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Bill Gates’ Comments on Covid-19 Vaccine Enflame ‘Mark of the Beast’ Worries in Some Christian Circles

By Christopher James Blythe

…lessen the overall sentiment that he has something to do with a Last Days numbering scenario. After all, an effort to provide a global ID is an effort to track world populations even if its intentions are benevolent. While the spread of a vaccine-linked conspiracy theory has been spearheaded via social media and YouTube, there are also proponents among local church leaders and national Christian figures. Ronnie Hampton, cited above, warned his co…

Pious White Reformers and Race, Then and Now

By Peter Laarman

…se of amalgamation suffered a major setback during the 1820s when it was discovered that a couple of natives enrolled at a special mission school in Cornwall, Connecticut, were consorting with, even marrying, local white girls. The school’s managers, led by the redoubtable Lyman Beecher, went ballistic. Meanwhile, the idea of amalgamation between whites and African Americans barely got beyond the conceptual stage, despite the reality that many if…

RDPulpit: Israel in Gaza: Right but not Smart

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

…s are “nothing but” terrorists or that Zionism is nothing but an elaborate scheme for continuing and escalating Western colonialism and imperialism, we must create a climate of discourse in which both sides’ stories are genuinely heard and understood. I’ve done this last part in my book Healing Israel/Palestine (North Atlantic Books, 2003). Yet Israel, as the militarily superior power, ought to take the first steps to end this conflict once and fo…

Wesolowski Sexual Abuse Case a New Approach or Same Old Same Old?

By Mary E. Hunt

…r in the style to which Wesolowski became accustomed. Multiply that by the number of countries where the Vatican has diplomatic relations. I doubt these diplomatic men cook their own meals or wash their own cassocks, no matter how frugal Pope Francis may be. So somebody pays a lot of money to keep this genteel charade in motion. That “somebody” is rank and file Catholics who have little if any say about where their weekly contributions go. Spoiler…

Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

By Chris Stedman

…is bestselling atheist author Sam Harris. The day after the shooting in Wisconsin, Harris published a lengthy blog post decrying Internet trolls; bizarrely, though, he included yet another defense of his position that Muslims should face extra scrutiny at airports. He and I engaged in a back-and-forth about this issue earlier this year after he wrote a post where he first argued that “we should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she…

Record Numbers Voted for More Death and More Racism; Can We Really Just Come Together as a Nation?

By Peter Laarman

…this time—after all of the atrocious and dangerous behavior—a significant number would turn away and vote for a return to conventional presidential leadership. Where are these defectors? As I write this, election boards around the country have already counted the votes of over 67 million people who want more death, more deception, and more openly racist and exclusionary public policies. And a huge number of these voters identify as Christian. And…

Why the Church is Struggling to Hold Onto Millennial Catholics

By Kaya Oakes

…lizing their non-religious peers. Whether groups like FOCUS or Opus Dei or schools like Ave Maria will be able to recruit enough young Catholics to counterbalance the increasing number of Nones, however, is unclear. What is clear, however, is that the more young Catholics start to embrace marriage equality, safe and legal abortion, access to contraception, and the liberal side on many other issues in the culture wars, the more of those same Cathol…

Pope’s US Visit Provokes Intense Attention; New Vatican Book on Man-Woman Complementarity & New Int’l Report on Christian Role Models for LGBT Equality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Posters headlined “Different Families, Same Love” have been sent to every school in Ireland, show “a number of families from different backgrounds – from same-sex parents to single parents, from grandparents raising a child to a childless couple with a dog.” The poster is meant to help teachers create inclusive classrooms and deter bullying. But the conservative Catholic Iona Institute, which led opposition to the marriage equality referendum, is…

Church and State in Japan: The Case of the Yasukuni Shrine

By Mark R. Mullins

…ic and political environment, it is a pleasant diversion to celebrate the Oscar and escape to the theater. Departures, directed by Yojiro Takita, is a film about a down-and-out musician who returns to his small hometown in northern Japan to search for work. The “travel agency” job he thinks he is applying for turns out to be part of the funeral business. Daigo’s wife is so offended by his new line of work that she flees back home to her own family…

Mormonism’s Black Issues

By Joanna Brooks

…father, Noah (Genesis 9:20-27). The Pearl of Great Price, a Mormon book of scripture, described the people of Canaan as being cursed with “blackness” (Moses 7:5-8) and indicated that descendents of Ham and his wife Egyptus were “cursed… as pertaining to the Priesthood” (Abraham 1:21-26). In 1849, Brigham Young declared that “the Lord had cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood,” a position he reaffirmed in a January 16…