Search Results for:

cheap airline tickets round trip to tampa florida from philadelphia phone number 1-800-299-7264

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

…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…

Read More

The American Media’s Longterm Ambivalence About the Papacy

…ere 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 authority, Life offered glimpses of religion as it was lived. The magazine’s first Catholic cover showed a nun bent over an industrial-sized kit…

Read More

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

…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…

Read More

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

…big tent approach to coverage of American ir/a/religion. But do the Gallup numbers point to new ways we might be thinking about business as usual? Two findings are striking. First: Gallup reported that although Americans felt religion’s influence was declining, many—75 percent—agreed that more religion would be positive for the country. Not surprisingly, churchgoers were most gung-ho about religion’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who…

Read More

Glenn Beck’s Salvation Army

…faith through a prism of American nationalism? Not to mention the growing number of Americans without any religious commitment? Beck tells us, “you must fall to your knees and you must reconnect with God. He is not asking you. He is commanding us as a people to get behind Him. He will right the wrongs. We will have to pay a price because we lived outside of His laws. We will have to pay a price, but every day we don’t get behind Him, the price ge…

Read More

Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

…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…

Read More

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

…Rights Day.  The IHEU report observes that while relatively few countries around the world criminalize irreligion as such, many impose arbitrary burdens on secular manifestations of conscience that are not experienced by others. These include laws and policies regulating: • apostasy and religious conversion; • blasphemy and religious criticism; • compulsory religious registration, usually with a government proscribed list of permitted religions; •…

Read More

My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

…ed by businesses like Annex challenge the ACA’s contraception mandate on a number of grounds. The most significant challenge invokes the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, claiming that the insurance coverage mandate imposes a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion. Annex Medical lost its claim because the court concluded that the mandate does not impose a substantial burden on religious exercise and in the widely-publicized H…

Read More

Dear White Evangelicals: A Black Square Ain’t Gonna Cut It

…doubt that a start would have been not being able to count on one hand the number of Black children in my entire Christian school student-body. Do Black educators only exist in public schools? Of course not. Why then couldn’t we find more Black scholars to employ when it came to teaching children? I can tell you that I’ll recognize change as genuine when white preachers and ministers stop using Bible verses to pacify their white congregants by amp…

Read More

Jesus Christ and Super Stars: How The Holy Rolled Mainstream in Pop Music

…r prayers. But these ultra-devout performers share a peculiar space with a number of other artists whose personal faiths are inconsequential to their public personae but whose fluency in the holy plays out in, well, mysterious ways. Lana Del Rey’s catalogue runs deep with both religious imagery and sentiment; waves of apostasy crash over moments of divine revelation and then reverse course back into faith again. She may have claimed “God’s dead…[a…

Read More