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‘Anti-Romeo’ Vigilante Squads Target Men Suspected Of Being Gay; More in the Global LGBT Recap

…married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The Lutheran Evangelical Church has decreed that priests are not permitted to marry same-sex couples and some bishops warned that those who do would face “consequences.” From a March 1 story: In spite of the church rulin…

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Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

…g at a time when the church built more temples than ever before. Under the direction of Gordon B. Hinkley, who authorized a smaller, less expensive temple design, Sorenson oversaw the dedication of 71 temples between 1998 and 2005. These included three at historic sites: the Palmyra New York Temple, the Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple, and the Nauvoo Illinois Temple, whose re-construction Sorenson called “one of the great spiritual experiences of…

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Breaking Up with God: I Didn’t Lose My Faith, I Left It

…e.” What alternative title would you give the book? I love the title of my book. It’s my best title yet, I think. I write in the preface about my hesitation to figure my relationship with God as a love relationship. It seemed simultaneously so medieval-mystic, so patriarchal, so oedipal that it made me cringe. Calling it a break-up also meant I had to come out: I had to admit to myself and to the rest of the world that the God I’d been dating was…

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From Organized Religion to Organizing Religion: Brian D. McLaren Wants Christians to Be Better

…a new love-centered Christian orientation (note the silhouette of birds in flight on the book jacket), McLaren also speaks of conversion, and I read the book more through the conversion lens (I’m not sure that the migration metaphor works as well as the author hoped it might). The tone throughout is warm and engaging, and the book is filled with telling anecdotes. But McLaren is never less than a master teacher with a solid lesson plan. He moves,…

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Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why Now?

…ion by joining other denominations or leaving Christianity altogether. The number of priests and nuns was at an all-time low even before the recent sexual scandals, and the number of self-identified Catholics world-wide keeps declining. Many of those who remain in the Church ignore standard doctrines and believe what they want. How many Catholics disobey Church rules? About as many as the angels dancing on a pinhead. Believers know that Jesus prom…

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An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

…it up with blinking lights, which give it an even more translucent aspect, directing us away from its massiveness—which, and I do not know if this is intentional or not, echoes other Islamicate structures of the past—and conveying softness. There’s a new Donald Trump development in Chicago which appears to copy the style of the Burj Khalifa, but appears to be the worst architectural xerox copy job in history—the same firm built both buildings, sta…

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The War Within: Religion and Our Tangled Relationship with Our Bodies

…ly, that no body is good enough. What alternative title would you give the book? Thank you for this question! I appreciate it because after the book came out, I started thinking that perhaps I should have given it a title that does a better job capturing the critique the book makes (about religious/cultural sources of body shame), rather than naming the problem in the title (i.e., the problem that our culture encourages us to view unconventional b…

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Rage Against the New Age Machine: Three Days at the Osho International Meditation Resort

…nstitutions and spiritual movements need money. I’ve paid for High Holiday tickets, passed the plate at church, and dropped bills into the basket at yoga class. But Osho’s opacity and its denial of the obvious (robes and shampoos, wine and brownies, books and videos were all moneymakers) bothered me. My fuming was worthless. Orientation still started 45 minutes late. My students and I, packed into a classroom with 20 other guests, were led through…

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Is There Hope for a Truly Progressive Evangelicalism? An Interview with Deborah Jian Lee

…that today the majority of Christians are pro-LGBTQ. Anecdotally, since my book has come out a number of pastors and Christian leaders of major evangelical organizations have reached out to me because this movement has prompted them to become LGBTQ-affirming and they are grappling with how to live out their convictions in a community so divided on this subject. We’re on the brink of something big that could change everything. Of all the individual…

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Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

…is time, her questions were more nuanced. She wants to read Barack Obama’s book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, which is frequently referenced in the movie. She really wants to read George Obama’s book, Homeland: An Extraordinary Story of Hope and Survival. She’d like to understand more about race relations, colonialism, corporate welfare policies, the American political system, and how all of these impact our environment….

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