Religion Dispatches
…. You are the dictatorship!)—today became—“Bergoglio. Basura. Vos sos la dictadura.” Habemus Papam Franciscum! Check back (or sign up for the newsletter) for a more detailed profile of the new pope. …
Read More…voters say they would never vote for any of them. The Pew survey also shed new statistical light on a favorite subject of media and Republican handwringing: Romney’s Mormonism. A healthy majority of Americans (68%) say that it would not matter to them if a presidential candidate was Mormon. Only 25% of Americans say they are less likely to support a Mormon for president. (By comparison, 61% of Americans say they are less likely to support an athei…
Read More…eneral Conference Talk, these are incremental but significant changes. The new CHI: 1. Removes the implication that same-sex relationships “distort” love. 2. Removes the imperative that members should repent for having “homosexual thoughts or feelings.” 3. Removes the instruction that Church leaders should refer members to professional counseling. This is especially significant because in times past leaders were encouraged to refer members to prac…
Read More…ics leaning against full marriage equality, the report still contains good news for gays and lesbians. An overwhelming majority of Catholics (69 percent) believe that sexual orientation is fixed and cannot be changed by “ex-gay” therapies. When asked if sexual activity between people of the same sex is sinful, 56 percent said no. That compares to 46 percent of the general population. Dr. Michele Dillon, professor and chair of Department of Sociolo…
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…s, evangelicals, and Orthodox Christians, an “ecumenism” celebrated by its promoters as evidence of its far-reaching appeal. The document targets reproductive freedom (enemy of the “sanctity of life”) and LGBTQ equality (enemy of the “dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife”) as foes of Christians’ religious freedom. It’s a new document but an old canard. And it’s proof that the culture wars are not only not over; there hasn’…
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…your socioeconomic status. Bowler considers Joel Osteen an example of this new, softer prosperity gospel. Prosperity preachers began to refashion their ministers into sleeker, more inclusive forms in the early 1990s. More than a decade removed from the scandals wrought by the prosperity stars of the 70s, the movement now had people from all walks of life, talking in ways that a broader audience could relate to. Bowler writes that “the movement had…
Read More…Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore tackles California’s new law protecting the rights of transgender students, allowing them to freely use bathrooms or locker rooms they feel fits their gender identity. Moore emphasizes that Jesus tells us we are born “male and female” and the existence of transgender people “who feel alienated from their identities as men or as women” is simply the result of the “fallen” nature of our world—sin…
Read More…life. Each day now, and not just on my birthday, I try to learn something new. If not some profound thing, then at least to see with new eyes even something already and always there: signs of life’s continual unfolding. A new bud opening on the tree, an apple fallen from the weight of its own ripeness, the wind blowing this way instead of that. That’s why I have endeavored to have some kind of new experience of great proportion on my cyclical bir…
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…icultural self-education program that has involved trips to the deserts of New Mexico to hang out with farming monks, Portland(ia) to learn “Old World”-style butchery techniques, and have just departed the old sod of New Hampshire again, this time for farming stints in the hills of Turkey and along coastline of the Adriatic. My story bears little resemblance to struggle of the Immokalee workers or the army of poorly-paid farm hands who are the bul…
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…BT Inclusion Project,” was just published by Intersections International—a New York-based nonprofit whose mandate, says founding director Rev. Robert Chase, is to bring together people who differ, honor those differences, and find ways to work together for reconciliation, justice, and peace. The report builds on interviews with Muslim community leaders, several scholarly articles, as well as facilitated discussions among more than 50 people in six…
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