Reading Time: 3 minutes After massive resources have been spent trying to assess spiritual fitness in the military, scholars now admit it is not a meaningful concept.
Spirituality & Ritual
Posted inCulture
This pastor wants you to get high and find Jesus
Reading Time: 2 minutes Winter solstice, spring equinox, virgin birth, holiday trees, morality—all examples of things that predate Christianity but have been taken over, adopted, or encroached upon by Christians. Guess what… they’re not quite finished yet. Pastor Craig Gross, once known as the “porn pastor” who founded an anti-pornography church called XXX Church, has his sights set on […]
Posted inLGBTQ
Oscar Wilde’s ‘Confraternity of the Faithless’
Reading Time: 6 minutes It is sad – one half of the world does not believe in God and the other half does not believe in me. — OSCAR WILDE On the 7th of July in 1896, Anglo-Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde was incarcerated at Reading Prison for “gross indecency”—what would now be simply described as gay sex. He […]
Posted inDeep Dive
The Allentown ‘Black Mass’ of 1985
Reading Time: 4 minutes When The Satanic Temple (TST) brought its first annual SatanCon to Scottsdale, Arizona last week, many detractors said they were going to perform a black mass and (through whatever supernatural mechanism) bring harm to the city. Black masses aren’t really a thing People have been doing Satanic rituals like the ones done by TST and […]
Posted inCulture
SatanCon 0: The truth laid bare
Reading Time: 3 minutes SatanCon 0 was a historic event. In my vocation, it is exceedingly rare to be a party to such an occasion. Inside the hotel grounds and convention, everything was entirely pleasant and jovial. Many of the attendees were reuniting with good friends they hadn’t seen in almost a decade. Others had been online friends for […]
Posted inSpirituality & Ritual
A Catholic priest resigned in an absurd scandal involving invalid baptisms
Reading Time: 3 minutes Father Andres Arango said “We baptize” instead of “I baptize” when performing the ritual, and that grave mistake cost him his job.
Posted inSpirituality & Ritual
Anxiety and fear fuels religion’s enduring power
Reading Time: 5 minutes In my childhood and youth, I was often reminded that Christianity had nothing whatsoever to do with superstition. In the back of my mind, by my teens at least, I went along with the traditions of my Anglican “tribal” community but found difficulty in identifying a borderline between beliefs accepted in my own, or any […]
Posted inSpirituality & Ritual
Why popular Christmas songs don’t mention Jesus
Reading Time: 6 minutes I can understand why Christians try so hard to claim a monopoly over Christmas: nothing about the holiday really speaks to Christianity. No, Christmas speaks to something much, much better.
Posted inSpirituality & Ritual
Crystal clutchers and Bible thumpers: Birds of a feather
Reading Time: 4 minutes An unsettling CBS News article I read recently—“How conspiracy theories ‘infiltrated’ the wellness community”—reminded me of the inherent kinship between such seemingly divergent believers as, say, crystal clutchers and Bible thumpers. Profound truths and transformative powers are widely and loudly proclaimed, without solid evidence, for both New Age-y silliness (crystals) and ancient texts (The Good […]
Posted inSpirituality & Ritual
How secular rituals can give our lives meaning: An interview with Sasha Sagan
Reading Time: 6 minutes The late astronomer Carl Sagan once wrote in his book Contact, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” It’s only fitting, then, that his daughter Sasha Sagan has carried on his legacy with her own book focusing on secular rituals that provide meaning in our lives. In this exclusive […]