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Trump is Helping the Economy… The Apocalypse Economy

By Jonathan Root

…hat the cankerworm has eaten.” The evidence? Bakker is building again. His new complex in rural Missouri, called Morningside, includes RV parking, cottages for rent, cottages for sale, a home for unwed pregnant women, and, at its heart, Grace Street, a near-perfect replica of the kitschy Main Street USA that was once the center of Bakker’s theme park empire. Clearly, someone is sending Bakker some cash—or at least advancing him a loan. These seem…

Istanbul ‘Haven of Sorts’ For LGBT Syrians and Iraqis; Cayman Islands Affirm Marriage Ban with ‘Holy Bible Evidence’; No Room for LGBTs in Malaysia’s ‘Islam-Based’ Human Rights Policy; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…mosexuality has existed for centuries in every society and culture. In the New York Times, Andrew Siddons examines the plight of American Foreign Service officers whose same-sex spouses cannot get long-term visas in countries that do not recognize same-sex couples’ marriages. The story says, that about half of State Department positions “are effectively off-limits for Foreign Service officers who would want to move with their same sex spouses.” Va…

The Christian Roots of the New Age: The Aquarian Gospel

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ecocious twelve year old arguing circles around the Temple priesthood in Jerusalem (Dowling likes that one, naturally, and expands on it in chapter 19 of The Aquarian Gospel). John sets the whole thing in a cosmic framework, telling us first that “the Logos was with God and the Logos was God,” then showing us how Jesus was that Logos, or Word, in the flesh. But what kind of a child was Jesus before all that? What was he up to in the thirty years p…

Gay, Christian, Pagan, Artist: How Matt Morris Defies the Borders of Spiritual Identity

By Jesse James DeConto

…“I’m overwhelmed with thoughts of Jesus,” he blogged, as recounted in the New York Times. “I am just going to give myself over to it, not intellectualize it.” Teo Bishop changed his name back to Matt Morris. Evading the limelight for more than a year, he recently started blogging again, this time as a Christian, under the title Faith and Formation. Though he stepped down from his music ministry at St. Andrew’s All Souls in Portland after only a c…

C Street Scandal, the Media, the Future of the Family: An Interview with Jeff Sharlet

By Bill Berkowitz

…the story to a style reporter. Gail Collins cited my book favorably in the New York Times, but got it wrong. Maureen Dowd pinched the story and got it wrong, too. TV was what mattered. The ones that made a difference, in terms of moving the story along and getting things rolling at the local level around the United States, are surprising: The Rachel Maddow Show, on which I appeared eight times, had a much bigger impact than NBC Nightly News; Rea…

But What About the Parents? New York Times Falls Into the Anti-Trans ‘Parents’ Rights’ Trap

By Chrissy Stroop

…ents something important should be able to muster up the empathy with ease. But apparently that’s too much to ask of The New York Times….

Racial Justice Will Be Top Priority for New Prez of the United Church of Christ

By Frederick Clarkson

…hings about circumcision and the law being a curse angered James and the Jerusalem Council to the point that they denounced him and his teachings. The first Jerusalem Council, recorded in Chapter 11 of the Acts of the Apostles, tells the story of a church divided over how far the limits of established orthodoxy could spread. New ideas stretch old thinkers to the point of condemnation, excommunication—and sometimes worse. Same as it ever was. I am…

RDBook: Whither the Religious Left?

By Bill Berkowitz

…per cables to start a necessary conversation.“ Contributors include former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges; Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State; Peter Laarman, head of Progressive Christians Uniting; Carlton Veazey, president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (and a member of RD’s Advisory Council), Debra Haffner, director of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality…

Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

By Michael Schulson

…e romance with Eastern spirituality,” Michelle Goldberg wrote last year on newyorker.com. “For well over a century,” she continued, “business-minded Americans have been transforming Hindu and Buddhist contemplative practices into an unlikely prosperity gospel.” Prosperity gospels and contemporary mindfulness practice share a profound belief in the power of the mind. Redirect your faith, prosperity gospel preachers claim, and you will be rewarded w…

Hungarian Mayor Wants to Import White Christians, Ban Muslims & LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…le Genital Mutilation. US-based anti-LGBT activist Brian Brown traveled to Russia to build support for his new International Organization for the Family and its recently launched manifesto. In Politico, Casey Michel examines the evolution of the relationship between Russian social conservatives and the American Religious Right during Putin’s reign. Kindle Magazine’s February 2017 issue is devoted to the discussion of terrorism perpetrated in the n…