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

…his 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 after zuhr prayer one day. There it was: a whole section with all women in it. Not wanting to get my hopes up too high and then be disappointed (because this was at least 45 minutes after the prayer had ended), I ask the female guard, “al-Nisaa yajuz tusalli hinna?”—are women allowed to pray here? And she said, “y…

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Build the Muslim Community Center at Ground Zero

…hese are big words — hope, forgiveness and peace. They rarely have the megaphone that the party of “nope” enjoys. Nevertheless, they are words that religious people need to protect with all our hearts and souls. We too need a department of homeland security and its job is to protect our words. Let’s start with hope. When a tragedy happens, it often steals our hope. The 9-11 bombing is a terrible tragedy. It is a tragedy with causes in a larger hum…

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Gas For Two Bucks a Gallon? Bachmann Taps a Pipeline to the American Sacred

…sn’t long before it came to be known as “Shermageddon.” These references reflect something larger, truer, more apt than the events they were coined to describe—in Eliadian terms, they were profane events positioned within a sacred reality, namely the invocation of a biblical reference to Har Megiddo or Mount Megiddo (in the Hebrew Bible), a strategic hill upon which armed guards could protect (or conscript) valuables being transported along a majo…

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An Open Letter to Black Clergy on the Disdain for Protest

…y or by a wannabe Martin Luther King. While the President sermonized about cheap grace, a daughter of the church climbed a flagpole and took down the American swastika. Like Mary and Elizabeth, Bree Newsome proclaimed that our salvation—wrapped in swaddling clothes—is here in our hands. As an ordained clergyperson nurtured in the bosom of the black church, I am all too familiar with the way in which we tend to spiritualize the material suffering o…

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Hater Pastor Loses His Wife of 42 Years, Uses the Occasion to Trash Gays

…dy and that is morally wrong.” But, using your wife’s death to score a few cheap political points against a group of people you hate isn’t “morally wrong”?  But wait, there’s more! Garlow also uses his dead wife to point out just how fake the relationships between living, loving gay and lesbian partners really are. He talks about the delight he experienced being married to his wife, something gay and lesbian people certainly couldn’t have, right?…

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The Same Toxic Christian Right Theology Supports Both the Online Bullying I Experienced and the Cruel Anti-Trans Policy in TX — And it’s Not Remotely Fringe

…on’s flagship seminary and a managing editor of World magazine, a highly influential evangelical publication, got in on the guilt-by-association dunking: https://twitter.com/andrewtwalk/status/1496482488130191368?s=20&t=BCVMOzDYWxTc8c9hU2_7iQ One Southern Baptist pastor even used the slur “tranny” in his tweet about the situation: https://twitter.com/NateSchlomann/status/1496553688759943169 Eventually, Denny Burk, a pastor and a professor at Boyce…

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On the 40th Anniversary of Hyde, A Theological Defense of Reproductive Justice

…importantly I am a follower of Jesus. The same Bible out of which my conservative brothers and sisters pull these cheap one-liners to control the conversation about reproductive health also shows us the life and ministry of Jesus—whom we all claim to follow. The Jesus of the Gospel always treated poor people and people in crisis with compassion, never judgement. I don’t understand how you can claim to model yourself on Jesus while seeking to const…

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Note for Today

…e locally one needs to know about before going. In Indonesia this would be cheap so not a big deal, but who knows in Makkah and Madinah; and what about cleaning my underwear? But some of these are made from such lovely cotton, the pre-wash would just be more work for me, and not at all necessary. Then I wondered what the heck I would do with all this white when I return. Only the pant outfits will be possibly integrated into everyday wear; and hon…

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Dispatches from the Election: Around the Moon, Safely

…used my anger at the divisive manipulations of political authority as motivation. Never have I truly feared the possibility of a triumphant authoritarianism in America. Never have I thought that an enforced know-nothingism might prevail. Never, until this year. Perhaps the fear is raised by the coincidence of history: a candidate who speaks of empathy, of our responsibilities to one another, of “the audacity of hope,” opposed by a candidate who a…

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House GOP Hires Lawyer to Prevent Federal Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage

…gths, and the great expense of a high-power law firm, to try to score some cheap political points on the backs of same-sex couples.” I suppose Boehner can pander to the religious right and continue to defend “traditional” marriage, but I think it’s fair to ask why—when jobless rates continue to hover near 10 percent—which issue may be most important to God: how people arrange their intimate relationships, or how we feed and care for those families…

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