Search for "Spirit Airlines 1 800-299-7264 Cancel Reservation Number"

The Polite Islamophobia of the Intellectual

By Bruce B. Lawrence

…t More Widely in al-Ghazali… Berman’s book begins with an epigraph from the 11th century Iraqi doyen of religious sciences, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, arguably the most prominent premodern Muslim intellectual. Evoking the human search for the divine as “the quest for man’s chiefest bliss,” the quote sets the stage for his blistering, unrelenting excoriation of Tariq Ramadan which, as an earlier Times review put it, is “essentially a booklong polemic ag…

‘Pro-Life’ Theater, Open White Nationalism, and Virility Fear — Day 3 of NatCon

By Annika Brockschmidt and Ben Lorber

…assure voters put off by the draconian policies the GOP calls “pro-life.” A 19th century law and 1950s century gender roles Later on, Katy Talento, a health advisor in the Trump White House who says abortion is “disgusting, it’s against every woman’s desire,” echoed a Project 2025 plan to use the Comstock Act, an obscure 19th century law which bans the sending of “obscene materials” via the post office to ban abortion nationwide. “It’s not hard to…

Eulogy, Corrected: Father Matthew Came Out as Gay 30 Years Earlier

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…y and the Gift of Gay.” “Flute Solo” had been in informal circulation since 1973 when it was written. Thus, he was 58 years old when he made public this affirmation of faith. On closer reading, I note that you had pegged this “coming out” at ninety. One might argue that this earlier date is the more profound since, although he was a mature monk and priest, he had many years to go in service to his vocation (37, to be precise). What I most apprecia…

Southern Baptists Embrace Minorities, but Not Gays

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…make such a move, but it begs the question of why it took the denomination 150 years to repent of its racism in the first place. A group of gay and lesbian activists is asking the SBC to step up its glacial pace on apologies and skip the next 150 years and get on with the business of apologizing to them now. A petition started by several organizations including the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, Believe OutLoud, Faith in America…

Why Nobody Should Be Surprised That Pope Francis Made Problematic Comments About Judaism — And That He Remains Unapologetic

By Ilan Benattar

…promulgation of Nostra Aetate (“Our Time”) by the Second Vatican Council in 1965 was spurred in large part by criticism of official Vatican neutrality during World War II. At the time, it was hailed as a forward-thinking document which attested to deep introspection on the part of the Church. Nostra Aetate forms the additional reason why Pope Francis’s comments were surprising to so many, from scholars to Catholic theologians to Jewish leaders. We…

What Pence and Kaine Reveal About Divides in Catholicism

By Patricia Miller

…edge issue. But even before John Paul, the U.S. bishops’ conference had, in 1976, meddled in electoral politics when they pronounced themselves “encouraged” by Gerald Ford’s abortion views while they were “disappointed” by Carter’s. The U.S. bishops’ conference nevertheless retained a significant center-left faction throughout the 1980s. These bishops continued to emphasize social justice concerns like the abuses of capitalism and militarism in Ce…

Marriage is for Everybody, Says Former Anti-Gay Evangelical

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…this arena where we can totally give ourselves to another person in body, spirit, and life and commitment and grow in that total gift of self which winds up being an image of Jesus’ total gift of himself for us. Critics say that marriage is more than that, though. What about procreation? The Bible consistently portrays procreation as a blessing from God and a gift, but there is no sense that it is essential for a marriage to be valid. Nowhere in…

Why Virginia Governor’s ‘God is Everywhere’ Statement isn’t a Simple Answer to Those Who Want to Worship Together

By Karen E. Park

…ious tradition which is shamanistic and animistic. In Hmong cosmology, the spiritual world and the material world are linked in complex ways, and the shaman works on behalf of the community to restore health, harmony, and to keep good relations with the ancestors (for an excellent documentary on a Hmong shaman from Appleton named Paja Thao see The Split Horn.) Hmong funerals, at which the entire community gathers to help the soul of the deceased p…

Star Trek: Politics Anti-Matters

By Nathan Schneider

…onged meditations on repression. It began, actually, in the show’s original 1966 pilot, in which the character Number One (played by creator Gene Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett) showed none of the emotional hysteria expected of onscreen women at the time. Deemed too racy by the network, her demeanor was given to Spock, the half-Vulcan who spent the next three years’ worth of episodes struggling to stay logical amid the raging passions of his fr…

‘Enchanted New York’ Offers a Journey Through the City’s Magical History — With Some Mystifying Oversights

By Gordon Haber

…ys and everywhere rules over the dense” (his italics). According to Dann, “spirit is the superior agent, so all activity that works directly with spiritual forces and beings is inherently magical.” With such a vague definition, it’s not surprising that the author sees Manhattan as swimming in magic. He starts his journey with George Washington’s 1789 inauguration at Federal Hall. Apparently the first president himself was a magical actor with his…