Search for "cheap airline tickets from tampa to st. louis phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Violent, Genocidal Anti-Palestinian Rhetoric Moving to US?

By David Sheen

…ly endorses the logic of every terrorist group in history.” For decades, most mainstream Jewish leaders outside of Israel have publicly supported the military adventures of the Israeli government, regardless of the Palestinian death toll. But they have at least paid lip-service to the sanctity of human life and expressed regret for the souls lost on both sides. As Israel’s latest assault on Gaza enters its fourth week, however, we are witnessing a…

Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

By Gordon Haber

…he system. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is a group of “atheists, agnostics and skeptics” with a Scientology-esque fondness for litigation. Recently the FFRF has gone after the so-called “parsonage exemption,” which allows clergy to forego paying taxes on income used for housing. Last year the FFRF sued the IRS, claiming that the exemption privileges clergy over laypersons and is thus unconstitutional. The exemption was created to he…

Did the Pope Embrace the Prosperity Gospel?

By Sarah Posner

…use “according to the Committee’s staff memo, there was a ‘high level of distrust‘ of the government by the churches under investigation and the religious advocacy groups that supported them.” The Committee’s staff memo revealed further that “the Copelands employ guerilla tactics to keep their employees silent:” We are flat out told and threatened that if we talk, God will blight our finances, strike our families down, and pretty much afflict us w…

Catholic Church Ordained Women Before, Can Do it Again

By Phyllis Zagano

…nistry and not to the priesthood. The mistake made by those who argue against the restoration of women to the order of deacon is that they think if a woman can be ordained as deacon, then she can be ordained as priest. But that demonstrates a misunderstanding of the diaconate as a permanent vocation and does not make the clear distinction that is well-known in church teaching: the priest serves in persona Christi capitas ecclesiae; the deacon serv…

Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

By Michael Jerryson

…ger. The 800-page book includes over 50 pages of references and covers a vast history that spans 50 million years—a magnum opus from a highly acclaimed scholar of Hindu traditions. A few months after The Hindus was published in the United States, it was favorably reviewed in the New York Times. The award-winning Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra praised the work as “staggeringly comprehensive,” and noted that “it is impossible not to admire a book tha…

The Radical Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Left’s Challenge Today

By Peter Laarman

…eems to be more or less okay with dropping $6.4 trillion—and killing at least 800,000 people—in an ineffective and counterproductive “war on terror.” When will we understand that defunding the police and defunding the Pentagon reflect one and the same struggle?) Finally, given how the practice of radical nonviolence implies a willingness to sacrifice, how much are you personally willing to sacrifice for the achievement of the long-awaited radical…

US Archbishop and Vatican-Appointed “Overseer” Attends Annual Meeting of Women Religious

By Emily Baxter

…embly, the sisters officially called for gun control legislation and signed 800 postcards demanding Congress members to pass immigration reform. As LCWR past-president, Sr. Pat Farrell said to the Assembly, “Expressing what we really think and feel, with transparency and vulnerability, is for the brave of heart. It is, however, what we are being asked to do in our current conflict. All of a sudden the world is looking to us.” Like this story? You…

What Coverage of a Fatal Orthodox Baptism Reveals About Western Media

By Katherine Kelaidis

…Baptism by affusion (that’s the sprinkling of water that you will see in most Western churches, both Catholic and Protestant) initially emerged as a concession, probably in the 2nd century, but ultimately became the standard practice of the Western church by the 10th century. That being said, many Protestant traditions, particularly those who rejected the baptism of infants, eventually returned to full-immersion baptism. It’s the medieval, pre-Ref…

Rep. Cleaver’s ‘Awoman’ Prayer Enrages Christian Nationalists Who Taste Their Own Medicine and Still Miss the Point

By Andrew L. Seidel

…ended to be inclusive with this prayer, but he did just what his name suggests, just what the Founders feared, and just what our Constitution is meant to prevent—he divided the country along religious lines. Prayer at legislative sessions, which could easily be done by the truly pious legislators without a government microphone and resources, divides, cleaves, and sunders citizens along religious lines while pretending to unite us all. Any politic…

The Burning Houses of Worship We Missed

By Gordon Haber

…shows “a smooth patch of earth.” There’s a less radical but nevertheless disturbing story about China’s Kargilik Mosque. According to Radio Free Asia, the Chinese authorities stripped the 16th century building of its Islamic imagery and festooned it instead with banners proclaiming, “Love the Party, Love the Country.” The destruction and desecration of the mosques is part of a larger Chinese governmental effort to expunge Islam from China. It’s di…