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Don’t Call It “Prayer Shaming”: Our Moral Failure Exposed

By Willie Dwayne Francois

…prayer and deconstructed the meaning of prayer in its myriad forms, how many actually thought about the victims—in San Bernardino, as well as in the other 352 mass shootings that have happened in the U.S. this year? The tragically familiar experience in San Bernardino is not about prayer, but the policies in the U.S. that create virtually unrestrained and unregulated access to firearms and the exacerbated culture of death-dealing. Defenses of pra…

Exclusion is Causing Great Harm: A Conversation With Suspended UMC Pastor Rev. Cynthia Meyer

By Joel Pitney

…is almost entirely supportive of LGBT members and clergy, and there are many, many reconciling congregations. You’re in a much more conservative area of the country and of the church, and I’m curious to know what the general attitude towards LGBT people is? Do you find that there are more supportive people in the general membership than in the leadership? My congregation has been very supportive. A small number of people chose to leave. Some of t…

A Question for Hobby Lobby Supporters…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…aception. So is the salient difference the size of the list? Is there some number of things-this-paper-can-be-used-for that puts the employer at a safe moral distance from the act, where previously they had been complicit? If so, what’s the number? How long does the list of possible uses have to be to assuage the employer’s conscience enough to let the employees use their compensation for things the employer finds morally repugnant? See, here’s th…

Grassroots Faith: The Lessons of The Social Gospel

By Christopher H. Evans

…the mainline) adopted a variety of social justice resolutions, and that many social gospel leaders were gaining the attention of the era’s major political leaders. However, he worried that the theological and political commitments of the social gospel were not penetrating the fabric of American congregational life. One hundred years later, I’m not convinced that many religious progressives have learned that it takes more than an ability to gain a…

New Doc Strives for Christian Unity—But What if Unity is the Problem?

By Noah Berlatsky

…o it never really asks why homophobia is so central to the church for so many, or whether that homophobia calls into question the value of Christian unity. It’s true that Christian support for LGBT people is growing, among a significant number of Christians. But it’s also true that for others, as the film shows, bigotry and prejudice against LGBT people are inseparable from their sense of their Christian faith—overriding personal friendships and i…

Fasting and Faithy Friends of Convenience

By Sarah Posner

…ocratic-religious alliance demonstrates just how fragile—or shall I say phony? or non-existent?—it really is. I’ve always doubted that religious support for Obama turned the 2008 election; as I’ve argued before, he gained support across the a number of demographic groups, and it’s difficult to make the case that Obama won because he finally shed the Democrats’ (imagined) hostility to religion. If you’re a religious person whose faith compels you t…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Reversal on Contraception

By Patricia Miller

…r after finding herself pregnant for the sixth time in seven years. Like many women of her day, Ruether realized that controlling her fertility with a fairly high degree of certainty was essential to her ability to steer her own life.”I see very clearly that I cannot entrust my destiny just to biological chance. As a woman who is trying to create a happy balance of work and family, I know effective family planning is essential. A woman who cannot…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…by they have their apostle, their Santa Cena, and their big temple. For many, Fortuny said, membership in LLDM is a way to say, “We’re not sophisticated, we’re not part of the upper class. But we have our own power.” Much of that power, of course, has been concentrated in the figure of Samuel Joaquín. Whether he abused it is an open question. Certainly, the family is wealthy, with a large ranch outside Houston. More damagingly, former members of…

How Religion Shapes (or Doesn’t) Our Views on Public Issues

By Daniel Schultz

…eation care,” nobody cares about “the least of these” in the desert. Not many, anyway. What does work? Not much, it would seem. At least not when it comes to the subjects Pew chose to poll. But go back and take a look at the list of voter priorities: 90% say the economy is a “very important” topic. 88% jobs, 78% health care. Get the hint? And that’s with a forced-choice list. If you asked respondents to come up with their own list, it might be eve…

Did North Carolinians Vote Against their Own Beliefs?

By Peter Montgomery

…e gone far beyond that to punish same-sex couples and their families and deny them equal rights as citizens. The second saddest number comes with its own silver lining. Public Policy Polling reported on Sunday that most North Carolina residents believe that gay couples should have access to some legal protections. But because most voters didn’t understand just how extreme and far-reaching the amendment before them today was, they would vote for it…