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‘Anti-Romeo’ Vigilante Squads Target Men Suspected Of Being Gay; More in the Global LGBT Recap

…he Washington Post reports. “Because, you know, it’s been banned.” Finland: 800+ same-sex couples married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The Lutheran Evangelical Church has decreed that priests are not permitted to marry same-sex couples and some bishops warne…

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Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

…in quite those terms. “MNDFL exists to enable humans to feel good,” the website explains. In its DNA, the company is one half executive, one half spiritual. Burrows is a film executive-turned-life coach-turned-“spiritual tourist,” while Rinzler is a longtime meditation teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage. His 2012 book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar, has sold widely. Over the phone, I asked Rinzler why he and Burrows had chosen to establish th…

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Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

…n selfish, slow to help the poor and needy around me, hesitant to give from my own abundance. If Joel Osteen is honest, he would see that while he is indeed living man’s best—and is a role model for worldly success—his ministry is woefully lacking when measured against “God’s best.”…

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“Tell Me What You Believe About Ferguson, and I’ll Tell You What You Believe About God”: A Missouri Pilgrimage

…hing terrible had taken place was the significant police presence. As we visited Ferguson Market and Liquor, the corner store Michael Brown visited before heading to his encounter with Wilson on Canfield Drive, there were at least six Ferguson police officers with accompanying cruisers guarding the entrance to the liquor store that had become a hotspot for protests in the wake of Brown’s murder. “The story of Ferguson didn’t start on Canfield Driv…

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Behind a Recent Stunt in Idaho Lies a Dangerous Theocratic Movement

…Flee [sic.] the city NOW before the coming collapse!” Like the company website, however, the ad features no explicitly religious language. Indeed, Black Rifle Real Estate’s website informs potential buyers: “We are conservative Constitutional Libertarians who believe you can do anything you want on your land as long as you’re not hurting anyone. Don’t preach to me and I won’t preach to you. Let’s disagree but respect one another.” *** What gives?…

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Russian Operative Maria Butina, Who Leveraged Christian Right Connections, Sentenced For Conspiracy

…l, Butina included certain individuals within the Russian delegation to the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast, and she noted specifically that those individuals were “coming to establish a back channel of communication.” Statement of Offense at 5. The Russian delegation to the National Prayer Breakfast organized by Butina ultimately included approximately fifteen people, which is significantly more than attended in the years prior to 2017. The delega…

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Rev. Barber: A “Moral Center,” Not a “Religious Left,” Will Save Us in 2017

While many Americans partied at their local watering hole or watched Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin clown around at the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration, hundreds gathered in Washington, D.C.’s historic Metropolitan AME Church for a Watch Night service led by the Rev. William Barber, other clergy, and activists. He and his colleagues are calling for a new Poor People’s Campaign, 50 years after Dr. Martin Luther King announced plans for…

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Stronger Than We Look: Ten Tendrils of Hope for 2017

…ess & restoration. Yes, I know: these hints and gestures are baby steps at best. But they remain significant in the context of a ginormous institution that was self-asphyxiating for so many decades. Plus Francis is slowly but surely reshaping the College of Cardinals—the ultimate “electoral college” from a Catholic point of view. 5. No peace without justice. There is no sign of diminishing energy, and in fact there is strengthening determination e…

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Peter Berger, Sociology’s Defender of God (1929-2017)

…at provide us with the day-to-day world around us. The book that makes the best connection between religion and the social construction of reality is likely The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Social Theory of Religion. His regard for religion as a cultural resource for thinking of ultimate matters led him to become a well-known defender of religion. His prominence as a champion for God rose during the era of the “God is dead” mentality, and a series…

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Refusing the Monsters on Maple Street: A First-Person Commentary from the Mass Hysteria at JFK

…I shared what I learned with those standing around me or who didn’t have a phone, compared notes with others about what they knew, and tried to calm some who were scared and close to panic. As far as I could tell, the TSA personnel and other security officials seemed know about as much as the passengers about what was happening—all around me, I sensed a complete failure of nerve. A black woman wearing a security vest crouched outside on the tarmac…

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