Search Results for:

cheap airline tickets from fl phone number 1-800-299-7264

Why I Won’t Leave the Mormon Church Alone

…s virtues and strengths. Granted, I’ve written more about its failings and flaws; but if I thought the benefits of remaining Mormon outweighed the costs, I would still be a practicing Mormon. In particular, we are asked to explain aspects of LDS politics, at least recently. Latter-day Saints are generally among the most politically conservative voters in the U.S., and the church has marshaled both its own and its members’ resources to support cons…

Read More

Another Book Burner Lusts for Attention

…ear in agreement with what we are doing. I may ask for your church’s name, phone number, and Web site to verify your stand. What I see as the sin at the heart of Grizzard and Jones’ actions—as well as at the heart of anyone who seeks to violently control the free will or belief of others—is lust. These men lust for control; and in their lust they objectify others, people they call “heretics” or “sinners.” Lust, in and of itself, is not a bad thing…

Read More

Gay Black Church: An Interview with Bishop Yvette Flunder

…am one of the religious leaders in this country who has one of the largest numbers of black gay churches in the U.S. gathered together. I don’t know anybody that has a larger number of black gay churches meeting together. Not gay churches—the MCC definitely has the corner on that. Do you work together? Very closely. In fact I have an MCC credential, an ordination.  Were there times in your life when you did question your ability to stay in the chu…

Read More

Gay Suicide and the Ethic of Love: A Progressive Christian Response

…fight. If someone had pressed into his fingers at that pivotal moment the phone number for The Trevor Project, he might reach out and hear a voice of reassurance, a voice that gave him hope for life by, in part, repudiating the so-called biblical teaching that who he is amounts to an offense against God. If he’d had a sense of belonging to a community that embraced him for who he is, maybe his hope wouldn’t be so fully shattered. But while other…

Read More

The Brutality of the American Eden

…nts Reform Judaism; Muslims and other non-Christian groups arrive in large numbers. But this is primarily a story of how religion has interacted with some of the big events of American history. American religious expression—its music and art, its stories of internal spiritual quests, its embodiment, its wild profusion of utopian groups, its history of ritual practices—will have to be found elsewhere. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. God…

Read More

Aliens Are Fattening Us Up For the Rapture

…Nations, a case for the U.S or Israel attacking Iran, and a pitch for the phone ministry 1-888-RAPTURE. Apparently the UFO issue got onto Lindsey’s radar screen because of reports that United Nations is paying attention to it, as discussed here. Lindsey offers a mass of evidence (quite disturbing if true) claiming sightings by military personnel who witnessed UFOs disarming nuclear weapons. In Lindsey’s interpretation, such disarmament fits a sim…

Read More

The US Religious Right and the LGBT Crisis In Uganda

…orced him to strip naked and interrogated him. His wife received harassing phone calls. Kaggwa appears to be the target of intimidation. Kaggwa is also the executive director of the Support Initiative For People With Atypical Sex Development, a group that advocates for the rights of intersex people in Uganda. Kaggwa was born intersex, and raised as a girl. He “became very Christian, turned to God a lot to see if there would be a miracle of some so…

Read More

Tea Party 2.0, Ready For Post-Election Launch

…hey distributed “6 million voter guides, 8 million mail pieces, 15 million phone calls, 500,000 doors knocked on by volunteers, and radio advertising covering 56 congressional districts and 22 U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races,” they are now (apparently as I write this) surveying voters to learn “who went to the polls and why.” Instructive for those of us who follow the influence of the religious right on the tea party movement (arguing that it’…

Read More

If You Were Faced With Him

…ustoms before local registration. Then we went to the farmers’ market, the flea markets, and the swap meet. She insists on using a baby carrier instead of a stroller. So I held her six-month-old while she pillaged through a sea of clothing. That’s a lot of holding, trust me. When we finally returned to her place, I was hungry, but I just could not take another moment of being so family-oriented. I decided I would rather brace the rush-hour traffic…

Read More

Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

…sparks struck from a flint. At 2:30 in the morning, the light came down to Florida. I went to bed, confident that we would have a new president when I awoke. In 2001, that new president’s administration had barely begun when the World Trade Center collapsed, the Pentagon burned, a plane evaporated into the hills not too far from where we lived. A strangely quiet day grew quieter. One of my parishioners broke a lunch date, explaining that her bank’…

Read More