Religion Dispatches
…s that simultaneously express pastoral kindness and prophetic fire. She is officially retired from the ministry, but continues to find fascinating ways to spend that retirement—this is her second case in three years involving marriages of same-gender couples. The last case ended up before the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly (the highest court in the denomination), which did not recommend any censure for Spahr but ducked the l…
Read More…ot so frustrated with some of the completely arbitrary and in some cases unofficial restrictions put upon women on the hajj. If traveling without a mahram is an official limitation and we can get around it, the ones that literally shout you in the face will perhaps make this journey difficult. So I wanted an outlet, a positive way to address them without shouting back, or losing my cool when all I really want to bask in the glory of the moment. Th…
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…nation pulsating throughout Arizona’s Christian and Jewish communities (no official word to the large percentage of Mormons was issued). How ironic, then, that some advocates of Arizona’s SB 1070 have misappropriated Chavez in their anti-immigrant hysteria, citing the late organizer’s advocacy for the enforcement of laws against Mexican immigrants isolated from its historical context. This myth is repeated in Richard Rodriguez’s recent essay “Sain…
Read More…aughn Walker’s ruling Wednesday overturning California’s Proposition 8. An official statement released Wednesday afternoon by the LDS Newsroom reads: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regrets today’s decision. California voters have twice been given the opportunity to vote on the definition of marriage in their state and both times have determined that marriage should be recognized as only between a man and a woman. We agree. Marria…
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…ritual, about the July 21st edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official weekly newspaper, most of which was dedicated to the very weighty (and altogether earthly) matter of legal reforms that were approved by the Pope in late May, as a response to the current crisis. I have commented before on the curious way in which the Vatican is also a state, and as an independent state, is composed of many bureaucracies working sometimes in surrea…
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…nce…” Argentina delivered same-sex marriage on July 15, 2010 (the bill was officially signed into law on July 21) after a bitter but decisive legislative battle. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s supporters backed it and some commentators have alleged that the 33-27 vote in the Senate was less a sign of major cultural change than a way for the president’s husband, Nestor Kirchner (former president of Argentina hankering to run again), to…
Read More…s in the field (again think condoms being handed out by Catholics) and the official teachings of the Church. In reading it we are also challenged by the abstinence-only policies, for example in Africa, that can accompany faith-based initiatives in spite of a rise in HIV on the continent. At the heart of US involvement is George W. Bush’s 2003 President’s Emergency Provision for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a $15 billion plan that privileged conservativ…
Read More…tement on gender and family issues. The letter reportedly does not take an official position on the legislation or ask members to donate of their time and means, as did a similar letter read to California Mormon congregations in June 2008 at the beginning of the Proposition 8 campaign. Although billed as one element of a faith-based “Yes on 8” coalition, Mormon participation in the 2008 campaign has been viewed as decisive in the passage of the st…
Read More…can’t find any job; among younger males, especially African-Americans, the number is much higher—in many areas one in two workers is without work. Yet Congress, with a Democratic majority, can’t get it together to extend unemployment benefits. Our solons just flew out of town for a weeklong holiday vacation. Republicans, joined by Democratic deficit hawks, insist that any extension be “deficit neutral” and come out of unspent stimulus money. But…
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…very embarrassing and persistent problem has arisen in some of the sacred sites in Jerusalem where Christians and Jews cross each other’s paths. Teenagers from a small sector of the city’s many Ultra-Orthodox (“Haredi”) Ashkenazi Jewish communities have taken to spitting at clerics wearing prominent crosses and dressed in traditional garb. Assaults have been recorded at the Jaffa and Damascus Gates of the walled Old City, an area with many histor…
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