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

Hobby Lobby: Key to a More Liberal and Less Religious America?

By Rebecca Sager

…o religious preference) is on the rise, with over 20% of all Americans claiming this status, and many point to the increased politicization of religion as the cause. This trend of legal victories will, in the long run, very likely create a more secular America. Recent data indicate that this process is already clearly under way. A poll just released by Carnegie Mellon University has found that millennials are often disenchanted with organized reli…

Blood and Politics — Christian White Nationalism in the Age of Obama

By Bill Berkowitz

…because of all the brown-skinned Spanish-speaking people crossing the Rio Grande—never mind the fact that these same people have been on this side of the border ever since 1845. From this perspective, one of the most interesting Republican pieces of legislation languishing in Congress is a proposal to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents lacking the proper documents. If such a measure was enacted, it would…

How a Ruling for Masterpiece Cakeshop Could Embolden White Nationalists

By Sunnivie Brydum

…te—or even federal—protections aimed at combatting discrimination against any number of marginalized populations. “The cultural and political prominence of religious freedom as an American ideal draws people to it,” Wenger said. “The reason people appeal to it for all sorts of purposes is because it’s so culturally, politically, and legally powerful.” Indeed, as Wenger’s book documents in deep historical detail, the bedrock American principle has…

Naked Jihad

By Kate Blanchard

…ld soon be feeling the need to leave her home country. Not surprisingly, a number of Western women felt moved to show their support for Amina. An international movement called Femen staged bare-breasted protests in European cities, in which the writings on their chests echoed Amina’s, along with “Freedom for women” and “Fuck your morals.” (Be warned: photos contain nudity and strong language.) But Femen did not have the last word. Almost immediat…

How Fitbit Helps a Conservative Evangelical College Monitor Students’ Bodies For Christ

By Jonathan Root

…t the “Aerobics Center,” students filled out a computer card with their ID number, activity number, and the time, intensity, and distance of their workout. The data derived from the cards helped to determine grades. One student who had been forced to enroll in the Pounds Off Program said, “I’m really sad for the school. It has so much potential, so many positive things about it, but you can’t treat people this way… They treat you like you’re not c…

The Internet Is Not Killing Religion, Religion is Killing Religion

By Elizabeth Drescher

…crisis” in the New World: Pennsylvania aside, the Restoration colonies of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and North and South Carolina exhibited extraordinary spiritual discord and sectarianism as well as a remarkable but all too familiar indifference to things spiritual. In America’s first European century, then, traditionally thought of as exclusively Puritan, Christian practice not only proved insecure but showed dangerous signs of declining r…

Was Ghana Anti-Gay Scare Just Politics?

By Warren Throckmorton

…e designed to create fear as are the unrepresentative group of Muslims claiming an imminent Sodom and Gomorrah for Africa. While the accuracy of the original story is open to question, only a spark is needed to get a fire going—intentionally or not. And given the rhetoric in Ghana, it is difficult to avoid comparison to Uganda’s recent history in relation to sexual minorities. In March, 2009, three Americans spoke at a conference on homosexuality…

6 Overlooked Takeaways From a Reviewer of Controversial Texas Textbooks

By David R. Brockman

…dards (TEKS) promote Christianity over other religions. Sadly, I found a similar pro-Christian slant in many world geography and world history textbooks up for adoption. Back in 2010, after the current social studies TEKS were established, the Christian Right bloc on the SBOE claimed to have uncovered “pro-Islam anti-Christian bias” in Texas textbooks. Though skeptical of those claims, I nevertheless was on the lookout in my own review process for…

Feeding on the Faithful: How Supernatural Thinking Empowered the Third Reich

By Eric Kurlander

…rst “supernatural” history of the Third Reich, encouraging scholars to ask new questions and pursue new lines of research, whether they agree with my conclusions or not. What alternative title would you give the book? Early on the working title was Consuming Terror: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich. It was based on my hypothesis that the Nazis used “horror,” “terror,” the fear of a “monstrous” other to attract popular support and pursue t…

The Suppression of Sin in Evangelical Abolitionism: The Wilberforce Problem

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…s in major U.S. cities appear in the media. In major hubs like Houston and New York City, stories about charges and convictions of homegrown trafficking cells shed light on just how widespread domestic trafficking is. Just this week, the website of CNN Freedom Project (CNN’s own initiative to end modern slavery) reported that Mexican police have arrested more than 1,000 people in a city on the Texas border in connection with “human trafficking and…