Search for "cheap airline tickets to texas phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Rick Perry’s Jesus Imperative: A Report from Saturday’s Mega-Rally

By Sarah Posner

By the time Texas Governor Rick Perry took the stage at his scheduled time at The Response on Saturday, the crowd had been softened to receive him. Perry, as scheduled, emerged from behind the prayer and worship band shortly before 11:30, his coiffed hair and toothy grin filling the enormous television screens behind him. The audience, still aglow and groggy, almost, from a frenzied prayer session devoted to individual repentance had been called…

After More Mass Shootings It’s Time to Call Out White Supremacy in the Pews

By Peter Laarman

…what’s going on, but too few seem capable of saying it. We now have a fair number of political and civic leaders who are willing to say the word trauma and talk about the all-pervasive violence in this culture, not to mention the extent of mental disturbance and the fact that American civilians have more assault rifles in their possession than does the U.S. military. All well and good. But we have too few leaders who will talk about the deeper roo…

Global LGBT Recap: Catholic Polling, Religious Violence, International Advocacy

By Peter Montgomery

…about nomination, get support from U.S.-based religious websites: A small number of very vocal conservative religious leaders in the Dominican Republic remain furious that a gay man is now the U.S. ambassador. On Friday, even before today’s meeting with LGBT leaders, Reverend Luis Rosario staged a press conference to say that the arrival of the new ambassador and his husband sent an “extremely negative message” to the Dominican people. “It’s a ve…

Oklahoma Bill Would Violate Basic Freedoms, Rewrite the Ten Commandments

By Andrew L. Seidel

…s not to violate church-state separation. A similar bill failed to pass in Texas last year, and it too prescribed the Commandments lite. While it’s tempting to let Olsen off the hook as an unoriginal copyist, he is the author of this bill and ultimately responsible for the content and the scriptural edits. So let’s be absolutely clear: if Olsen’s proposal becomes law, Oklahoma would be rewriting the Bible. We’re talking about state-sanctioned holy…

Why Even Progressive Christianity Must Own Its Complicity in Anti-LGBT Violence

By Layton E. Williams

…ian churches and leaders—has led to countless hate crimes, alarmingly high numbers of homeless LGBT young people, and staggering rates of depression, self-harm, and suicide among LGBT youth and adults. Of course, a growing number of churches and denominations today have rejected such a destructive understanding of human sexuality. Religion Dispatches recently compiled a list of the official positions on LGBT issues currently taught by various Chri…

New Research Links Spiritual-Not-Religious to Mental Disorder

By Elizabeth Drescher

…the relationship between religion and heath by Marc Musick (University of Texas, Austin) and Meredith Worthen (University of Oklahoma) suggests a number of cautions that might well be applied to studies like that offered by King and colleagues. In their review, Musick and Worthen found no direct causal relationship between religion and health, with service attendance alone showing a meaningful correlation that extends to measured benefits in mort…

Five Social Media Trends that are Reshaping Religion

By Elizabeth Drescher

…into face-to-face relationships. If the folks at Nielsen are correct, smartphones will continue to overtake, uh, dumb phones, making app-based connection and information-sharing a continuing growth area. Religiously-themed apps are certain to be an important part of that, but unless they grasp the digital trinity of social engagement, spiritual meaning, and incarnational potential that makes such apps truly worthwhile for believers and seekers. Th…

Mormons Fight Marriage Equality in Mexico; Is Catholic Church Italy’s Anti-Gay NRA?; Nigerian Anglicans Cut Ties With UK Diocese; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…s in Mexico. The U.S. Consulate in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, will fly the rainbow flag for the month of June. Italy: Gay historian says Catholic Church is Italy’s anti-gay NRA In a commentary published on June 1, the New York Times’ Frank Bruni explored what he called a disconnect between Italy’s tradition of embracing “openly gay artists, designers, and even political leaders” and its continuing to lag behind the rest of west…

RD News Round-Up—Nov. 4, 2008

By Bill Berkowitz

…ide epidemic of rising medical costs, disparate levels of care and growing numbers of uninsured or underinsured Americans,” the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy recently reported. “You’re describing the perfect storm,” Neil Calman, CEO of the Bronx, New York-based Institute for Family Health, a speaker at the event, responded to an audience member’s comment: “People are going to find the situation will get increasingly worse and go…

Boo! Trump’s Lead With Religious Voters Not As Bigly As You Might Think

By Daniel Schultz

…looks to be releasing new information on the Catholic vote on Halloween, a number which often closely tracks the final total of overall voters. It’s also a number that varies quite a bit by the racial breakdown. While Trump wins white Catholics 48-41, he gets absolutely crushed among Hispanics, 84-12. A few back-of-the-envelope calculations put us firmly in “Holy shit” territory. Even assuming a generous 50-50 split of black, Asian, and other Cath…