Search for "Southwest Airlines Customer Service 800-299-7264 Online Flight Reservations"

Conservative Military Chaplains Fight Repeal of DADT

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…r: Military chaplains are duty bound to provide pastoral counseling to all service members, even those of another faith or no faith at all. To refuse counseling to any service member, for any reason, would be a breach of that duty and would require an appropriate command action. So, yes, when you’re in the military, the military code trumps all: chaplains are bound to serve all members of the military whether they like them or not. As Interfaith…

LDS Church Drops Missionary Age for Women to 19

By Joanna Brooks

…by default.” Some reacted to the change by noting that women in missionary service would still not be allowed to baptize converts, a responsibility reserved to the male lay-priesthood. And some voiced disappointment that the policy change did not go further by eradicating gender differences in the terms of missionary services as well, as did writer Jana Riess who celebrated the policy change but expressed limited disappointment that the new policy…

Reactions to Biden’s Korean-American Secret Service Agent Expose Christian Nationalism’s Anti-Asian Side

By Lucas Kwong

…of physical and verbal abuse, the sight of Biden’s Korean-American secret service agent seemed to augur change. Perhaps we might begin to rest secure in our status as “real” Americans, emblematized in a highly visible member of Biden’s security team. Those paying attention, however, know otherwise. https://twitter.com/JovanHPulitzer/status/1351947576950611972 https://twitter.com/DrAfzalNiaz/status/1351747330924556289 https://twitter.com/ForTrump/…

Wait Until You’re Denied Service, Federal Court Tells LGBT Mississippians Challenging “Religious Freedom” Law

By Sunnivie Brydum

…having standing, but stressed that he had not been denied wedding-related services from a business, nor had he been denied a marriage license from a county clerk or judge. “Without more, we are left to speculate as to the injuries he and the other plaintiffs might suffer,” Smith wrote. “That we cannot do.” Essentially, the court determined that because none of the plaintiffs have yet been discriminated against under the law (which never took effe…

This Veterans Day, the Centennial of the Unknown Soldier, Skip the Platitudes and Talk to a Veteran

By Sara Jaye Hart

…an veterans who have served since 9/11, 40% of whom live with a certified, service-connected disability. “Thank you for your service”—America’s current public piety of choice—is insufficient to the task. It smacks of the obligatory and it leaves the person on the receiving end unknown, their service reified and past-tense. It’s time to leaven that ritual platitude with some authentic civic reflection, some historical and situational awareness, and…

Spinning Ft. Hood

By Hussein Rashid

…areem Rashad Sultan Khan, who is representative of the nearly 4,000 active service Muslims in the Armed Forces and the dozens who have given their lives in service to this country. General Casey is deeply concerned about this misrepresentation: “I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that [backlash against Muslim service members],” General Casey said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “It would be a shame—as great a tragedy…

Packing Heat At Unitarian-Universalist Service

By Daniel Schultz

…hat’s mentioned above. A poster in the comments claims to have been at the service, and says that the woman “had come to church because of the sermon on civil rights & civility.” Given the ugly racial and sexual rhetoric that’s been floating around our political discourse of late, not to mention the embrace of violent fringe elements, not to mention UU’s recent history with guns in church, am I the only one who thinks making this point was a reall…

How to Wreck Your Faith: A Theologian Teaches “Outlaw Christianity”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…lost a loved one. You just can’t make it to that merry space. Where is the service for those folks to share those memories of what it’s like to no longer have their loved one there? I also went to a Unitarian Universalist service on Mother’s Day where they plumbed the history of the holiday and discovered it’s not just about feeling happy, but it was born as a day of grief and resistance to the war. It was designed by mothers who were tired of los…

Obama’s Religion Ambassador: Inexperienced?

By Anthea Butler

…ludes being the founder of Wisdom Worldwide Center (which has no Web site, online presence, or apparent physical location), Chaplain to the New York Police Department, and a member of the Domestic Policy Council in the Clinton Administration. Impressive, perhaps, for the Christian speakers’ circuit, but not for diplomacy. So why would President Obama choose Cook? Dr. Sujay’s resumé, with no discernible international policy experience, her close ti…

A Devil’s Dozen of the Best ‘New Religion Journalism’ Books of the Decade

By Ed Simon

…tell you that around 2015 something different and uglier seemed to emerge online. Suddenly the campaign (and subsequent election) of Donald Trump unleashed floodgates of antisemitism that many liberals had long assumed had disappeared. Pernicious antisemitic myths that had long been outside the pale of mainstream discourse were suddenly discussed openly by figures like Trump adviser Stephen Bannon. Drawing his title from the triple brackets used…