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Fighting Demons, Raising the Dead, Taking Over the World

…a considerable resemblance to former fried-chicken mogul ‘Colonel’ Harlan Sanders.) Kicking off his lecture, Wagner tells the class: OK, first of all, I want to repeat something. You don’t have to write it down, because you already have it in your notes. But I want to remind you that the New Apostolic Reformation is the most radical change in the way of doing church since the Protestant Reformation. That’s what we’re dealing with. X number of meg…

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Malawi Catholic Bishops Call For Enforcement of Sodomy Law; Ukrainian Thugs Disrupt Equality Festival Opposed by Orthodox Church; Indonesian Islamists Continue Rhetorical War on LGBTs; Global LGBT Recap

…he Opera Theatre to be banned. The European Court of Human Rights has on a number of occasions found that the likelihood of counter-events does not justify restricting citizens right to peaceful assembly. The regional police also asked for the ban, although it is they who are obliged to protect all citizens exercising their right to gather. Indonesia: Anti-Gay Islamists Continue Rhetorical War On LGBTs Weeks of escalating anti-gay rhetoric in Indo…

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The Pundits and the Dominionists

…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…

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Punks vs. Monks: Rockers Speak Out Against Genocide in Myanmar

…nse also contrasts sharply with that of dissident-turned-party-leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released in 2011 from a lengthy house arrest imposed by the junta. Suu Kyi has spoken up against restrictions on Muslim reproduction, but has avoided addressing ongoing violence against Muslims. She calls reticence necessary for reconciliation, but her critics say it is due to her presidential ambitions, which rely on the Buddhist majority’s votes and c…

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

…d inside the mosque one day, I came across Bab raqm tis’wa thamanin, “door number 89,” literally. The door with no name. Facing the mosque at door number one, bab maalik ’abd-al-’Aziz, this door is off to the left. Looking at the mosque floor plan, this is where the building structure of the mosque is deepest. This 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 af…

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Yes, It Can Be Hard to Be an Atheist in America; Now We Have the Data

…saulted over their unbelief, although for African-American respondents the number is 2.5%. Meanwhile, 12% of respondents experienced threats of violence, and 2.5% experienced vandalism (14.2% and 3.2%, respectively, for Latinx respondents). None of these facts make the experience of “coming out” as nonreligious the same as coming out as LGBTQ, but they do nonetheless show that disclosing one’s nonreligious identity can be fraught and risky dependi…

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Rage or Courage?: YouTube Terrorism Take Two

…o a local electronics store to get the ubiquitous, and indispensable, cell phone, when I was approached by a Libyan customer. After learning that I was an American he said “Thank you for helping liberate my country from the dreaded dictator, Gaddafi. May he burn in hell! And as for those who killed your ambassador, may they burn in hell with him!”  “They are a disgrace,” he said of the makers of the inflammatory video, “but they are not the cause…

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Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

…kesperson for President Michelle Bachelet’s government. Sen. Manuel José Ossandón Irarrázabal, who represents portions of Santiago, the Chilean capital, is among those who spoke against the proposal. “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” said Ossandón as opponents of the bill who had gathered inside the Senate chamber applauded. “I recognize that homosexuals have rights…I recognize that is not the AVP.” Bachelet’s government last year argued ag…

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Should NASA Have Given $1.1 Million to a Theology Institute?

…e walls tumbling down? When the Freedom From Religion Foundation puts your phone call on hold, you don’t hear muzak. Instead, the phone system plays a homegrown jingle featuring lines like “Everyone is tired of your piety / get off your knees and get to work” and “We’ve got to fight the battle of church and state / or the walls come tumbling down.” The receptionist told me that FFRF co-president Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher and occasi…

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How To Talk To “Nones” and Influence People: Rob Bell’s Transrational Experience

…t normal ways of living. Part of what I’m doing is normalizing—normalizing sanity in a fragmented world. At first, I wasn’t feeling the Rob Bell experience; the three copies of How to Be Here I’d received had not worked their magic. I was, however, intrigued by the charming, Larry-Bird-meets-Chairman-Mao figure in the middle of a circle of folding chairs, telling me things I mostly already knew, but in a way that made me feel like maybe I didn’t….

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