Search Results for:

cheap airline tickets to la crosse phone number 1-800-299-7264

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

…side Episcopal churches—they experience them within Episcopal churches at alarmingly high rates, too. And the denomination’s structures (canon law included) have consistently failed to protect them. New data reveals the scope of the abuse crisis Buried deep in the Reports to the General Convention are the results of a survey, conducted in 2020, that quantifies the violence epidemic. Based on a similar survey conducted in 2017 amongst United Method…

Read More

Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

…e spiritually 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 h…

Read More

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…

Read More

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

…with 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 colleg…

Read More

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

…dio seems to be explicitly modeled on SoulCycle. The aesthetic is very similar. The language (“book a cushion”) resembles SoulCycle’s (“book a bike”). So does the layout of MNDFL’s online registration portal. Both SoulCycle and MNDFL project a happy-healthy-community vibe, merging the accept-all-comers language of a millennial church with the prices of an upscale nail salon. And the origin story is basically the same: two people with complementary…

Read More

Can Expelled Teach Us a Thing or Two?

…ho say, ‘Creationism and intelligent design belong in history or religion class, but in my classroom I only teach science. Besides, I’ve got too much information to cover as it is.’ And there’s the rub: science is taught simply as information, as a collection of facts, and as if these facts exist in an ethical vacuum not connected to young Americans’ lives. Not only is this false, but it sets up a tension, a conundrum for these folks living in thi…

Read More

Swift-Boat Veterans of American Jewry Charge Anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street

…es ECI’s leadership – knows this to be the case. Which makes ECI’s video a cheap lie — yet another in a long litany of desperate efforts by the far right to convert the largely liberal American Jewish community to neo-conservatism, hawkish policies on Israel, and the belief that “Barack Hussein Obama” is a Muslim.  That said, there actually are two interesting forms of antisemitism going on here. First is the antisemitism of ECI itself. To tug at…

Read More

Mitt Romney’s Prosperity Gospel

…kers is the worst possible remedy. But this doesn’t mean that many middle-class and working-class Americans, including many who consider themselves free of any residual Puritanism, don’t buy into the new austerity.  Obama’s response so far to Romney’s Austerity/Prosperity Gospel: “Do the math.” The professor’s answer to the preacher. But Mr. President, with respect: Your own Education Department will affirm my suggestion that we are no longer the…

Read More

Francis Visits the Church that John Paul Broke

…l politics,” is local.) As a result, what we now call the Catholic Church looks very different from the church of 1979. Francis will find a fractured church where a significant number of practicing Catholics aren’t receptive to his papacy and its message, and where a large population of those who would presumably be supportive of his papacy and its priorities are politically and doctrinally alienated. Ironically, this diminished, splintered church…

Read More