Search for "UPTO 70% OFF 1800-299-7264 What Are The Cheapest Day To Fly on Kenya Airways"

The Politics of Anti-Gay Persecution: Gambia, Egypt, Jamaica, Russia, with a Helping Hand from US Religious Conservatives; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ingston park on Dec. 10 that will coincide with International Human Rights Day. They describe the event as “an evening of song, dance and poetry celebrating God the giver of perfect law and rights.” Recently, Grace Phelps-Roper, a former member of the notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church and a granddaughter of its founder, traveled to Jamaica with the group Planting Peace, reports Metro Weekly, “to learn about the plight of LGBT people the…

Hillary Flirting with Fear

By Ira Chernus

…ntered on national security and 3 a.m. world crises? Bring it on. Make our day on Election Day.” Because McCain has one card and one card only to play in this campaign: “No Surrender.” It may not make any logical sense. If all of the voters who oppose the war vote against the pro-war candidate, he’ll be slaughtered. But McCain and his strategists know what all of the Times’ liberal pundits, and so many other liberals, so easily forget: It’s not ab…

Mormonism’s Black Issues

By Joanna Brooks

…June 8, 1978, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that “the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood,” effectively ending the prohibition on full African American participation. The announcement was accepted as revelation by an affirmation of the Church membership at the October Church General Conference and subsequently canonized as scrip…

Mormons Declare Same-Sex Marriage Apostasy, Deny Baptism to Children of Same-Sex Couples; Colombian Court OKs Adoption Over Church Objections; Franklin Graham Praises Putin’s Anti-Gay Policies; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…protected. Queer and Muslim In the Atlantic, Jordan Alam writes about “the day-to-day lived experiences of queer people who identify religiously or culturally with Islam—particularly the difficulty they face in trying to find communities that embrace their multiple identities.” The story focuses on queer Muslims in the U.S., some of them immigrants. One cofounder of the Michigan Arab Queer Collective said it was a challenge to find a community as…

Fired GTS Professors Go Back to Work, For Now

By Steve A. Wiggins

…not have to listen. The Board, not regularly involved in the intensity of day-to-day life of the school, often doesn’t see the warning signs. In retrospect, some of the issues that arise may seem rather pedantic, in the cold light of rationality. I remember a professional conflict resolution consultant asking me under a blue Wisconsin sky why I was so concerned with what I had to wear in chapel. I’m not even a priest. In hindsight, he had a point…

Know-Nothing Christians Irate Over Obama Comments

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…stians deliberately replaced the Sabbath with what they called “the Lord’s day” (Sunday). At the beginning of the book of Revelation, for instance, John tells his audience that he was “in the spirit on the Lord’s Day,” and that’s when he had his visions. From a Jewish perspective, Christians violate the First Commandment, because their Trinitarian theology violates the “one and only” sort of monotheism articulated there. Put crassly, they have put…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…’s the weakness of the church,” she said. Samuel Joaquín’s insight On a Sunday in late November, not long after Samuel fell ill, I walked into the tiny Luz del Mundo mission in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a Sunday evening service. On the lectern at the front of the congregation sat a black Hewlett-Packard laptop. On the screen, I could see the exact row of Mexican pews in which I’d been sitting just a few weeks before. It wasn’t until then, really…

Religion and Reality TV: Is God Watching?

By Kent L. Brintnall

…importantly, every show must have a catch phrase to seal the moment: “One day you’re in and the next day you’re out” (Project Runway); “Every dog has their day” (Groomer Has It); “Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith” (the Eucharistic rite). Whether the show is performing a social experiment of coupling nerds and models (Beauty and the Geek), looking for the country’s next culinary genius (Top Chef) or trying to “help” people lose weight (Cel…

The Blockbuster Spirituality of John Green’s “The Fault In Our Stars”

By Jodi Eichler-Levine

…and YouTube. We are all writing our own eulogies and those of our friends, day by day, good words and bad words and sublime and despairing logics (and the Kardashians, alas) all spun together. And it is here that we address the dead in plaintive tones. In the book, a grieving Hazel reads the memorial posts on Augustus’ “wall page.” She is both horrified by and empathetic towards the endless tributes. Giving in to temptation, she replies to one pos…

Churchgoers, Stay Home—It’s The American Way

By Shelby Balik

…ng worship has allowed her to focus on its deeper significance. Without Friday evening traffic and the rush of getting ready on Sunday mornings, she and her wife can “strip [worship] down” to its core meaning and “clarify … what role this plays in our weekly life.” According to Kate Carté, the pressure of Shabbat—preparing the house, clearing the family’s schedules, rushing through dinner on the way to synagogue—has lifted. Before, she recalls, “i…