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The Christian Roots of the New Age: The Aquarian Gospel

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…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…

Rick Warren, Is That All the Courage You Can Muster?

By Ross Murray

…tter to Timothy, he reminded his young disciple that God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and love and self-discipline. The spirit of power means speaking out, even when it slightly shifts your public persona, threatens book sales, or makes your followers a little uncomfortable. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has learned all of this, and I pray that the same spirit of power will encourage Rick Warren and all of our religious le…

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

By Holly Welker

…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…

How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish, and Unhappy

By David Webster

…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…

Sacred&Profane: On Sexual Diversity, Perversity, and Ecstasy

By Gary Laderman

…rmed at certain times of the year, only fueled the fires of the missionary spirit and convinced them of the desperate need for spiritual redemption through sexual purification. The recurring battles and conflicts over the terms of sexuality have been a well-worn pattern in American religious history, with pagan Indians (Captivity Narrative of Mary Rowlandson), polygamous Mormons (anti-Mormonism from the get-go), perverse Jews (Philip Roth), predat…

Can a Church Split Truly Be Gracious?

By Adam J. Copeland

…erians, calling itself a new Reformed body. Their website reports they now number 127 congregations and 213 pastors. Most of these come from the PCUSA. Beyond my denomination, there is a growing rift and talk of a possible schism in the United Methodist Church. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has lost approximately 600 congregations in the past few years. The Anglican Communion views the Episcopal Church of the United States with increa…

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

By Amina Wadud

…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…

Pride Month & Prejudice; ‘Worrisome Time’ For LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ionalists A crowd estimated by organizers at 50,000 people and by police at 13,000 marched in Warsaw’s 17th annual Equality Parade on June 3, which DW notes come at a time when the conservative government is opposing civil unions for same-sex couples: Poland’s constitution is one of seven in the EU to ban gay marriage and the country is one of six in the 28-member bloc not to allow same-sex civil unions. The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party in P…

Meeting on the Bridge: Fr. James Martin’s Ministry to LGBT Catholics Becomes a Book

By Kaya Oakes

…to get more upset about these things until I realized a couple of things. Number one, not everyone’s going to like you. Number two, engaging with these people in arguments is often fruitless. Number three, a lot of times they refuse to listen. And number four, a very small percentage of them are actually crazy. There’s a great scene in a movie called The Trouble with Angels from the 1960s. It’s about a Catholic girls’ school outside of Philadelph…

I Met God, She’s Black: An Exhibit Makes the Black Female Body a Temple

By Anita Little

…black female bodies is having a heightened moment culturally? I’m seeing a number of images come out of the 1991 film Daughters of the Dust. We have to pull everything we’re seeing now, especially Lemonade, back to that filmmaker. Her name was Julie Dash. In some ways, Beyoncé has her finger on the pulse of cultural currency and recognizes that in order for her to stay current, she has to see what’s happening in various communities and integrate t…