Search for "cheap airline tickets tucson to kansas city bargain fare phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Pittsburgh Paradox: A City Haunted by God and Steel

By Ed Simon

…uthern and Eastern European immigrants brought a Catholicism that ties the city with New York City and Boston as per capita the most Catholic in the country; how the Great Migration of African Americans brought new faith traditions; how it became home to one of the largest urban Jewish communities; and how Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists have added to the region’s spiritual diversity. Something else cuts across denominational lines, however, becaus…

The Theology of Westboro: The “World’s Meanest Church” Is More Than Picket Signs

By Rebecca Barrett-Fox

…on the local level, and Topeka, Kansas, where the church is located, is a city of over 125,000 people—not a big city but also not a rural backwater. Also only one church member—founding pastor Fred Phelps, who died over a year ago—was from the South. Our decision to depict anti-LGBT bigots using these stereotypes reveals some larger cultural prejudices. We’re very comfortable assuming that people like this are bigots and bullies, and it’s harder…

The Apocalypse Is Upon Us, Ted Cruz Endorsement Edition

By Sarah Posner

…d the grandeur of it all,” said Kendall Beachey, who moved from Indiana to Kansas City in 2008, abandoning his college studies to become an IHOP intern. He ended up staying, and graduated in 2012 from IHOPU, which, according to promotional materials, trains “forerunner messengers” to stand against “liberal theology,” “radical Islam,” and “the mediocre expression of Christianity.” The allure of Bickle’s teaching, said Beachey, is that his followers…

Bishop Finn-dicted For Protecting Pedophile Priest

By Anthea Butler

Kansas City Bishop Robert W. Finn was indicted along with the Diocese of Kansas City on Friday for failure to report an egregious case of child abuse. The misdemeanor indictment involves Finn’s protection of a pedophile priest, Father Shawn Ratigan, who kept child pornography on his computer. Ratigan was allowed to continue priestly duties throughout the diocese, including contact with children, even though hundreds of photographs of children wer…

Palin Cries ‘Blood Libel’: Can Words Harm Us?

By Susannah Heschel

…rah Palin would so vociferously insist that language played no role in the Tucson shootings. The angry, sometimes violent, rhetoric and imagery could not have influenced Jared Lee Loughner, claimed Palin in a preemptive ploy for innocence. Toward the end of the video, to emphasize her argument that language plays no role in influencing action, she threw in the phrase “blood libel”: Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. Especially withi…

Dorito & Pepsi Eucharist, Hate-Pastor Smackdown, and Egyptian Muslims Shield Christians

By Michael J. Altman

…mist attacks. A “community healing” mass was held at St. Odiilia Church in Tucson, Arizona. It was the church where the 9-year-old shooting victim, Christina Green, had her first communion. A group of Trappist monks from Iowa built, engraved, and blessed a handmade casket for Green. The monks specialize in hand-crafting caskets “with reverence for nature.” Not to be outdone by compassionate monks, the hateful folks at Westboro Baptist Church annou…

“You’ve Never Met a Muslim”

By Hussein Rashid

…r of Muslims, but it was New York that did that. The city of my birth, the city under attack, was also the city that refused to retreat into cowardice. I have nearly a dozen stories of people who said to me, in either words or deeds, that if you are a New Yorker, it does not matter your faith; come and grieve with us. I traveled the country giving talks about Muslims after 9/11, but the safest, warmest, and most trusting I ever felt was in New Yor…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…

What Should Truly Disturb Us About Game of Thrones’ Child Sacrifice

By Jodi Eichler-Levine

…up by me as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30-31) God keeps his end of the bargain, but when Jephthah returns home, “there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing.” He rends his clothes in mourning, but also engages in some heavy-duty victim blaming: “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low … for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” She answers him: “My father, if you have opene…

What Religion Looks Like, Wisconsin Edition

By Kim Bobo

…all public and private employees and employers to organize for collective bargaining into unions and other groups of their own choosing. Further, we support the right of both parties to protection in so doing and their responsibility to bargain in good faith within the framework of the public interest. In order that the rights of all members of the society may be maintained and promoted, we support innovative bargaining procedures that include re…