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Exclusion is Causing Great Harm: A Conversation With Suspended UMC Pastor Rev. Cynthia Meyer

…than in the leadership? My congregation has been very supportive. A small number of people chose to leave. Some of them not because of their feelings around the issue of homosexuality, but they just struggled with the church being in the news. But that was a small number, and most folks have been very receptive. Many immediately began telling me about their family members, and all of their personal stories. My vulnerability in sharing let them op…

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Great Moments In Bipartisanship: Bible Edition

…place of Jesus distract from his soteriological agenda. Hearings produce a number of shepherds willing to testify that Jesus was born in a Bethlehem-area stable, but doubters refuse to concede, pointing to a document showing a Nazareth birth three years before the founding of that city. [Luke 6:20]: Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.” GOP leaders immediately label this socialism. [ John 2:1-12]: Jesus apologizes fo…

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Blood and Politics — Christian White Nationalism in the Age of Obama

…eliefs have been dissected over the years, the core religious beliefs of a number of White nationalist movement leaders has received far less attention. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream Leonard Zeskind Farrar, Straus and Giroux May, 2009 I recently had the opportunity to talk with Zeskind, a friend and colleague, about his new book, the role these religious beliefs played in the d…

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The Revolution Will Not Be Fetishized: Taking Resistance Beyond the Spiritual Industrial Complex

…erve certain neoliberal, conservative, or nationalist agendas, there are a number of commitments that many of them claim to embrace. These include commitments to the following: religious and cultural pluralism, gender equity, racial and sexual diversity, environmental sustainability, scientific inquiry and historical-critical commentary, and a public space that guarantees both freedom of and from religion. Hence, I am certain the number of self-pr…

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Death Without Religion

…ble assertion to make in such a tendentious book. Perhaps there is a small number of Americans losing their lives at the hands of hasty harvesters; even a very small number would be too high. But I had a hard time summoning any outrage. In the end I learned much more from Kagan—ironically because his aims are in a way more modest. He wants to convince you of his physicalist stance; however, he doesn’t want to tell you how to reconcile with death….

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Hajj Journal: Using the Toilet at the Grand Mosque

…sque is gigantic, full of beautiful and elaborate designs, with an immense number of repetitions to them. The stairs and the escalators are deceiving, taking two for each floor in one tower and only one escalator per floor in another tower. I never did figure out which was which. I knew the fastest way up to the third floor from my hotel, but this was always early and therefore less chaotic. It also involved a wide ramp straight from the outer fro…

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RDPulpit: Rick Warren and the Limits of Empathy

…Rick Warren signed a statement of concern about global warming, joining a number of the new breed of evangelicals, much to the chagrin of the old guard like James Dobson. The press began to talk about the expanded agenda of the “new evangelicals,” an agenda not limited to the old shibboleths of abortion and opposition to gay marriage. The Five Non-Negotiable Issues Despite all the above, on a number of issues critical to women’s lives, he remains…

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Lesbian Rabbi to Lead SoCal Board, Includes Orthodox

…bbis pushing for more inclusiveness, and what I assume to be a significant number of modern Orthodox (as opposed to ultra-Orthodox) Jews who have plenty of sympathy for gays and lesbians, and probably number many of them among their friends, but can’t yet see a way to harmonize this personal sentiment with their larger religious commitments. It’s important to bear this denominational scorecard in mind when considering Eger’s appointment, because a…

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The War Within: Religion and Our Tangled Relationship with Our Bodies

…ew thousand words over their original word limit, but I still had to cut a number of compelling stories of people who have struggled with body shame because of internalized cultural/religious norms and narratives about weight, disability, chronic pain or illness. I also had to omit some of my analyses of examples of the culture of physical improvement. For instance, in the chapter on aging, I nixed a rather lengthy critique I’d developed of Deepak…

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

…logger Blabbeando reminds us that during Brewster’s nomination process, “a number of religious leaders the Dominican Republic criticized the nomination of an openly gay man for the diplomatic post.  Leading the charge was Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez who called the then-nominee a ‘faggot’ on national television.”  Last month the Cardinal urged church goers to show respect for the new ambassador, but some people aren’t willing to let g…

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