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Conservative Christians Oppose New ‘Inter-Religious’ University

…ly hostile populations. At stake, they say, is the unity of truth and the preservation of the historic Christian faith (the two notions often being identified). To choose dialogue is to begin a long slide down the slippery slope to relativism and faithlessness. But wall-building is just not an option in a world in which humanity has become interconnected and interdependent. In the logic of modernity, religion was a zero-sum game: if I’m right, you…

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Awakening, Counter-Awakening, and the End of Church

…nd are willing to take the risk, freeing themselves up and exploring their spirituality in different ways.’ I think eventually a large number of those people will re-affiliate in some way, shape, or form—but when they do, the actual institutions of religion will be very different because of the demands those people make on new kinds of churches. I look at that whole arc of people who are leaving church because of the failure of the institution, an…

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None Means None (Not Atheist, Agnostic, Unbeliever…)

…epeating: 68% of the Unaffiliated in general believe in God or a Universal Spirit Among those who self-identify as Atheist/Agnostic, 38% say they believe in God or a Universal Spirit Among those who self-identified as “Nothing in Particular”—the majority of Nones (71%) in general—some 81% say they believe in God or a Universal Spirit Survey says: Nones are by and large not unbelievers. Not atheists. Not secular humanists. Not anti-religious. Given…

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Hajj Journal: Door Number 89: The Door with No Name

…d inside the mosque one day, I came across Bab raqm tis’wa thamanin, “door number 89,” literally. The door with no name. Facing the mosque at door number one, bab maalik ’abd-al-’Aziz, this door is off to the left. Looking at the mosque floor plan, this is where the building structure of the mosque is deepest. This is “the women’s section.” I noticed as I was walking through the first floor toward door number one, the kings’ door, on my way out af…

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‘Always Pray to the Father’: Mormon Leader Calls Desire for Knowledge of Heavenly Mother ‘Arrogant and Unproductive’

…us Christ of Latter-day Saints. Confused about which church he should join, 14-year-old Joseph Smith read James 1:5: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” Joseph therefore decided to ask God for wisdom. In response, God and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph and told him to join no church, for they were all false. Instead, Joseph would be guided to restore God…

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Walk the Walk: Honoring Common Ground on Abortion

…is we, after all, who extended promises of trust-building guidelines and a spirit of inclusion to cautious voices on all sides, asking them to take the risks necessary to talk and to listen. When we don’t live up to that same spirit, all we manage to do is affirm every cynical instinct, every pessimistic expectation that is so pervasive in the politics of abortion and that keeps us from achieving anything together. And our responsibility to uphold…

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Pittsburgh Paradox: A City Haunted by God and Steel

…hat coincidentally matches Paul, Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (also published in 1905) describes how for “Those people in possession of spontaneous, fun-living dispositions” the creed of endless material accumulation coupled with a disdain of pleasure was “absolutely meaningless.” Pittsburgh’s central creed was exactly as Weber described it, a cold city governed by a tough gospel, and so Paul absconds with his fat…

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How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish, and Unhappy

…s” is, at the very least, problematic. As I suggest in the book, mind-body-spirit spirituality is in danger of making us stupid, selfish, and unhappy. Stupid—because its open-ended, inclusive and non-judgemental attitude to truth-claims actually becomes an obstacle to the combative, argumentative process whereby we discern sense from nonsense. To treat all claims as equivalent, as valid perspectives on an unsayable ultimate reality, is not to real…

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The Christian Roots of the New Age: The Aquarian Gospel

…f God in man; and these, your sons, will be the first to tell the news” (7: 12-14). In short, there was already a spiritual underground in Roman Palestine, and both Jesus and John received their first spiritual instruction from their mothers, who had received it in turn from Elihu and Salome. Elihu honored all the gods and received wisdom from every spiritual source: from Brahmanism, from Judaism, from Zarathustra, from ancient Egypt. (If this see…

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Religious Right: God Should Kill Health Care Reform to Save America from Herod

…come in His name to intercede for that very gift of life. Father, the same spirit of Herod who 2000 years ago attempted to exterminate the life of the Messiah today lives even America. The legislation that incorporates death and infanticide all under the capopy of reform. Today we ask for your spirit to convict the Senate and Congress, mobilize and activate the church to stand for righteousness and justice. We, black and white, brown and yellow, r…

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