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US Names Int’l Envoy for LGBT Rights; Marriage revolution spreads in Mexico; Scott Lively Warns World of Anti-Christ; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…first) to join the new order and gain immediate integration into its cradle-to-grave socialistic bounty. “Just sign this oath to reject and renounce all divisive and discriminatory beliefs and “supremacist” theologies,” he would say, “and take this mark of membership on your hand to receive free food, housing and medicine and all other benefits under our enlightened new order of tolerance and inclusiveness.” Finland: Marriage Equality becomes law…

Escape From Manhattan: Tech, Tragedy and Storytelling in Sandy’s Wake

By Rachel Wagner

…rce, to celebrate Halloween anyway and resolutely take their children trick-or-treating. Even without the lights on, even without instant access to our media-powered story-worlds, we still need to imagine the supernatural. We need our stories, our other-worlds, our costumes, our role-play. We need our dreams. In On Stories (2001), Richard Kearney argues that stories can soothe us because they transport us to different times and places, where we ca…

Aliens Are Fattening Us Up For the Rapture

By Mark Hulsether

…for the U.S or Israel attacking Iran, and a pitch for the phone ministry 1-888-RAPTURE. Apparently the UFO issue got onto Lindsey’s radar screen because of reports that United Nations is paying attention to it, as discussed here. Lindsey offers a mass of evidence (quite disturbing if true) claiming sightings by military personnel who witnessed UFOs disarming nuclear weapons. In Lindsey’s interpretation, such disarmament fits a similar script as d…

With Release of Pentagon Report, UFO Narrative Belief System is Suddenly Supported by Military Witness Testimonies

By Diana Pasulka

…w UAP lore. Placed within the context of the exponential growth of civilian-owned technologies, the change in policy isn’t quite as surprising. Social media, cell phones, video, and drone technologies make the sighting and the capture of images of UAPs ubiquitous and unregulated. If, as the report suggests, there’s an element of potential threat to national security concerning UAP sightings, it would be important for the military to regulate infor…

“Americans Hate Muslims, Too” (And Other Impediments to U.S. Advocacy for Religious Freedom Abroad)

By Chad Bauman

…cur about every decade, and dozens are killed annually in smaller or medium-scale anti-Muslims riots. To the extent, then, that Americans are perceived to care more about the plight of Christians than Muslims in India, U.S. advocacy for religious freedom becomes vulnerable to charges of prejudice. The perception that “Americans hate Muslims, too” not only blunts the effectiveness of U.S. diplomatic intervention on this issue, but also provides cov…

Dispatches From the Beltway: Horton Hears Progressive Religion

By Robert P. Jones

…Johnson, a fundamentalist megachurch pastor who had one of the biggest megaphones in Ohio in 2004. With his 2,000-member Fairfield Christian Church, Johnson ridiculed the early participants of We Believe Ohio, joking that their combined congregations could fit into a phone booth. Along with Rev. Rod Parsley—the movement’s bombastic mouthpiece who called on Ohio Christians (who he called the largest “interest group” in the state) to “lock and load”…

Cross-Burning Hearing Ends, Trial Set to Begin

By Lauri Lebo

…racy, and one of Freshwater’s most active supporters, told me in a January phone interview, “That is not the arm of Zachary Dennis, or if it is, it was not a mark left by John Freshwater.” When asked to clarify, Daubenmire at first denied he was accusing the Dennis family of lying. Then he accused them of being in it for money. Then he wanted to know if I was a Christian. In short, Freshwater and his supporters have done everything but accept pers…

Bad News for LGBT Anglicans, Mormons, Adventists, Norwegians, Russians, Georgians, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Saudis…

By Peter Montgomery

…n, but often results in life-long financial and/or sexual blackmail. Ali, a 31 year-old gay law student in Jeddah told Gay Star News: ‘Once the Hay’ah [religious police] have your identity on record for being gay, you are very likely to face financial and even sexual blackmail. Argentina: President will Godmother to Child of Lesbian Couple President Cristina Fernandez, who led Argentina to becoming the first South African country to legalize same-…

Sometimes Salvation Looks Like Rage: An Open Letter to “Non-denominational” Churches

By Yazmine Nichols

…th is that Christians and disciples have—historically and presently—been co-partners in death-dealing theological practice and have failed to answer Jesus’ call to daily service to the suffering. “How are we defining what is radical? Are we only radical when it comes to sexual sin? Are we radical in our love for the poor? “ As I see it, there are three major points of potential reformation within the non-denominational, evangelical church. The fir…

What Liberals Want: A Response to Susan Thistlethwaite

By Frances Kissling

…demic theologian, early on assumed a measured and positive role in the post-2004 effort to catalyze a religious voice that, as she puts it, could counter the religious right and influence public policy that had moved the “center to the right, especially by manipulating so called wedge issues like homophobia and abortion.” Thistlethwaite is now concerned that “some self-identified liberals are charging that especially some newer, progressive organi…