Search Results for:

cheap airline tickets kyoto japan phone number 1-800-299-7264

Not All American Muslims Feel the Dread I Do

…(correctly) at the uncertainty consuming me. Similar messages poured in by phone, email and social media throughout the day. It was as if someone in my family had died and people felt compelled to offer me condolences. The reality of living in a country in which the most blatant expressions of Islamophobia and other forms of hate are normalized does worry me. Even as Trump flip-flops on his promise of a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims ente…

Read More

Pro-Gay Marriage Mormon Keeps Faith Despite Church Pressure

…and within days an official at LDS Church headquarters placed a concerned phone call to Melanie S.’s local clergy. Three times her bishop met with Melanie to discuss the video. Because she had affiliated with “Mormons for Marriage,” he questioned whether or not Melanie and her husband should be allowed to keep their temple recommends—certificates that allow the most worthy and devoted Mormons to participate in the faith’s sacred temple rites. Nor…

Read More

Fear, Guns, and the (Unwinnable) War Against Death: A Letter to My Fellow Americans

…shooting. I spent a full hour, numb with terror, refreshing the news on my phone and waiting to be reassured that the violence had been contained. The (unarmed) door guards at the school’s drop-off line know my daughter’s tricks; how she likes to stall and take her sweet time. And I watch her dance away into the little building where she builds her dreams and plays with her friends every day. I can hold it together until I drive away, but then it…

Read More

It’s Barack v. the Bible, Says Barton

…a’s auto-da-fé came not only in the comments section, but in nasty emails, phone calls, and demands for his firing from Messiah College. As he discovered, the culture wars are real, and practiced even on those (like Fea) who largely have been critical of Obama’s actual implementation of his promises about faith-based policies. More important than these blogosphere wars, however, is understanding something deeper about these screeds about Obama as…

Read More

The Banality of Bernie

…micro-managed by men with photographic memories who could describe, on the phone at long distance, where a file was located, and what page in that file needed scanning. There was obsessive record-keeping, coupled with a mastery of spin. (Squillari suggests that Madoff planted several pieces of evidence in his office in order to be arrested on his own timetable and on his own terms). The most haunting line in the article is a description of the sta…

Read More

Religion at Decade’s End

…ces like Tehran, or Athens, or Beijing, that are armed and enabled by cell phone technology and the almost instantaneous circulation of striking images of authoritarian crackdown, impossible to contain or control.   There is an old philosophical quandary posed as follows: can a fish imagine water? Similarly, Religion Dispatches exists within the very medium that it is simultaneously attempting to theorize. It is as global as the instruments it use…

Read More

Battling for the Soul of the Democratic Party

…ca are (and, moreover, in the wake of Obama’s election, who will get their phone calls returned from the White House) certain names keep cropping up. Pastor Rick Warren, who sees no daylight between his views and James Dobson’s, but who, according to Sullivan’s book, former-DNC-chair Terry McAuliffe blasphemously didn’t know; Jim Wallis, best-selling author and activist who lambasts the religious right for its petty intolerance and the left for “n…

Read More

Global LGBT Recap: Culture War Claims More Victims

…i responded defiantly: Excellent Minister: You have never called me on the phone before. And you threatened me for a letter I addressed to Pope Francis. After today’s call I warn you that Christian-phobia is a type of religious persecution contrary to the liberty enshrined in our Constitution, which I swore to defend and obey.  I reject your threats, even if I am sacrificed like John the Baptist for simply because as an Ambassador [to the Vatican]…

Read More

Does the Science Show that Spirituality Will Benefit Your Child?

…don’t involve Miller’s own research, and, despite the dubious sourcing, a number of Miller’s claims are persuasive. There is evidence—much of it from Miller’s own, peer-reviewed work—that self-reported spiritual experience lowers the risk for substance abuse, depression, and unprotected sex among adolescents. There’s also plenty of evidence that adolescents can use spiritual experiences and techniques to navigate emerging adulthood, a process Mil…

Read More