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

In the Papal Pocket: Benedict XVI and the Press

By Mary E. Hunt

…be helpful in reporting on Judaism, Islam, the Baha’i faith, Wicca, or any number of other groups that form the pluralistic religious mosaic in the United States today? No reporter or anchor could be expected to be an expert on the ins and outs of such groups. But as a matter of journalistic practice, I think it is reasonable to train reporters to look at more than meets the eye on religion, just as they are taught to investigate plane crashes and…

Are We Entering the End Times for Mainline Seminaries?

By Elesha Coffman

…nce existed mainly to train full-time pastors faced reductions in both the number of churches that could support such positions and the number of people eager to take the more challenging, but lower paying, church jobs that remained. Some seminaries shifted their missions to serve the academy or society more broadly, while others trained more part-time, second-career and lay pastors. These shifts were less abrupt than decisions to close or merge a…

Who Would the Buddha Bomb?

By Danny Fisher

…ives that, disappointingly, grow less and less helpful as they increase in number and length. When I spoke to Bhikkhu Bodhi about the fracas in an interview last fall, he cautioned against interpreting his statements as a blanket endorsement of military solutions: I think what has to take priority now, since the formation of the United Nations, are the conditions for just warfare that are laid down within their charter. One is that a nation is jus…

In This Week’s LGBT Recap: Are Gay Priests Overdue for a Stonewall Moment?

By Peter Montgomery

…Schubert; C-Fam’s Austin Ruse, who is fomenting anti-LGBT backlash at the United Nations; Howard Center founder Allan Carlson; Janice Shaw Crouse, who led the 2015 World Congress of Families summit in Salt Lake City; and Movieguide’s Ted Baehr. Also among the initial signers are anti-equality activists from around the world; many of them, like Nigeria’s Theresa Okafor, have participated in World Congress of Families summits. Also listed as signer…

Russian Attack on LGBTs at UN Rejected; Gay Cake Controversy Rages in N. Ireland; Bishop Calls for Marriage Referendum in Puerto Rico; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ed but voiced “strong objections” to Ban’s decision. European nations, the United States, Australia and Mexico were among those who rejected Russia’s motion. For Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Ban was within his rights to make the administrative decision, which has no effect on national laws. Power criticized Russia for trying to “export to the UN its domestic hostility to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights…

LGBT Human Rights in UN Sustainable Development Negotiation; Swiss Bishop Says Speaking of ‘Family Diversity’ is ‘Attack on the Creator’; Canadian Food Bank’s Anti-Gay Dogma; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…sexuals who are Catholic and want to be part of the Church,” Salinas said. United Kingdom: MP says anti-extremism laws threaten Christian teaching A Conservative Member of Parliament, Mark Spencer, is complaining that a law aimed at radical Islamic clerics who promote extremism and encourage children to become terrorists is, in a misguided notion of fairness, being applied to Christian churches that teach traditional views about sexuality and marr…

Is Religious Freedom a Casualty at Ground Zero?

By Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

…ation that came to be called the Federation of Islamic Associations of the United States and Canada (FIA). The first president of the FIA, Abdallah Igram, a World War II veteran, approached President Eisenhower in 1953 to ask, “Why is there no symbol for the Islamic faith on a Muslim serviceman’s identification tags so that he might be given fitting burial rites if he’s killed in action?” His query led to the use of an “I” on the dog tags of Ameri…

Global LGBT Recap: “Lavender Fascism,” Rage in India, Pope Francis Ousts Culture Warrior

By Peter Montgomery

…year’s anti-gay conference and others like it are organized and funded by United for Life, a Western Evangelical Christian organization that receives funding from the U.K. and U.S. In May 2013, United for Life hosted a workshop during which police told government officials, religious leaders and health professionals that “homosexual family members and neighbors” were likely to sexually abuse children. A representative from the Ethiopian Inter-Rel…

‘We Remember a United States That Fought the Nazis’: A German Scholar of Fascism Weighs in on Christian Nationalism in the U.S.

By Andrew L. Seidel

…homegrown fascist movement, and, in a sense, how could they? We remember a United States that fought the Nazis,” she explains. Brockschmidt is careful about drawing comparisons between the US now and the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s. It’s such a severe and somber charge, “Germans are hypervigilant when it comes to fascist movements, but also protective of when the term is used,” she explains. In the end, Brockschmidt is willing to go the…

“Project Blitz” Seeks to Do for Christian Nationalism What ALEC Does for Big Business

By Frederick Clarkson

…ncil. RD asked Samantha Sokol of the legislative affairs unit at Americans United for Separation of Church and State to compare the 20 models bills of Project Blitz with the bills they track and she found that 71 bills introduced in 2018 (or carried over from the 2017 state legislative session) are based on the model bills or are similar in intent. Of the bills tracked by Americans United [see bill descriptions in side bar of the original post on…