Search for "how to shop for cheap airline tickets phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Christians Should Give Up “Christianity”: An Interview with Peter Rollins

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…we just put our own product in the vending machine. The church becomes the shop front, the clergy become the salespeople and the worship becomes the jingles. But what about certainty and satisfaction (which you call ‘addictions’ in the subtitle of the book)? We Americans are told that we can have both, especially in church. If we pray the right way, believe the right way, we can have all these things. Are we not entitled to them? They’re addiction…

In Latest Round of LGBTQ Discrimination Cases Before SCOTUS, Religion Is ‘The Elephant in the Room’

By Patrick Hornbeck

…ecision presented what seems to have become the paradigm for such cases: a shop owner’s religious beliefs pitted against LGBTQ citizens’ rights to equal treatment. The Court punted in Cakeshop, but, with some notable exceptions, most state courts confronting similar disputes have sided with LGBTQ patrons. The cases argued Tuesday differed in several important respects. First, unlike the Cakeshop-style cases, the antidiscrimination statute at issue…

When Violence is Inevitable: Club Q and the Success of the System

By Heron Greenesmith

…many gender-affirming surgeries taking place, there are too few, given the number who don’t have access or the means to make it happen. There’s an epidemic of gatekeeping trans-related care in the United States, not to mention insurmountable financial barriers. But we don’t mention these issues, do we? I have a young daughter and we were supposed to celebrate our birthdays on Sunday. We were supposed to celebrate our birthdays together by painting…

Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” Depicts Death Struggle Between Hope and Despair

By Peter Laarman

…s aware that the kids at Abundant Life refer to it sneeringly as “the gift shop”). In terms of what’s conventionally “done” in these circumstances, the church’s benefactor is clearly entitled to speak. But Toller can’t stomach it—not after young Michael has just martyred himself for the environmental cause. It can plausibly be argued that the real “action” in this film is essentially theological: Michael is an evangelist for a different kind of fa…

The Sex Scandal Following Whole Foods’ Guru

By Michael Schulson

…ergy. Any kind of community can tolerate behaviors it should not, though a number of New Age leaders, including Deepak Chopra, have moved to distance themselves from Gafni since the Times article came out. Still, that ethic of personal authority and cosmic consciousness remains a significant teaching for many New Age leaders, a teaching that seems especially ill-equipped to address transgression. David Ingber, the rabbi who knew Gafni back when he…

Revisiting the Hopeful Hijinks of the Muppets on the 30th Anniversary of The Muppet Christmas Carol

By Sara Kamali

…ineffably talented human puppeteers, the Muppets of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop are often silly, sometimes wry, and always full of hope, which plays an integral part in just about every religion and belief system—as well as atheism. In The Muppet Christmas Carol, this hope abides and prevails. The Muppets’ sincerity and lack of cynicism stand in stark contrast to human-created political discord and social divisions. In the 21st century, their sinc…

Reverend Billy For Mayor: Is He For Real?

By Nathan Schneider

…nto daily life. The ubiquity of consumer culture represents a cataclysmic “Shopocalypse.” Mickey Mouse is the Antichrist. Such language has the imaginative scope to reach outside the here and now, while also the familiarity to make it feel like it might, in fact, be true. “If Bloomberg wins in New York City, it is the triumph of corporate capitalism in New York City,” says Durkee. But, with his collar on, Reverend Billy describes the mayor more bl…

Image of Hubert Aiwanger, Bavaria's deputy premier speaking at a podium.

Holocaust Humor and The ‘Real’ Germany — As Top Officials Shatter Post-WWII Taboos, German Conservatives Follow GOP Playbook and Charge Ahead

By Annika Brockschmidt

…should be over. Aiwanger, Bavaria’s deputy premier, has had an astonishing number of scandals come to light about him in recent days—each of which is so horrifying that any on its own should be enough to result in Aiwanger’s immediate resignation. Or at least, that would be the case if Germany were truly serious about “never again“; if it were a country in which far-right views were shunned. First, an antisemitic pamphlet, cruelly mocking the vict…

Creationist Master’s Degree… Denied

By Lauri Lebo

…Christian apologetics organization Institute for Creation Research set up shop in Texas in order to teach a master’s level science education course from “a Biblical scientific creationist viewpoint.” To be recognized, it needed the state of Texas to grant it accreditation. But the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board turned down the application for a “certificate of authority” to offer the degree. As Raymund Paredes, the Texas commissioner o…

Health Care as Moral Drama

By Ira Chernus

…hing just as illogical from another shrill conservative, at a local coffee shop meeting with my Congresswoman. “My mother went bankrupt because she couldn’t afford to pay her medical bills,” the conservative said, with understandable tears in her eyes. “But you want the government to pay medical bills for some stranger I don’t even know? Let’s stop this health care reform thing now!” Across the country, right-wingers are mobilizing with unexpected…