Search for "cheap airline tickets from sacramento to la round trip phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Paranormal Vodka, Exorcists and a Demonic Doll: Welcome to Paracon, Based on the Work of the Demon-Hunters Who Inspired the ‘Conjuring’ Series

By Eric Harrelson and Joseph P. Laycock

I really didn’t know what to expect when Joseph Laycock and I bought our tickets for the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR) Seekers of the Supernatural Paracon as part of our research for our book The Exorcist Effect (named for a phenomenon we discussed in these pages after the release of Conjuring 3). I certainly didn’t expect the crowd. The Paracon, held the weekend before Halloween, is based around the work of Ed and Lorraine War…

Pope Praises ‘Complementarity’ & Resists Gay Ambassador; Irish Religious Leaders Spar Over Marriage; Colombian Atty Gen Cites ‘Bogus’ Study Opposing Adoption; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ch status and close down groups for alleged, often minor violations of the law. Last year – setting the stage for the anti-LGBT “propaganda law” – the government introduced criminal charges for “spreading false information.” Kazakhstan’s crackdown on civil society and freedom of expression explicitly condones homophobia. Last October, an Almaty court awarded 34 million tenge (US$187,000) in damages against a Kazakhstani advertising agency for desi…

Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

By Ed Simon

…tely interesting in a manner that evil simply isn’t. Perhaps actors enjoy playing villains more, and maybe that says something of human nature, but evil is rapacious and greedy, and thus comprehensible in its own way. Goodness is all the more mysterious by comparison, and more interesting because of it. Below are a selection of images from Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology which demonstrate the continuing cultural relevance of these most oth…

Religion Round-Up: What’s Going on in Religion Around the World

By Diane Winston

…mbers are, according to Pew, surprisingly high. Moreover, they represent a large number of people, “nearly equal the estimated number of religiously affiliated adults in the United States” Accordingly, the 1-plus % of the Chinese population that identifies itself as Muslim equals some 20.3 million people—a population almost as large as Saudi Arabia’s. (More to the point, as one of China’s ethnic minorities, Muslims are not bound to the one-child p…

RD News Round-Up—Oct.14, 2008

By Bill Berkowitz

…e complete Christianity Today interview or a report on how Warren’s PEACE plan is playing out in Rwanda. ++++++++++ McCain to Gays and Lesbians: Thanks, but no Thanks In an extensive interview with the Washington Blade, a longtime Washington, D.C.-based gay publication, Senator John McCain thanked the Log Cabin Republicans for their endorsement and said that he hoped gay voters would consider voting for him. On issues of import to gays, McCain bas…

Invited by Allah

By Amina Wadud

…one can keep away. And my Zappos shoes person recounted almost missing a plane, landing without her bags, but how she and her husband still managed to get there, because “once Allah invites you, then no one and nothing will keep you away.” So I tried to be optimistic. It didn’t help that my daughter accused me of the contrary. Or rather, she asked: aren’t you ever optimistic? I told her about waiting for the visa and how NOT being optimistic was…

Here Comes President Boo Boo: Trump’s Tour as Reality TV

By Spencer Dew

…to get real. At the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem we see—à la Lanzmann—something of the framing and the digging of holes into reality that result. The President is given some introduction and instruction on the holy site by Western Wall rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch and Western Wall Heritage Foundation director Mordechai Eliav. After some urging, he walks slowly—solemnly?—to the wall, where he raises his right hand and presses it agains…

Will Getting Rid of Bryan Fischer Get Rid of the AFA’s Problem?

By Sarah Posner

…Debra Nussbaum Cohen reports in Haaretz that following news of the Israel trip, the Southern Poverty Law Center highlighted AFA’s “extensive track record of bigotry and hate,” and urged RNC members to boycott the trip. (None have.) “Our issue is not with these folks going to Israel, which is an important ally and important for international policy,” Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project told Cohen. “Our issue is that one of o…

Nuns on the Bus: 2700 Miles, Nine States, and a Rock Star DC Welcome

By Mary E. Hunt

…th the Romney campaign’s motor coach somewhere in Wisconsin. The Obama bus trip will transverse similar terrain to assure the electorate that our top guys can eat road food and grind out the miles, proving their “common man” bona fides. I was not sure what these simple-living women were thinking of to do the same thing. But they planned their itinerary to stay with friends and religious communities along the way, to visit congressional offices and…

The Top 10 (Non-Religious) Religious Films of 2017

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…monster movie. One part Beauty and the Beast, one part Creature from the Black Lagoon, one part Enuma Elish, one part Cold War drama, del Toro’s mythical extravaganza transmutes all into a contemporary story that plays out relevant social issues like immigration, race, and disability. It’s also an ode to cinema as the atmosphere in which modern humans live, its pictures confronting humans and beast alike throughout the movie. (The main characters…