Search for "cheap airline ticket one way phone number 1-800-299-7264"

You Are Being Organized by Something: 10 Questions for Kathryn Lofton on Consuming Religion

By Kathryn Lofton

…he question first the way I think we tend to speak, and then answer it the way I think is true. What we say: I am always working on several things at once. Right now, I am continuing a longstanding exploration of Bob Dylan, his fandom, and his artistic iconicity; I am thinking about the queer history of American church organ manufacture; and I am working on a collection tentatively titled Sensitive People. In it, I’m thinking about the emergence o…

Among the Problems with Trump’s Proposed Ban: Who is a Muslim?

By Michael Schulson

…Gotanda said, “I think Obama is the first Asian-American president, in the way that Bill Clinton was the first black president. Obama’s personal history, the way he’s been treated, and the whole birther movement….only makes sense if you see it as sort of racialized in the Asian-American foreignness kind of way.” Gotanda, though, does see something new in Trump’s proposal. “What’s new is this kind of religious based—nominally religious based—exclus…

Is America Willing to Be Freed from Its Demons?

By Willie James Jennings

…r—including police officers—keeps me from hate. But that temptation to hate and kill is profoundly present to us all at this moment. The demons tempt us to violence, but there has always been a way to resist that temptation. We must follow the way of a God who will not release us either to our demons or to our despair….

Did Jackie Speier Shatter “Common Ground”?

By Sarah Posner

…ervices, including, yes, safe and legal abortion. The only statement Third Way could muster on last week’s House vote on Title X was that it was “divisive.” The Third Way press release didn’t mention Planned Parenthood, or its role in doing the daily work of Third Way’s once-vaunted “abortion reduction” strategy. The common grounders also refused to acknowledge that women make moral choices when they decide whether to continue or terminate a pregn…

Capricology: Tattoos, Blood, Cyber-Dating

By Anthea Butler

…izing the potential of what he has created. Now that we are just about halfway through the season, it is worth noting that Ron Moore and company have taken a slow, steady arc to reveal what is in store. Unlike Battlestar Galactica which started furiously, fraught, and with a big bang, Caprica’s slow steady progress will hopefully give way to defining plot twists, turns, and a more coherent explication of just what is at stake in creating this hybr…

Will a New Dawkins Foundation-Sponsored App Help Atheists Talk to Believers?

By Alana Massey

…r otherwise potentially difficult to talk to, the Atheos app steers users away from engaging with them. The emphases on inquiry, diplomacy, and de-escalation are all admirable, but as noted earlier the tone is not always free of condescension. Writing realistic dialogue for hypothetical conversations is a very particular skill, and several of the scenarios reflect a deep disdain for believers. At times, the app casts believers as belligerent doofu…

“Debt” is a Spiritual Word

By Donna Schaper

…the current cacophonic repetition of the word, “economy.” Either way, I always thought the word “debt” was a spiritual word. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray for the forgiveness of our debts, as we forgive our debtors. I know some congregations say “trespasses” and others say “sins.” Where I come from, we always said “debts.” It meant something different from what the landlord did when he knocked on our door, asking for the rent. He wanted money. The…

Let Us Now Praise Wealthy Men? Structural Poverty, Religiously (Re)Considered

By Peter Laarman

…litics, far fewer of them realize how the power of money shapes us all the way to the core—shapes the way we think, shapes our innermost hopes and dreams, shapes even our faith. That’s where the ultimate power of money rests, and that is where an awakened resistance has yet to develop. One point you always stress in your work is that everyday workers are much more than the sum total of their wages as units of production. You often speak of working…

The Surprisingly Short History of Popular Yoga

By Andrea R. Jain and Michelle Goldberg

…unct of urban, cosmopolitan female life. She sometimes presented yoga as a way for women to deal with the many competing demands that were placed on them, a way to help them sort out their own identities and, if necessary, reinvent themselves. It’s strange and improbable that these techniques associated with medieval Indian ascetics have become a crucial support system for elite 21st century women. In addition to recounting Indra Devi’s wild life,…

Reexamining the Shaky Theology That Gives Humans ‘Dominion’ Over All Creation

By Timothy Beal

…chaotic (tohu vabohu) earth that God just created from nothing. Taken this way, then, we imagine an absolute beginning, with God creating heaven and earth from nothing. Which is how the Greek and Latin translations took it. But if you read this first word as a verb, as most Hebrew biblical scholars argue you should, then the bet modifies that verb, and you get something like “when began.” That leads to a translation something like, “When God began…