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Are School Districts Getting the Message on Government-Sponsored Prayer?

By Lauri Lebo

There’s an old joke in newsrooms that goes if you can find three examples of something, it’s automatically worthy of a trend story. And so, according to the rule, it’s too early to call this a trend. Still, it is interesting that two news stories came out yesterday about school districts ending government-endorsed religious observances because they recognize that they would probably lose a costly First Amendment battle. Could it be that in the wa…

How To Talk To “Nones” and Influence People: Rob Bell’s Transrational Experience

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…and the message, but actually hungry for both. When I spoke to Bell on the phone a couple weeks after the event in Durham, he told me, In some ways what I do is basic pastoring. It’s, you give people an idea, you let them respond to it, you give them another idea….it’s basic spiritual direction. Like the itinerant rabbi, the guru—not to say that I’m a guru—but there’s a long tradition [of that kind of work]. But so many people right now are rethin…

Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

By Michael Schulson

…age. His 2012 book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar, has sold widely. Over the phone, I asked Rinzler why he and Burrows had chosen to establish the studio as a for-profit company. “We really wanted to make sure we had all the resources we need for supporting people who are trying meditation for the first time,” Rinzler explained. Because they’re a business, there’s more professionalism. The teachers they’ve hired show up on time, and, as Rinzler put…

How Does an Atheist Come to Believe in God?: An Interview with Jacob Needleman

By Lisa Webster

…ills, I fished in my bag for the tiny microphone I planned to use with my iPhone, to record our conversation. “Is that what you’re using?” he asked, with great interest. He held up his own phone. “I just got one of these. Will this really work?” He sat next to me on the couch as I pointed him through the app store on his phone. “There it is,” I said, pointing to iTalk. “That’s what I’m using.” He tapped the screen, but the app that came up for dow…

Conservative Rep Grills Oklahoma Personhood Sponsors

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…tors are caught in the middle, and the voters themselves are… well… making phone calls and holding marches, because what else is there to do? (When I called the office of one member of the Public Health Committee to register my opposition to SB-1433, the staffer on the phone said, “Goodness, it seems like everyone in Oklahoma is calling.” I wearily replied that most of the calls must be in support of the bill, right? “Oh, no,” she said. “Against i…

What Can a Real Life Haunting Tell Us About American Religion? [Updated]

By Daniel Wise

…ouse. She reported that, whenever she tried to speak to this friend on the phone in the house about the haunting, the phone connection would be interrupted. As a busy woman with two kids, Maria doesn’t always have a lot of time to devote to spirituality, but when she does, she often relies on intuition. In the case of the haunting, she reports that her intuition pointed her toward the conclusion that it’s the land on which the house was built that…

Godly Game or Godless Satire? Countering Biblical Ignorance with Heretical Humor

By Betsy Shirley

…the Old Testament because they’re long and boring…” Here pauses. “Granted, Numbers is like…” “I like Numbers, but anyway…” mumbles Caleb. “The real impetus for the game,” Thomas resumes, “is to get people to engage in Scripture and read stories they’ve never read before. When a concubine is cut up into twelve pieces, that imagery is really offensive. But a lot of people didn’t even know that story existed in the Bible.” I suspect they’re right; re…

Religious Hostility to Gay Nigerians; The Pope’s Visit To Africa; Ireland’s Religious Schools Can’t Discriminate Against Gays; Orthodox Church in Georgia Leads Anti-Gay Forces; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ho have to deal with it on a regular basis,” she said. “I have already had phone calls from irate family members: ‘how could I perform the ceremony, didn’t I know this was wrong and not biblical’. I have, in my studies, a different interpretation of a lot of what people say the Bible says. “I believe in the whole Jesus concept. You love people and there is no judgment. They have their belief system and I have mine and I’m living true to mine.” Dom…

Will Catholic Voters Support LGBT Rights in Washington State?

By Joanna Brooks

…the decision will be made. We are participating in a Catholic-to-Catholic phone bank that Washington United for Marriage has set up on Wednesday nights and we assist with the larger phone bank at the Jewish synagogue downtown. A great deal of our work is communicating with Catholics on our email list and Facebook. As a Catholic, how does your faith shape your views on marriage for LGBT people? My faith blossomed in the 1960s after Vatican II. I h…

Yes, It Can Be Hard to Be an Atheist in America; Now We Have the Data

By Chrissy Stroop

…saulted over their unbelief, although for African-American respondents the number is 2.5%. Meanwhile, 12% of respondents experienced threats of violence, and 2.5% experienced vandalism (14.2% and 3.2%, respectively, for Latinx respondents). None of these facts make the experience of “coming out” as nonreligious the same as coming out as LGBTQ, but they do nonetheless show that disclosing one’s nonreligious identity can be fraught and risky dependi…