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Society

Confessions Of A Protestant Minister, Mixing Christianity With Psychedelics

Hunt Priest, a former Episcopal pastor from Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, shares how a psychedelic experience deepened his faith and inspired him to start a Christian organization exploring the healing and spiritual potential of psychedelics.

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In The News

Blind Eye To Church Bombings? Syrian Christians Don’t Trust The Nation’s New Islamic Leaders

Even before last Sunday’s suicide bombing of a Damascus church, many Syrian Christians harbored doubts if the government that overthrew the Assad regime would protect them. Amid this growing sense of isolation, the question remains open: Is there truly a place for everyone in Syria?

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Geopolitics In The News Society The Next Pope

On Eve Of The Conclave, An Italian Tally Of Cardinals Sees Growing Risk Of A Deadlock

Each cardinal brings strengths and weaknesses, but a Vatican insider tells La Stampa that it is now clear: more time is needed.

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Society

Notre-Dame Was Saved — But France Has 8,000 Other Churches Falling Apart

France’s churches are a rich religious heritage that, unlike other European countries, largely belong to the national or local governments. But with strained budgets and years of neglect, keeping these historic churches standing has become a daunting and costly struggle.

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Society

Egypt’s Tales Of Adultery, Blackmail And Christian Men Desperately Seeking Divorce

Reports are spreading of Coptic Orthodox Christian men in Egypt who have been trying to trap their wives in compromising situations to force them to give up all their legal entitlements as required by the Church in order to obtain a divorce.

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This Happened

This Happened — August 26: Birth Of Mother Teresa

Updated Aug. 26, 2024 at 11:20 am Mother Teresa was born on this day in 1910. Who was Mother Theresa? Mother Teresa, born as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje (now North Macedonia), was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation that provided care and assistance to […]

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This Happened

This Happened — April 24: Armenian Genocide Began

Updated April 24, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. The Armenian genocide began on this day in 1915, when the Ottoman government arrested and deported hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople (now Istanbul). What led to the start of the Armenian genocide? The Ottoman government had long been hostile towards the Armenian population, who […]

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Ideas Society

Should Christians Be Scared Of Horror Movies?

Horror films have a complicated and rich history with christian themes and influences, but how healthy is it for audiences watching?

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Ideas Society

A Brazilian Plea For Science, Religious Freedom And The Right To Samba As You Wish

An evangelic group has threatened to take legal action against a samba school because of its mix of religious iconography at the 2023 Carnival festivities. A Brazilian secular institute has a response.

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In The News

Probe Finds Brazil’s Religious Homeschooling Groups Encourage Corporal Punishment

As Brazil prepares to legalize homeschooling — a campaign promise that President Bolsonaro hopes to fulfill before October’s elections — a disturbing investigation by openDemocracy and Agência Pública finds that Brazil’s religious homeschooling groups, supported by ultraconservative U.S. associations, are giving parents instructions on how to spank their children while dodging the law.

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In The News

When The Nazis Stole Christmas

Both the Nazis and East German Communist Party tried to use Christmas for their own ends, and distance it from its Christian meaning. Writer and historian Karl-Heinz Göttert looks at the attempts to hijack Christmas throughout German history, and why it matters today.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Why Evangelical Christians Keep Betting On Trump

And why he’ll never be the savior they’re looking for…

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In The News

Anba Makarios, Coptic Bishop’s Tough Line On Egypt’s Islamist Violence

MINYA — Anba Makarios, a bishop in the governorate with Egypt’s highest number of violent sectarian incidents, does not employ the usual appeasing rhetoric of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox church. He is a man who makes his voice heard but avoids being seen, expressing himself through official statements and brief phone calls to television talk shows. […]

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In The News

Islamists Target Christian Converts In German Refugee Centers

Islamists are known to target apostates. For the growing number of Muslim arrivals in Germany, a minority of those who have converted to Christianity say they are subject to attack.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics Ideas

On Sin And Individualism, Why Most Evangelicals Oppose Gun Control

The shooting at a Southern Baptist church in Texas is believed to be the worst such shooting at a church in modern U.S. history. Several prominent Southern Baptist pastors have President Donald Trump’s ear as members of his unofficial evangelical advisory council. Even so, it would be very surprising if Southern Baptists pushed for changes in gun policy, because it hasn’t been a priority for the denomination in decades. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in the country with about 15 million members, has taken up issues like abortion and same-sex marriage at its annual conventions, but it […]

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In The News

Mindfulness Meets Maria, A Modern Blend Of Buddhism And Christianity

Like many in Argentina, psychiatrist Martín Reynoso was raised Catholic. But as time went on, his approach to the modern world began to involve meditation and mindfulness.

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In The News

Egypt’s Kafkaesque Rules For Christian Marriage

Restrictive and sometimes contradictory rules continue to govern issues of marriage and — heaven forbid — divorce for Egyptian Christians.

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In The News

Good Morning, Mr. Andersen

You will find many statues of the legendary 19th-century local fairy tales author Hans Christian Andersen in his native Denmark. My own little mermaid Cécile was here standing next to what was then one of the most recent ones, installed just two years earlier in the capital. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.

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Geopolitics Society

Turkey Labels Christian Church Website Pornography

DIYARBAKIR — When Aykan Erdemir, a parliamentary member from Turkey’s Republican People’s Party, tried to visit the website of a Christian church located in the country’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir, he was surprised to see that the parliament’s filtering system recognized it as pornography. The preacher of Diyarbakir Protestant church, Ahmet Guvener, said he thought […]

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blog Geopolitics

In Central African Republic, Muslims Blame France

BANGUI — The motorbike stops abruptly. “If the French don’t want to help us, al-Qaeda will,” the teenager shouts before driving away. All around him, this road of the Begoua neighborhood in north Bangui — the Central African Republic’s capital — is covered in bundles full of the belongings of hundreds of people waiting to […]

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Society

Russian Orthodox Patriarch In China Seeking Official Recognition, Global Expansion

Patriarch Kirill is trying to expand Russian Church’s influence in West and East. But Beijing is tricky terrain for religious head.

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Geopolitics

From Saudi Arabia To North Korea, Modern Persecution Of Christians Spans Globe

BERLIN – Asir’s life was preprogrammed. The North African Muslim was to be trained to be a jihadist in a Palestinian terrorist camp. There he would learn how to build bombs and kill non-believers. But just before he was due to leave, he started to have doubts. “I realized that there were several versions of […]

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Ideas

He Respected Women And Made The Bread – On The “Jesus’ Wife” Uproar

-Analysis– Karen L. King, the first woman to occupy the Hollis Chair of Divinity at Harvard, recently caused a sensation in Rome. At the International Congress for Coptic Studies, she revealed a fragment of papyrus measuring 4 cm by 8 cm (1.6 inches by 3.15 inches), dating back to the fourth century and covered with […]

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Geopolitics

Fleeing For Lebanon, Syrian Christians Are Stranded Between Regime And Rebels

BEIRUT – Elias, a 42-year-old Syrian, is chain smoking under the silent gaze of his children. This Christian farmer abandoned his lands, near the Lebanese border, leaving behind conflicts he felt had nothing to do with him, but tormented by the future of Syria and the fate of his minority religion there. Together with 20 […]

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