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An Immigrant’s Tale: The Pull of the Homeland

…membrance was an option less desirable now; at most, a baseball cap or sunglasses had to suffice. We miss, too, the comfort of being able to cry out “Ya Hayyu Ya Qayyum” (O Living, O Self-Sustaining) if the urge grabs you suddenly in the middle of teaching a physics class. The urge is almost biological, and the inability to express rapture, ecstasy, joy, desperation or humility is also almost biological, like a choking of the windpipe. Diversity p…

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War on Christmas Affirmed by Southern Baptist Convention

…six resolutions. As a Southern Baptist, I usually brace myself for the backlash created by offensive resolutions. I’ve done this since 1997 when I was awakened by a phone call from a Lutheran friend that began, “What’s with you Southern Baptists and Mickey Mouse?” I was unaware that the messengers voted on a resolution to boycott Disney because of its policies toward homosexuals. One resolution approved by the messengers this year that may not be…

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Good Mourning Modeled by Chaplains and Clergy at the Oakland Ghost Ship Fire

…as drunk, which was the only way she could handle getting up behind a microphone. God was barely mentioned. When asked about the secular nature of the vigil and why he agreed to participate, Rios responded that “it is always the responsibility of clergy to act in moments of disaster, regardless of the secular tone and style.” Throughout the vigil, he said, “[I] kept thinking of Jesus and where this radical Rabbi was in moments of disaster. I kept…

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Why It’s Heresy to Read the Bible Literally: An Interview with John Shelby Spong

…I write a weekly column and I get enormous mail and you can’t believe the number of mails I get from people living in little towns and there’s no church they can or want to go to so I am their church. I am the one point of contact outside of that community that makes them know they’re not crazy, because everybody else thinks they must be a Communist if they don’t go to church. I get letters from people who say they after they read one of my earli…

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Sean Feucht’s New Year’s Rockin’ Superspreader Revival is a ‘Tepid and Meager’ Effort at Racial Reconciliation

…ymbolically, today, Christianity has lost its hegemony [in America]. It’s classic for American Christians to say ‘Now we need a revival,’ in an effort to purify the nation so it can have that special covenantal relationship with God.” This sort of Christian Nationalism also seems to be a driving force for Feucht and his “Revival or bust” attitude, one that could carry his movement past the end of the pandemic and into a post-Trump world. That atti…

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Is Herman Cain’s Long-Running Minstrel Show Finally at an End?

…d to hide his failings. Ginger White’s claims, backed up with receipts and phone records, are compelling. Besides, who would willingly admit that they had sex with THEHermanCain, besides Gloria, his wife, unless it was true. I sincerely hope that Cain gets a clue this week and drops out of the race for the sake of his family. I could care less who he decides to 999. Allowing his private dalliances to become a public spectacle while pretending to t…

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Vatican Instruction on Cremation Rankles Many, But Give it a Second Look

…night dancing with, someone who I had spoken to just a week before on the phone, her laughter weakened but still familiar. When I thought about her ashes being scattered around Boston I felt a momentary panic. Where could I ever go to find her again? Last week, just in time for the Feast of All Soul’s Day, celebrated each year on November 2, the Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a new Instruction regarding the…

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High Ark: A Geologist on the True Meaning of Noah’s Flood

…illing to talk about science as a human endeavor. I spoke to Montgomery by phone to find out more about these surprising aspects of his story. ______________ BWL: You write in your introduction that you started out to write a more traditional debunking of creationism’s flood geology, from your perspective as a geologist. And you ended up with something different. What happened? DM: I learned a lot writing this book. And I like it much better than…

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When Mormons Mobilize: Anti-Gay Marriage Prop. 8 Effort ‘Outed’?

…upport for Proposition 8 and commit four hours each week to the ground and phone campaign. A primary source of Mormon messaging during the Proposition 8 campaign was the anonymously-authored “Six Consequences if Prop 8 Fails” document, which went viral across Mormon social networks after its introduction by email in mid-August and was utilized as a training document and handout in the Mormon-coordinated ground campaign. The document alleged that t…

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Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

…s a compromise, a letter to the Washingtonians… To the moderate political classes, religious leaders, and activists who are tempted after the Republican gains in the 2010 midterms to call for more compromise, civility, and government sensitivity to the plight of “the least of these”: Late in the year 2000, I stayed up late into the night watching election returns. The hope for a Gore presidency went down hard, like sparks struck from a flint. At 2…

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