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

A Twisted Love Story: How American Evangelicals Helped Make Putin’s Russia and How Russia Became the Darling of the American Right

By Katherine Kelaidis

…the more extreme. Among the less extreme consequences was that the rising number of conservative American Christians who identified as Orthodox started to soften opinions and change American rightwing perceptions of Russia. Arguably, what this influx of American evangelicals into American Orthodox churches did was create a bridge over which American evangelicals in Russia were able to cross. An alliance began to take root which shaped Russia and…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Reversal on Contraception

By Patricia Miller

…g on birth control. In 1964, another budding theologian named Rosemary Radford Ruether published an article entitled “A Catholic Mother Tells: Why I Believe in Birth Control” in the Saturday Evening Post, bringing the issue straight into the living rooms of Main Street America. Ruether took the church to task for failing to acknowledge that in modern marriages couples didn’t have sex just for the purpose of having children. She also revealed what…

LGBT Christians Respond to Southern Baptists’ Call For Kindness, Understanding

By Mike Greer

…dozen LGBT Christians and LGBT advocates did meet privately with the same number of conference participants for dialogue on Monday evening, though they agreed that they wouldn’t comment about it afterward. In addition, Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, met privately and off-the-record with Al Mohler during the conference. ThinkProgress also interacted with clergy and laity in those public sessions. It will be fascinating to see…

Punks vs. Monks: Rockers Speak Out Against Genocide in Myanmar

By M. Sophia Newman

…violence appears to have been incited by Buddhist monks. The Rohingya, who number almost one million, have been denied citizenship since 1982 and subjected to denials of the rights to travel, marry and have children. The discrimination appears rooted in the ethnic group’s Muslim faith, which makes them a tiny minority in the majority-Buddhist nation. The most notable participants in the violence are a movement of Buddhist monks called “969”. The…

New Research Links Spiritual-Not-Religious to Mental Disorder

By Elizabeth Drescher

…e off-putting to people already predisposed to or suffering from mental disorders. The “organization”—liturgical, ideological, social—in organized religion may itself render the worship experience psychologically difficult even for those who might wish to participate. In this light seems something of a stretch to suggest that disengagement with organized religion causes mental health difficulties. Someone with an obsessive-compulsive disorder may…

The Harlot Shall Be Burned with Fire: Biblical Literalism in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By Sarah Sentilles

…ty, and Mass Media” students to watch one hour of television, to count the number of dead bodies they saw, and to keep track of who those bodies belonged to. On television, the dead bodies were women’s; on the evening news, they were the bodies of people from other countries, and usually they weren’t white. Judith Butler argues in Precarious Life that whose dead bodies we are allowed to see, and whose remain hidden, tell us something about which l…

The “Mormon Moment” Yields… Not So Much

By Joanna Brooks

…ffering a positive word like “good,” or “honest,” increased from 18% in 2011 to 24% in 2012. All of these gains were concentrated among Republicans voting for Romney, naturally. Still, the number one word survey participants associated with Mormons? “Cult.” And fully 27% of survey respondents still have no idea what religion Mitt Romney is….

White Evangelical Leaders Already Distancing Themselves from the “81-Percenters”

By Neil J. Young

…olls indicated that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. That number represented a shocking measure given who Donald Trump is. But it also fit squarely with the patterns of white evangelical support for Republican presidential candidates in all recent elections. Still, some evangelical leaders are challenging these findings. “No, the Majority of American Evangelicals Did Not Vote for Trump,” reads the headline of an article published…

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…

If You Liked The Martian You’ll Love These 3 Sci-Fi Shorts

By Andrew Aghapour

…. Luckily, Weir offers a treasure trove of short stories on his website, a number of which break with The Martian’s goal of approximating reality, grappling instead with some of the same issues that we discuss here at The Cubit. Without further ado, here are the top three short stories for anyone jonesing for more Weir: Bored World. The story of a mischievous, trans-dimensional plane of existence. Is this a god, or the story of sci-fi itself? Anti…