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Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

By Daniel Silliman

…rotest at the funerals of AIDS victims. “The sodomites have taken over the country,”Phelps said. “We want to warn the nation, let them know that God is not going to let this country get by with that kind of degeneracy.”Westboro Baptist’s extremism was so offensive to so many, it may have actually helped the cause of gay rights. Steve Hill The evangelist behind the Brownsville Revival in Pensacola, Fla., Steve Hill died at 60. Hill’s testimony was…

Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why Now?

By Lisa Bitel

…ion by joining other denominations or leaving Christianity altogether. The number of priests and nuns was at an all-time low even before the recent sexual scandals, and the number of self-identified Catholics world-wide keeps declining. Many of those who remain in the Church ignore standard doctrines and believe what they want. How many Catholics disobey Church rules? About as many as the angels dancing on a pinhead. Believers know that Jesus prom…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…ted to get the kids thinking,” they told me. When I wondered if purchasing tickets for the kids using Salvation Army funds could be a violation of the church’s tax-exempt status, Miranda argued that she didn’t see a problem. Since the Bible is applicable to every facet of private and public life, she reasoned, how it would be possible to talk to the kids about anything government-related without jeopardizing their tax-exemption? “Our hands would b…

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…hey said. Homosexuality is illegal in India. This week the chairman of the country’s Law Council slammed its anti-gay law as discriminatory, unreasonable, and psychologically damaging. Egypt: Country invests heavily in unscientific anal exams to ‘prove’ homosexuality BuzzFeed’s Lester Feder and Maged Atef explore the brutal and scientifically bogus anal exams that are used by police in Egypt and other countries that criminalize homosexuality. Huma…

Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…e have been doing. Expressions of intolerance and violence speak of a sick country, a country that does not understand the depth of freedom of expression,” Kast said. For her part, Aranda, who is director of the Christian Legislative Observatory, stressed that “Chile has risen to say: ‘I educate my children’”, adding that parents have a preferential role in the education of their children, While the state has a secondary one. “Through multiple bil…

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

By Lisa Miller

…houris, dark-eyed women. We all know that Mohammad Atta, who flew American Airlines flight 11 into the Twin Towers on 9/11, was inspired by this promise. But among progressives, the sex promised to the righteous in the Qur’an isn’t sex as we know it, but something mysterious and sublime for which sex is a poetic stand-in. Second, what happens to our bodies in heaven? This is my favorite part of the heaven conversation. For if you believe in heaven…

The Economy is Racism: Ending Race-Based Economic Violence is the Real Challenge of This Moment

By Peter Laarman

…stand that police violence, let alone the latent violence expressed in our country’s maintenance of an enormous lethal military force, cannot really be addressed without also addressing the fundamental social organization of a country so thoroughly steeped in the poison of white supremacy. A winner-take-all economy won’t be changed without a power struggle that is, if anything, much more fierce, much more sustained, and (most of all) much more vis…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…h buildings, starting right around the same time. Talk about luxury on the cheap; it’s hard to deny a feeling of similarity. (The tower is to the Burj as a certain toupee is to hair: might the Trump Tower inadvertently mimic an Islamic motif?) The regal twin palm trees in the foreground are the world’s tallest, at some 3,500 feet each. Recently a falling coconut crushed an entire apartment complex, punching a massive hole that has filled up with…

Swiss Priest Sacked for Blessing Lesbian Couple; Mormon Equality Advocate Excommunicated; Pope-Backed Anti-Gay Referendum Fails; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…mendations the Washington Blade obtained from gay Nepalese Parliamentarian Sunil Babu Pant, who founded the Blue Diamond Society, the country’s only LGBT advocacy group, notes the “positive international trends” towards homosexuality and marriage rights for same-sex couples. “It is recommended to have equal marriage legal provision for same-sex couples with equal family protection to the couple and children,” reads the 150-page report, according t…