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Cafeteria Christianity in the Age of Social Media: What’s Old Is New Again

By Kate Blanchard

…xplain why some of us submit to the whole shebang and others don’t. In the spirit of gross oversimplification, I blame not social media but Constantinian Catholicism—not for intra-religious diversity, but for the idea that life should be any other way. Before 325 CE there existed a vast network of small clusters of pagan and Jewish Christians around the Mediterranean, mostly meeting in people’s homes, sharing a collection of related but not unifor…

Not Breathing Much Easier … But Still Breathing: A Modest Plea For Hope to End 2020

By Peter Laarman

…erstand the basics of movement-making: the need to engage head, heart, and spirit all at once and to fully understand one’s opposition so as not to be sidetracked, blindsided, seduced into a phony peace. As well, there are plenty of elders, some of them movement elders and others not, who are prepared to join the struggle for a human future. It’s possible we won’t make it out of our 21st century impasse. The scale and depth and complexity of our c…

Heresy, Bad Taste, or Capitalist Adventure: Is it Still Pentecostalism?

By Anthea Butler

…eyard denomination) and Charles Kraft, began there to hone his ideas about spiritual mapping, spiritual warfare, and power encounters. Leaving the seminary in the early 1990s to establish a ministry in Colorado Springs, Wagner began to build his empire, founding the NAR in 2001. The 21st century, for Wagner, is the beginning of the “Second Apostolic Age.” Those in the NAR believe that in order to bring about the coming of Christ, Apostles must be…

Sikh Prof. Prabhjot Singh Was Not The ‘Victim’ of a Hate Crime

By Simran Jeet Singh

…a word that equates to the concept of “victim.” Rather, most Sikhs see the spirit as enlivened by chardi kala (perpetual optimism), a notion expressed in the Sikh scripture by the fifth Guru, who writes: “No one is evil, everyone is good. There is no defeat—all is victory.” The optimistic orientation expressed in this scriptural passage, is likewise illustrated in the following account. In the early 18th century, Sikhs became targets of state-sanc…

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

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…us. When Elijah ascends into heaven he sends a double portion of his human spirit onto his human disciple. When Jesus ascends into heaven he sends the infinite power of God’s holy spirit on the whole gathered community sufficient to last through all of time. You’ve got to see the connections between these stories before they make sense. It gives you an alternative to biblical fundamentalism. That’s not original to the text. We imposed fundamentali…

5 Reasons That Cartoons Are the 21st Century’s Great Metaphysical Playground

By Ilana E. Strauss

…hishi, which is set in a world where a man named Ginko solves Shinto-esque spirit-related problems So what makes the medium so ideally suited to metaphysical musing? I can think of at least five reasons: 1. There are no physical limitations. You can make cartoon characters grow, shrink, turn into things, toss around the Sun like a football—whatever you want. Any thought experiment that can be visualized can be animated. For instance, in one episod…

Does the Multifaith Model Work?

By Jas Chana

…f Biblical Hebrew. Yael is the co-founder and director of NYU’s Center for Spiritual Life and runs the Center with the same spiritual inclusiveness she personally espouses. In a recent article for Inquiring Mind, Shy elaborates on her dual Jewish-Buddhist practice. “I often ask myself, ‘Is it possible to engage in a non-superficial way, in two rich spiritual traditions?’ So, far the answer is a resounding yes!” Yael sees a kind of universality in…

UK Muslims & the “War on Christmas”

By Svend White

…Christmas.” In the UK, some seemingly unlikely champions for the Christmas spirit are entering the lists. Muslims and Hindus are urging people not to throw the Baby Jesus out with the Yuletide bathwater by needlessly deemphasizing the holiday’s theological message. British Muslims say: Put Christ back in Christmas: Muslim leaders joined Britain’s equality watchdog Monday in urging Britons to enjoy Christmas without worrying about offending non-Chr…

‘Late Night With The Devil’ Reflects the Role of Talk Shows in Sensationalizing the Satanic Panic of the 1980s

By Joseph Laycock

…n. DeLouise entered a trance and assumed the persona of an old woman whose spirit could not rest. Derl-Davis administered communion to the spirit and the exorcism was declared a success. Months later, William Peter Blatty published his novel The Exorcist. It was initially a flop until Blatty received a last-minute invitation to appear on ABC’s The Dick Cavett Show. In what may have been demonic intervention, Cavett’s other guests canceled and Blat…

Will the Religious Side with Workers?

By Peter Laarman

…was also when U.S.-based corporations decided to start violating both the spirit and letter of the Wagner Act—the 1935 landmark legislation that gave workers their basic rights—in a systematic way. I began a fifteen year career as a senior staffer for two national unions (the Teachers and the Auto Workers) during the mid-’70s, and I was thus able to watch the systematic attack on workers and on union rights unfold at very close range. What happen…