Search for "cheap seats airline tickets phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…an religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice. Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes the difficulty with sur…

Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…f the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congregations in America (344,894) and multiplied it by another estimate of the average revenue of each ($242,910). Depending on how you look at it, $378 billion is a lot of money, or it’s not very much money at all. It’s more than the net worth of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet, combined…

Water Water Everywhere

By Amina Wadud

…. For one thing, the faucets are about knee-high. In front of them are low seats made of waterproof materials, like marble or ceramic tile. Then in front of the seat is a long drain allowing the flow of water to empty out in a neater fashion. You don’t have to proceed to the prayer without drying off, but some people like this dripping of water, so they don’t. This adds to the mess; even with these really nifty wudu’ stations. When it’s hot and dr…

‘Exporting Garbage to the Nations’: Conservative Christian Rifts Spreading Like Cracked Glass

By Frederick Clarkson and André Gagné

…neo-charismatics generally, and prophet Julie Green—who had appeared at a number of Doug Mastriano campaign and ReAwaken America events—in particular. Hume took specific exception to Green’s prophecies at a Mastriano event in Spooky Nook, where she casually equated Trump with Jesus. “God said ‘You can’t stop my son. Who is the rightful president. He is on his way back,” she prophesied, “and how he takes his position back on center stage, you will…

Can a Progressive Atheist Defeat the Democrats’ “Family” Man in NC?

By Sarah Jaffe

…ether progressive or not. Shuler’s Blue Dog caucus lost 24 of its 58 House seats in 2010, including Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith who became a Republican, so it’s clear that being conservative didn’t keep them safe. But the party doesn’t necessarily take kindly to insurgent challengers, and with heavy hitters like Bill Clinton and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz having campaigned personally for Shuler in the past (Shuler was recruited by the Clinton-Rahm…

Global LGBT Recap: World Vision Caves, World Congress of Families Vamps, God Weeps

By Peter Montgomery

…liament. Aam Aadmi was established only 18 months ago but won 28 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Legislative Assembly in 2013 – making them the second largest party in the National Capital Territory of Delhi (the Indian equivalent of Washington DC) and allowing them to form a minority government with the Indian National Congress Party. Aam Aadmi have announced that the re-legalization of homosexuality will be a priority in its election manifesto – to…

A Tale of Two Fascisms: ‘Douchey’ JD Vance vs. ‘Creepy’ Blake Masters

By Annika Brockschmidt

Peter Thiel’s bid to win two seats in Congress didn’t quite succeed. One of his protégées, J.D. Vance, won his race in Ohio after trailing his Democratic opponent for weeks, while the other, Blake Masters, lost his Arizona senate race by 5 points to Democrat Mark Kelly. Masters’ and Vance’s policy positions are strikingly similar. They both embrace the White Supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, and are known for their total oppositi…

In Sexual Abuse Hearing UN Calls Holy See on Girls’ Reproductive Rights

By Angela Bonavoglia

…Tomasi and Scicluna spent some eight hours shifting uncomfortably in their seats, grimacing, lowering their gaze, laughing nervously, denying reality, and feigning gratitude for the Committee’s suggestions, Pope Francis was spending his time with one of the church’s most notorious enablers of violence against children by Catholic priests, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, former head of the LA Archdiocese. Not only did the Pope grant Mahoney an audience; th…

Unbuckling the Bible Belt: “Nashville” and the Nones

By Carrie Allen Tipton

…ongtime former home of the Opry. That all three places use church pews for seats is hardly a coincidence. The Ryman figures prominently into the optics of “Nashville,” too, both as a screen shot and as a testing ground for musical legitimacy. In Season 2, Reyna converses with a young potential country star about whether he will choose artistry over money in the pews of the Ryman, under the glow of its iconic stained glass windows. The Ryman signif…

Paul Crouch, Architect of Prosperity Gospel Televangelism, Dead at 79

By Sarah Posner

…ere in church vans, are true believers. They were willing to stay in their seats during crucial camera pans so television viewers could feel the anointing, too. They spoke in tongues and were slain in the spirit, but not too much if it wouldn’t play well on TV. The sad genius of it all was the orchestration to make the audience feel like a crucial part of something huge, something God wanted, something that God was going to bless many times over w…