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Mormons Declare Same-Sex Marriage Apostasy, Deny Baptism to Children of Same-Sex Couples; Colombian Court OKs Adoption Over Church Objections; Franklin Graham Praises Putin’s Anti-Gay Policies; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…a condition of joining a zone of countires that allows visa- and passport-free travel. Poroshenko’s government was dealt another blow when a member of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s own party denounced the bill in a passionate back-bench address. “As a country with a thousand-year-old Christian history, we simply cannot allow this,” lawmaker Pavlo Unguryan said. “Today, a special status for sexual minorities is simply unacceptable.” Scotland:…

The Christian Roots of the New Age: The Aquarian Gospel

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…lsewhere. What makes that idea different in the The Aquarian Gospel is the free and almost casual borrowing from every religious tradition known to Levi Dowling, the frank sense that all religions aim at the same essential truths and that what the Veda said first, Jesus said conclusively. The inhabitants of the Age of Aquarius just so happen to be especially ready for the revelation. There is a surprising degree of self-congratulation and a brash…

Time for Jews to Abandon the Old Foundation Myth of Israel?

By Ira Chernus

…he Palestinians get no part of Jerusalem, no hint of a right of return, no freeze on settlements, and a vaguely defined state at some future date, but with no army, no control of their air space, no right to sign treaties unless Israel approves, and (it would seem) other unspecified limitations to be dictated by Israel as negotiations proceed. Of course Netanyahu knows full well that Israel can show its vaunted strength only as long as the United…

Paul Ryan Is Like Jesus, But It’s Not What You Think

By Sarah Posner

…arket economics. One of the best examples is the Rev. Robert Sirico of the free market Acton Institute, who released a video attempting to defend his views against Evangelii Gaudium. Best “who, me?” line: “Who is advocating a market without regulations, without law?” On the Eternal Word Television Network program The World Over last week, Bishop Robert Morlino, the bishop of Madison, Wisconsin, discussed a portion of Evangelii Gaudium in which the…

I Always Knew Santa Was Make-Believe: A Retired Pastor on Losing Her Faith

By Anne Grant

…Bush declared that he had to invade Iraq because God wanted to set people free. I paced our empty church and told the President: “You just cut my umbilical cord to Christianity.” I had no idea what that meant. If President Bush was like a midwife, cutting my connection to those lifelong beliefs, then what new life was being born? Years later, Phil reminded me that someone else had freed us from our theological assumptions in a far more generous a…

Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

By Samuel Biagetti

…on, but it’s hard to know what else to call it. Such misrepresentations of Freemasonry tend to reinforce the organization’s self-image as a benevolent and admirable society—powerful, yet harmless, like a friendly giant. Brown stresses their inclusiveness and tolerance, even to the point of fallacy. At one point Langdon is rescued by an African-American man who is a thirty-third degree Mason of the Scottish Rite and a lodge brother of Peter Solomon…

Trump’s Muslim Ban and the History of Stolen Citizenship in America

By Hussein Rashid and Murali Balaji

…a massive expropriation of wealth from each of these communities, as being free and white was tied to land-owning, or capital. To remove any category was to remove citizenship and to steal wealth. Racism has always been profitable, from slavery to Jim Crow—this theft of citizenship and capital simply followed a well-established pattern. The difference between the 1920s and the 2010s is that in the past, racism was out in the open. This administrat…

Trump’s SOTU Address Was a Christian Nationalist Dog Whistle

By Andrew L. Seidel

…ludes the following line (emphases mine): In reaffirming our heritage as a free nation, we must remember that America has always been a Christian nation. Time magazine’s transcript, meanwhile, reflects what the president actually said: In reaffirming our heritage as a free Nation, we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation. It’s entirely possible that the speech wasn’t deliberately edited; that Trump, who’s famous for ad-libbi…

Democratic Egypt Tests a Divided Israel

By Shaul Magid

…to democracy. And yet, in Israel democracy still rules, the press is still free, the courts still function, and human rights is still a value in principle—if not always in practice. Part of the belief in democracy is that it is by nature a moderating force (one can even see this with Hezbollah in Lebanon). We cannot support democratic change contingent on what democracy will bring; even if it may not serve our interests in the short run, it’s stil…

Is New Park51 Advisor Any Better Than Feisal Abdul-Rauf?

By Hussein Rashid

…d be jailed. A HuffPo news item gives more detail, saying that a person is free to leave Islam without harassment, and should only be jailed if they preach to others that they should leave Islam. (I am relying on second-hand reports as Adhami has numerous lectures and there is no direct link to what the reporters are referring to). For a traditionalist scholar like Adhami, this statement is fairly important. He is moving the question of apostasy f…