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

…ore and more like a commercial service. “People used to go to church on Sunday—that was their weekly ritual and their community,” Peloton co-founder John Foley told Bloomberg Businessweek last year. “Most 25 year-olds aren’t relating on that platform, but it’s ‘I’ll see you at the studio.’” Places like MNDFL seem to be betting that Foley’s observation will bear out. If you have true faith in the market, you might think that this transition will ju…

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Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

…iritually enriching? Is there a sense of religious community on a cellular phone? Tony Dokoupil of Newsweek asks: “[S]hould Jesus and Madonna (the singing one) go on the same iPod?” Later, he wryly observes that “downloading the Word through the same fiber-optic cables as the latest Korn album sounds like a bad idea, given that Roman Catholics dispose of holy water through special pipes to keep it from touching sewage.” The implicit question here…

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‘I Don’t Buy It’: The Gospel According to Frank Underwood

…mother hated him. The man never scratched the surface of life. Maybe it’s best he died so young. He wasn’t doing much but taking up space. But that doesn’t make for a very powerful eulogy, now, does it? Like so many politicians, Frank uses faith as a ploy and a means to an end. Having been reared in the South, he is familiar with church culture and fluent in the language of faith, but he doesn’t believe a word he’s saying. Instead Frank adheres t…

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How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

…o Maria von Wedemeyer, the granddaughter of one of his patrons, just three weeks before his arrest.  Segue to my second and primary point: Bonhoeffer’s discussion of cheap grace in The Cost of Discipleship was meant above all as a critique of the so-called “German Christians”—the Lutherans who readily went along with the Nazi program—as against the much smaller group of Lutherans who chose the path of resistance through their Confessing Church. Bo…

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Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

…a random sample size and therefore isn’t statistically representative. The number of individuals reporting victimization in Episcopal spaces is alarming nonetheless. However, I would argue the data is more likely to under- than to overestimate the scope of the abuse that occurs. To see why, the survey results must be interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+…

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Power Up: Turn Off the Cell Phone

…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…

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Wichita, the Sequel: A Clinic Reopens at Ground Zero in America’s Fight over Abortion

…was caught after the murder, fleeing halfway across the state, he had the phone number of an Operation Rescue leader on his dashboard—the tip of the iceberg in terms of the broader connections he’d built with anti-abortion extremists. The church, Roeder would later testify, emerged as the only place he could find a shot at Tiller, around the elaborate security measures the doctor had learned to follow at his clinic and home. “Justifiable homicide…

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“Saints Are Only Human”: Leaving the Church, But Heeding this Pope’s Lessons

…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…

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We Went Through Amoris Laetitia Section by Section So You Wouldn’t Have To

…ncis is right to wring his hands about the disposability to marriage these days. But then in Section 52 and onward, Francis makes it clear that same-sex unions are excluded from this “ideal,” when he slams the doors shut on LGBT Catholics over and over. There is a failure to realize that only the exclusive and indissoluble union between a man and a woman has a plenary role to play in society as a stable commitment that bears fruit in new life. We…

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Waiting for Lightning to Strike: A Wobbly Agnostic among the Atheists

…your help,” Chapman tells us. “Help me get the word out. If enough people buy tickets to The Ledge, Hollywood will have to pay attention.” I scribble in my notebook thinking of the war against family values we’ve had with Hollywood forever in the church. Is Hollywood our ally now? Oh, damn and damn. Who is we’ve and who is our, and why do I use those words so effortlessly? I sigh and look up, only to see a few policemen are in the room. Bomb thre…

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