Search for "cheap one way airline tickets to newark phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Under Water: Waiting for the Flood (of Awareness) in Louisiana

By Drew Konow

…ion has a strange way of inspiring reflection on personal property. On the phone, I told my mom, “I love your house. It is so perfect for you.” And I do. I love her house not because I grew up there (I did not) or because I’ve spent much time there (I’ve only visited once) or because of anything to do with the way it looks. I love her house because of what it stands for. It’s a symbol of her freedom. Freedom from every man who raised a hand to her…

Oprah, Terrorist Cells, and the Meaning of Life: An Interview with Paul Froese

By Andrew Aghapour

…gives our sense of struggle meaning.” Religious systems of meaning have always provided that, and they have also tended to be birthed out of places and times where people were undergoing great tragedy. The upside is that religion provides meaning to everything. The downside is it ascribes it to you. If you’re an outlier, there’s no way for you to question what’s going on. A good example of this is that in more traditional cultures that have stron…

Joyless Primaries Grind On

By Joanna Brooks

…g, highly observant LDS father. My friend described a brief, tension-laden phone call between father and son, wedged into a few free minutes after a church meeting. “Now, I’m going to serve my family,” said the father, bringing the call to a close. “Because that’s what I do.” And Mitt Romney is going to serve his country. Because that’s what he does. Like it or not. That joyless put-your-shoulder-to-the-wheel tenacity is setting the tone for the G…

Pro-Gay Marriage Mormon Keeps Faith Despite Church Pressure

By Joanna Brooks

…and within days an official at LDS Church headquarters placed a concerned phone call to Melanie S.’s local clergy. Three times her bishop met with Melanie to discuss the video. Because she had affiliated with “Mormons for Marriage,” he questioned whether or not Melanie and her husband should be allowed to keep their temple recommends—certificates that allow the most worthy and devoted Mormons to participate in the faith’s sacred temple rites. Nor…

Mother (Nature) Will Eat You: Lars von Trier’s Antichrist

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…m Festival, along with about 700 other attendees. I wish I had their phone numbers; even the disgusted dozens who walked out halfway through. I’d like to call them at 3:00 a.m. and ask what they are thinking about, what they are dreaming, if indeed they are sleeping. I need some therapy. This is one messed-up film. The beauty of Antichrist is in distinct contrast to many of von Trier’s previous films. From the early 1990s until now, his films have…

Battling for the Soul of the Democratic Party

By Sarah Posner

…s facility for framing morally complex issues in an ecumenically spiritual way. Who’s to say that the frequent churchgoers responded to “God-talk” or religious outreach, as opposed to the candidate’s way of speaking which so clearly distinguished him from the hairsplitting, technocratic Kerry, whose defeat was frequently blamed on a reluctance to talk about his Catholicism? Regardless of the unproven electoral benefits of Democrats flaunting faith…

Why Antisemitism is an Insufficient (and Risky) Explanation for Hamas’s October 7 Attack on Israel

By Shane Burley

…that may be frightening, but not illogical, or even unique. To explain it away as antisemitism would, by its very nature, be to inject a lack of political sensibility into the action and limit the efficacy of any response by operating on a faulty picture of the world. Such an explanation is not reflected in Hamas’s choices, no matter what individuals in their camp believe. So why do we call it antisemitism? There are two primary reasons why these…

Shukr: Gratitude

By Amina Wadud

…ol made me a beneficiary, I have the means to make hajj this year. So in a way, this hajj is not only because of her death, it is for her. I want to stand on Arafat in gratitude to Allah for having been her sister and for those last four years of her life which we shared so intimately like we never got a chance to before. By the time my sister was born I was already living away from my family for academic purposes and never really had a chance to…

We Declare You Restored: How Christian ‘Forgiveness’ is Deployed to Enable Abuse and Corruption

By Greg Carey

…ign as head coach after discovering he’d been using his school-issued cell phone to call an escort service. Freeze was hired the following year by Liberty University, where he coached until he left for Auburn, just weeks after the announcement that his contract had been extended through 2030. Just this summer, Freeze contacted a former Liberty student, one of among 20 who’d taken legal action against Liberty for failing to pursue their sexual assa…

Qaddafi Dies; Should it Matter How?

By Haroon Moghul

…ould also tremble at any tendency in their direction. I felt uneasy by the way Saddam was executed, at the rushed trial, the incompleteness of the charges he faced, the willingness to use violence to end the rule of a very violent man. And, of course, at the vulgar, unnecessary, and unacceptable spectacle of a hanging captured on a cell phone. If there is something that should distinguish us from those dictators who have corrupted our world, it mu…