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Paranormal Vodka, Exorcists and a Demonic Doll: Welcome to Paracon, Based on the Work of the Demon-Hunters Who Inspired the ‘Conjuring’ Series

By Eric Harrelson and Joseph P. Laycock

…uding a self-proclaimed archbishop and a reiki-practicing nun. Any and all spiritual beliefs seem to be welcome, even though Ed Warren constantly warns about the dangers of meddling with “the occult.” According to Ed, demon possession doesn’t just happen, it has to be invited. This happens in what he calls the first stage of possession, or Encroachment: “First occurs the encroachment—or permission—stage, where a negative spirit is given access to…

Does the Multifaith Model Work?

By Jas Chana

…f Biblical Hebrew. Yael is the co-founder and director of NYU’s Center for Spiritual Life and runs the Center with the same spiritual inclusiveness she personally espouses. In a recent article for Inquiring Mind, Shy elaborates on her dual Jewish-Buddhist practice. “I often ask myself, ‘Is it possible to engage in a non-superficial way, in two rich spiritual traditions?’ So, far the answer is a resounding yes!” Yael sees a kind of universality in…

UK Muslims & the “War on Christmas”

By Svend White

…Christmas.” In the UK, some seemingly unlikely champions for the Christmas spirit are entering the lists. Muslims and Hindus are urging people not to throw the Baby Jesus out with the Yuletide bathwater by needlessly deemphasizing the holiday’s theological message. British Muslims say: Put Christ back in Christmas: Muslim leaders joined Britain’s equality watchdog Monday in urging Britons to enjoy Christmas without worrying about offending non-Chr…

Not Breathing Much Easier … But Still Breathing: A Modest Plea For Hope to End 2020

By Peter Laarman

…erstand the basics of movement-making: the need to engage head, heart, and spirit all at once and to fully understand one’s opposition so as not to be sidetracked, blindsided, seduced into a phony peace. As well, there are plenty of elders, some of them movement elders and others not, who are prepared to join the struggle for a human future. It’s possible we won’t make it out of our 21st century impasse. The scale and depth and complexity of our c…

Reports of the Black Church’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated: A Review of Walter Fluker’s Latest Book

By Joseph Winters

…panied by a passage from the proverbial frying pan to the fire of the Holy Spirit. Here Fluker plays on the ambivalence of fire in the context of black strivings. While it can refer to racialized violence and destruction (lynching, the burning of black churches), it also alludes to the experience of being overwhelmed, and consumed, by the Spirit. Fire here signifies passion and life. Fire is that energy that takes an individual beyond herself, ope…

What Did the Puritans Have Against Christmas?

By Bruce David Forbes

…o religion and says nothing about a baby in a manger—but it does promote a spirit of giving and care for others that can be embraced by almost anyone. The point here is that the Puritan suppression of Christmas created a vacuum, and when Christmas re-emerged and flourished in the 1800s its new form had less of a religious emphasis and was centered more on family and generosity. Christians could embrace those themes gladly, as very consistent with…

Sex, the Body, the World: It’s R. Crumb’s Bible Now

By Naomi Seidman

…ritual universe, in which the single word ru’akh means wind AND breath AND spirit, has been lost in the spiritualizing afterlife of the Bible. Crumb’s illustrations do not merely restore the physical dimension suppressed by theologizing abstraction, at their best they convey that there are no differences between these realms, as there is none between—in one of the more charged corollaries of the distinction between Earth and spirit—sex and love. M…

America’s Fat Tues Turns to Ash Wed: Imagine a Humility-Driven Recovery

By Peter Laarman

…ny, rather than the 70% it has been in the United States. For us a genuine spiritual revolution need not be a Teutonic killjoy revolution—a mere taking away of the goodies that people now enjoy. And in fact this revolution of the spirit will not succeed unless it actually expands the joys and satisfactions of everyday living to people who will no longer be seeking all of their joys and satisfactions from shopping. Shopping has infantilized us. A h…

The Christian Worldview Revealed by Sessions’ Use of Romans 13

By Susan B. Ridgely

…ames Dobson. Ralph Drollinger’s wife Danielle worked for Focus in the early 1990s and Dobson frequently promoted the couple’s new venture after its founding in 1996. The continued connection between the two groups is evident in Capitol Ministries’ support of corporal punishment as well as in the understanding of the relationship between the people and the government that Sessions learned in its lesson. Focus made its views on what constitutes a ri…

A Long History of Blaming the Jews

By Gordon Haber

…nberg’s discussion of the Renaissance—in his definition, the period between 1400 and 1600. But this discussion has little to do with the supposed rebirth of Western culture. Nirenberg highlights the ironic contradictions between the scarcity of Jews in Western Europe and the frequent allegations of Judaizing. Martin Luther accused his Papist opponents of “legalism,” “Pharisaism,” and of course, “Judaism”; the Papists, in turn, accused Luther of ge…