Search for "cheap airline tickets to europe to usa phone number 1-800-299-7264"

What Pence and Kaine Reveal About Divides in Catholicism

By Patricia Miller

…and the church insisted that Catholics opposed the decision, a significant number of Catholics similarly ignored them, having decided that on matters of sexuality the hierarchy wasn’t to be trusted? It’s that split within Catholicism that freed up Catholics to affiliate with whatever political party best met their priorities: social justice issues for left-leaning Catholics and sexual restraint, law-and-order, and a muscular national defense for r…

Do Space Aliens Need Baptism? The View From Gliese 581g

By Paul Wallace

…ith every outward step, as our universe and our ignorance grows, so do the number of potential space alien hideouts. So does the belief that there must be someone out there. So every time I read about the discovery of a new Earth-like planet or read about NASA’s upcoming Kepler planet-finding mission or watch a movie like Contact, I grow excited over—and, like Brahe, even a little afraid of—the vast unknown. My mind boggles. What’s really out ther…

Halloween, Evangelicals, and the Macabre

By John W. Morehead

…ischaracterizations, including a confusion of witchcraft with Satanism, accusations of ritual sacrifice, evangelical exaggeration of the size and growth of witchcraft, and a misreading of fantasy, fairy tale, and horror depictions of witches as reflecting real-world practice. Although these disturbing tendencies won’t be disappearing soon, there are some promising changes on the horizon. A small group of evangelical academics, including the noted…

We Were Here Before September 11th

By Amina Wadud

…was African-Americans. Ours is the story still not well known, despite our numbers. For one thing, after September 11th we were given a small reprieve. American prejudice and intolerance floated from us as African Americans, who happen to be Muslim, and focused on Muslims who happen to be Americans. Therefore the hatred built up against foreign Muslims immigrant and their offspring. More than a few African-American Muslims were content to sit back…

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

By Cody J. Sanders

…e of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. I cannot count the number of times I have heard well-meaning, good-hearted people respond to this appeal, saying, “Things are a lot better for gay people today than they were several years (or decades) ago. In time, our society (or churches) will come around on this issue.” To these friends and others, I must say, “It’s time.” For Lucas, Brown, Clementi, Walsh, and Chase the time is up. For t…

The American Media’s Longterm Ambivalence About the Papacy

By Peter Manseau

…hor and monk Thomas Merton. She persuaded Luce to transform their seven-thousand acre South Carolina estate into a Trappist monastery (where they both were later buried), and likewise convinced him to break new ground with the first national magazine of photojournalism. From its start in 1936, Life offered a very different take on the place of religion in America. While Time’s religious coverage moved within an orbit held by the gravity of authori…

Holy Father, You’re Not Helping: The Problem with the Pope’s Plan to Consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

By Katherine Kelaidis

…hief among them contention over the pope’s claim to universal authority. A number of violent incidents over two hundred years, from both sides of Christianity’s two halves, helped solidify the separation. These included the Byzantine massacre of Catholics living in Constantinople in 1182, the sacking of Thessaloniki by Catholics in 1185, and their pillage of Constantinople in 1204. Finally, the establishment of Rome-allied episcopacies in traditio…

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…Protestant side, many denominations that were composed primarily of Anglo-Europeans, like Methodists in the nineteenth century, are confronting the rise of ethnic congregations such as the Korean Methodist Church. This internal diversification of Christianity in America is more than just the multiplication of churches; it is a symptom of larger globalizing forces and processes that will transform cultures and theologies, and bear on lived experie…

Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

By Paul Berger

…ss prevalent in the Orthodox community than anywhere else; but there are a number of peculiarities to Orthodox Jewish life that have made the reporting of abuse less common than in society at large. “I think the subject of abuse is probably the same in any religious community,” says Michael Salomon, a Long Island psychiatrist, who has just finished working on an as-yet-unpublished book about sexual abuse in the Orthodox world. “Different religions…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…o “blasphemous content.” The IHEU reports being contacted by an increasing number of secularist groups organizing on Facebook, including groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Sudan. In all of this, the United States is an anomaly since it rejects even laws against religious hate speech, which were found in 36 of 45 European states in 2011. It’s the best place in the wo…