayers are being offered) flicker in the nave of New York City’s Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine during an evensong service in December 2014. Photo by Cathleen Falsani. It’s not about trying to come up with some new, hip way (like fog machines) to get the young kids to come to church. It’s not about trying to make Christianity hip or put coffee shops in the lobby. That’s fine but I don’t think that’s what makes…

Spiritualism and Sex Meet Evangelical Censorship, 19th-Century-Style

By Leigh Eric Schmidt

…ection on the quest for perfection in American culture. I take this to have significant religious roots, but the inquiry would quickly spill out into any number of other cultural realms. That one is even more preliminary still….

Is the Pope’s Concern for Immigration Just a “Numbers Game”?

By Megan Sweas

…om Colorado, accused the pope of “faith-based marketing,” according to the New York Times: Mr. Tancredo said Benedict’s comments welcoming immigrants ‘may have less to do with spreading the Gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the Church.’ NPR‘s recent story on immigrant Catholics shared a similar perspective, minus the venom. The U.S. Catholic Church, the story notes, “depends on immigrant members to replenish its ranks. … Not surp…

Recent Debates Highlight Democrats’ Antisemitism Blind Spot—But It’s Not What You Think

By Nylah Burton

…tism. Recently at the 2019 AIPAC conference, in a flurry of philosemitism, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced that “Israel at its core is there to shelter an oppressed people,” and that “the [Jewish] people cannot be safe without the security of Israel.” If Rep. Omar’s comments invoke antisemitic tropes, then this is clearly an antisemitic trope too, invoking as it does both the specter of rootless, wandering, nationless Jews and dual loy…

Abdul-Rauf’s Latest Park51 Fail

By Hussein Rashid

…ence. In addition, they have controlled their messaging, and the view from New York was that they were making progress in repairing broken relationships. All of this work went on while Abdul-Rauf was silent. Now he starts making statements on something over which he has no control, but over which he exercises a disproportionate impact on in public discourse. He does not own the property, he is on the Board of Directors. The Park51 team tried to gi…

Another Bush Comes Out for Gay Marriage

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…this week by the Human Rights Campaign, Barbara Bush, proclaims herself “a New Yorker for marriage equality.” As the New York Times reports, in the video Ms. Bush says, “New York is about fairness and equality. And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love.” The 29-year-old Ms. Bush, who lives in Manhattan, ends the video by asking others in the state to “join us.” Over at Focus on the Family’s Citizen Link, blogger Jenny T…

Thank You, Satanists

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…ar a similar line of argument come up this week from the Satanic Temple, a New York-based religious organization (although non-tax-exempt, because it doesn’t believe religious organizations should be), announced an ingenious response to the Hobby Lobby verdict. They have created a letter of exemption for women to show their doctors in hopes of getting out of the requirements of the “informed consent” laws now applied to abortion procedures in 35 s…

Catholic Citizenship: Massimo Faggioli on the Role of Public Theologians Today

By Kaya Oakes

…hurch has become much more volatile. There are a lot of people reading the New York Times op-ed page. And that’s unfortunate, because a lot of people just read the same thing. I lament that, because most people who care about Catholic stuff read from a niche. Being able to make sense of opposing views is something we’re less used to. I include myself in this. What is the role of a public theologian such as yourself in our increasingly secular soci…

80 Million Anglicans Can’t Be Wrong—Or Can They?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…inister, this formed on basis of consultation with advisors on the Crown Nominations Committee. Were this not the case, it is not unreasonable to speculate that the popular Sentamu would soon occupy the See of Canterbury. Either choice, however, misunderstands the emergent demographic of God’s people (in Anglican-speak) as they gather in the widely distributed outposts of the Anglican Communion—though less and less so in England, the United States…

‘Barbaric’ v ‘Progressive’ Islam; Catholic Church Objects to Mexican Court OK For Gay Adoption; Malaysian Court Weighs Boundaries Of Civil and Shariah Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…limachi and photographer Mauricio Lima produced an unforgettable, chilling New York Times story about the Islamic State’s enshrinement of a theology of rape and sexual slavery. Alturi, an organization launched to “educate and engage individual supporters who want to help improve the lives of LGBTI people around the world,” includes on its website an interview by Leah Entenmann with Ani Zonneveld, founder of Muslims for Progressive Values. Feeling…