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

Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

By Timothy King

…Photo by Cathleen Falsani. The Decline of Christendom Obviously, from the numbers and the tales they tell, American Christianity is hardly experiencing a Renaissance. But the rise of the “nones” does not equal its wide-scale collapse, either. A better description might be that we are witnessing the decline of “Christendom.” In this sense” Christendom” refers to the broader assumptions we imbibe, often without being fully aware, as a result of the…

2017 Around the World: Progress and Persecution For LGBT People

By Peter Montgomery

…to same-sex relationships and indeed I respect them,” she said. “I know a number of people who have entered into them. I am no way homophobic in any respect. “However I believe that can be achieved through civil partnership.” She added: “I believe very strongly that marriage was ordained not just in the Christian faith but in all the [main] faiths of the world… [as being] between a man and a woman.” … The Hon. Cruyff Buckley said he was a Christi…

Obama Caves on (Another) Contraception Exemption

By Patricia Miller

…contraceptive mandate will be small. But imagine a scenario where a larger number of employers seeks to escape a costly mandate, such as equal access to in vitro fertilization procedures for straight and gay couples, for supposedly religious reasons and hundreds flood HHS with generic opt-out letters that don’t identify a specific insurer. Or a future administration that is less dedicated to contraceptive access. It’s not hard to see how the lack…

Dieting, Sex, Jesus: The Body as Moral Battleground

By Lynne Gerber

…me together when I read Marie Griffith’s fantastic book Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity. The book discusses many different moments in the vast and varied American religious practices around food, dieting, and the body, including contemporary evangelical weight loss programs. At the time I didn’t know such things existed. But reading the book made it clear that Christian weight loss was a great way to investigate the mo…

Morality and Marriage Vigilantes and More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…he goal is to reduce emotional trauma for sexual minorities and reduce the number of suicides and rates of substance abuse in that community, he says. Scotland: Anti-LGBT prejudice falls sharply The Scotsman reports that prejudice toward LGBT people has fallen sharply: Analysis of the 2016 Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey by ScotCen, shared with The Scotsman, reveal the proportion of people who say that they would be unhappy if a close relat…

Two Women and a Mosque: A Convert Community Grows in Panama City

By Aliyya Swaby

…ple attend Friday prayer services every week, most of them Indian. But the number of Panamanian converts is rapidly growing. Bhattay said about two or three new converts come to Jama Mosque every week. Six months ago, the mosque began offering classes in Spanish — instead of just in Urdu — to accommodate the growing demand. There is no discrimination in the Muslim community in Panama City, Bhattay said. “Maybe ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, there…

Rick Warren Busts a Gut Over Cultural Revolution

By Rob Shryock

…ng funny without offending someone these days in our PC society etc.” The number of supportive and sometimes racist posts outnumber those who advice caution. I can’t suspect such hideous posts are all from Saddleback membership. I’m sure quite a number are. It’s as disturbing as it is disgusting. Warren commented on Tsang’s article, “Thanks so much for teaching us! It was removed instantly.” However, Warren did not get around to posting a form…

‘Cult’ Is an Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6

By Catherine Wessinger

…election to Joe Biden, nevertheless the QAnon conspiracy outlook remains influential. Subsequent to Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, members of the millennial movement(s) that view him as their savior have reacted in ways that believers in other failed prophecies have reacted. Some have given up their faith in Trump. Trump has rationalized the readily apparent loss of the election by promoting the view that he really did win but the…

Ministries of Presence: A Report from Nepal

By Cathleen Falsani

…them. One morning early on in my Nepalese sojourn, I heard the distinctly flat-accented voices of men from the American Midwest waft up from the street through an open window in my second-floor hotel room. One of the voices belonged to Heuertz, but the others I didn’t recognize. A few moments later, I encountered three big middle-aged guys from Wisconsin with rucksacks strapped to their backs, dressed like a cross between trekkers and constructio…

Religious Practices on Trial in Arizona: The Problem With “Experts”

By Johnny P. Flynn

…alin shared her view that the Obama presidency could shore up sagging poll numbers by invading Iran. Fertility experts have brought us the “Octomom,” and experts on the meaning of the biblical decree to “go forth and multiply” have TV viewers goggle-eyed over the nearly score of Duggar children in Arkansas. In following the Ray story over the past few months, I am amazed at the number of non-Indian sweat lodge experts the media has been able to lo…