Search for "website cheap airline tickets airplanes that passthrough cities you want to visit phone number 1-800-299-7264"

A Reporter’s Guide to the New Apostolic Reformation

By Frederick Clarkson and André Gagné

…ir multi-national, multi-racial and multi-ethnic character. That said, the numbers of nations and people that we mention are sourced solely on the claims of the groups themselves. We have no way to independently verify these numbers, so they should be used advisedly. Simply put, the global vision of the NAR is based on their understanding of the Great Commission text of Matthew 28:18-20, with an emphasis on “discipling nations” (28:19). Internatio…

First U.S. Visit of the Virgin Mary Confirmed in Wisconsin

By Lewis Wallace

…with its simple message of Catholic catechesis, follow suit? Two frequently asked questions on the Lourdes webpage are telling: “How can I look at the webcam?” visitors want to know. Once they figure that out they ask, “What is the Immaculate Conception?”…

Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

By Rachel Wagner

…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…

Talking Religion at 30,000 Feet

By Michael J. Altman

…riend and the enthusiastic Theosophist sums up why I feel uncomfortable on airplanes. I don’t want to run into true believers. I don’t mind telling someone I study religion. But it’s very different then to tell someone I study their religion. It just seems impolite. Like saying I study their grandmother’s recipes. As I learned in college, religious studies is predicated on a notion of bracketing. “When we study religion academically,” professors t…

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

By Michael Schulson

…argues that this approach to spirituality serves a market in which people “want the benefits of religion, but not the downsides of religion.” “They want the meditation practice, on demand, to provide them with health, and peace, and calmness,” Wilson told The Cubit. “But they don’t want the supposed downsides of religion, such as dogmas, rules, being beholden to others, power differentials, belief in things that don’t exist, and all this.” In othe…

Blankets, Booties, and Jesus: Spiritual War on the Uterus in Rick Perry’s Texas

By Sarah Posner

…stinence. “Nobody ever died from not having sex,” says Miral. Transforming Cities for Christ Welch says his pastors’ councils—replicated in a handful of other cities in Texas, as well as Sacramento, California—offer a distinctly new kind of organizing. In contrast to the Christian Coalition, which used churches to identify and mobilize voters and reach them with its vaunted voters’ guides, the pastors’ councils are focused on turning pastors into…

Why President Obama Should Not Visit the Western Wall

By Melissa Weininger

…hat prohibits the free worship of its citizens, President Obama should not visit the site. To do so would be a tacit endorsement of the laws and policies that limit civil liberties in Israel in favor of religious control of public prayer, life-cycle events, and, in cases involving conversion, even questions of citizenship. The White House may cite security concerns, but a visit to the Western Wall would be a misstep for a president who claims to s…

How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

By Peter Laarman

…cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme that Rod Dreher can toss into his debate with Andrew Sullivan without…

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

By Charlotte Dalwood

…those victims who did report their victimization to Episcopal leaders, the number one assessment from both trans/non-binary and cisgender respondents was that “little or no change” came about as a result. 20.6% of transgender and non-binary survivors reported that they simply left the church altogether. By comparison, “only” 10.7% of cisgender women felt they had to leave. (Curiously, there’s no data on this front for LGB-identified Episcopalians….

Power Up: Turn Off the Cell Phone

By Daniel Schultz

…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…