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Of God, But Not God: A Methodist Minister Speaks About Church’s Refusal to Open Its Doors to LGBT

By Joel Pitney

…ere not companionship-based. They were economic arrangements. Okay, that’s number 1. Number 2, let’s say that your wife didn’t provide you with a male offspring. A man could take another wife and another wife and another wife until one of them did. This is the “sanctity of marriage” that is being protected. Are you kidding me? Wow. Okay, so that’s Old Testament. Then along comes Jesus. Well for those of us who follow Jesus, I always like to point…

The Pundits and the Dominionists

By Julie Ingersoll

…any other name) a Reconstructionist? And as Gerson noted in his essay, the number of people who can be labeled in this way would “fit in a phone booth.” (Actually there are significantly more than he recognizes, but I take his point.) My point, though, is that this is the wrong question. Far more interesting, I think, is to look at the influence of Christian Reconstruction; how has it impacted the style of the conservative Christianity that makes…

Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets? (Parts I & II)

By José Cabezón

…w of the Chinese state, and the religious, traditional, and Tibetocentric worldview of monks. By restricting the monastic population to a number just large enough to run monasteries and to provide “costumed natives” for the tourist industry, Chinese government policymakers are privileging values like political stability, the physical preservation of monastic institutions as historical/cultural “relics,” and the tangible economic gains derived from…

A Startling Number Believe You Can Be Jewish Jesus Follower; Why It’s Not As Crazy As It Sounds

By Michael Schulson

…that number seems staggeringly high. A full third? Once you delve into the numbers, though, 34% doesn’t seem quite so high. Really, Pew has asked an excellent question—a question that reveals the full tangle of ambiguities and inconsistencies that surround the topic of Jewish identity. First, some background: when the researchers at Pew set out to conduct this survey, they quickly ran into a problem that’s been under discussion for at least two th…

Just Like January 6, One of the Most Disturbing Aspects of the Right-Wing Coup Attempt in Germany is Who Was Behind It

By Annika Brockschmidt

…tails ties to the Reichsbürger milieu. Experts attribute the stark rise in numbers to a heightened awareness and the agencies’ attempts to reduce the number of unreported cases. The conservative Minister of the interior of the previous Merkel administration, Horst Seehofer, had always refused to conduct a study of right-wing sentiments in the police and military, in spite of the warnings of social scientists who urged him to commission one. For ye…

The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Humans

By Amina Wadud

…ill go to Mina, etc. There is still no address for the hotels, but a local phone number. There is also information about processing customs at Jeddah, meeting the tour guide, and information that says “the group” will proceed to Makkah—which means the first will have to wait for the last person, which is the beginning of feeling like you are a group. They even include suggestions to “get to know” your fellow travelers. I still had no idea what wer…

Lo and Behold, the Sacredness of the Internet

By Martyn Smith

…it’s a benevolent force, empowering people of good will and improving the world. Herzog doesn’t spend much time exploring the everyday experience of the internet—whether social media or the omnipresent smartphone or Pokémon Go. He’s drawn instead to online addicts and people who are convinced they have a high sensitivity to the radio waves that transmit the internet. One everyday scene, however, so fascinated Herzog that it earned a place in Lo an…

Busy Days For ‘eBay of Prophecy’

By Bill Berkowitz

…source online for predictions and calculations concerning the end of the world.” In addition to Rapture Ready Wallpaper, and a number of ads for books (Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrewby Haim Shore), a very scary graphic novel (Armageddon Now: World War III), videos (“Rapture—End Times”), and dating aids (“Meet Christian Singles”—obviously something that should be done sooner than later), RaptureReady.com’s front page features a s…

Six Overlooked Gems from the Future of World Religions Report

By Timothy King

…010, researchers categorized as “unaffiliated” roughly 1.1 billion people worldwide, a number that’s likely to climb to 1.2 billion by 2040, before it begins to drop. During the same period, the global population will be growing at a much faster rate, meaning that the “unaffiliated” portion of the population is likely to shrink from 16.4% in 2010 to 13.2% by 2050. In other words, the “rise of the nones” does not spell the end of organized religion…

“Paleo” is More Than a Fad Diet: Boyd Eaton’s Plan to Return to Eden

By Michael Schulson

…e, until we arrive at a global population of 100 million, and return to a world where it’s possible to live out what he calls “true Paleo.” Such a world wouldn’t just be better for human carnivores. Considering humanity’s impact on the environment, Eaton argues, it would also be better for the planet. This is Paleo eschatology, essentially—a vision of the world’s final destination, rendered in the language of an idyllic past. Eaton’s vision did no…