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Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why Now?

By Lisa Bitel

…onal experiences with little or no meaning for the larger community of Christians. Still, as with other institutional policies on private behavior, church leaders could never police visions. They could only try to punish reports of visions and apparitions and devotions to rogue Virgins and saints. The only viable alternative was to ignore most visionaries while selecting just a few to promote as exemplary. Bishop Ricken is savvy: Adele Brise and h…

From Licking Floors to Praying for an Inept Government, Churches React to C-19

By Daniel Schultz

…society, among the most physically intimate, and likely include the greatest number of vulnerable people. Even single members of large congregations can have a dramatic effect on how coronavirus spreads or doesn’t, as South Korea found out the hard way. While many aren’t meeting at all or are streaming services, some churches that do meet feel like they need to support those who need it, in worship or otherwise. My mother’s congregation in Madiso…

With Methodist LGBTQ Vote and GOP Support for Trump, White Protestantism Has Hit Bottom

By Peter Laarman

…reason and common sense, only the American Baptists* and the United Methodists still take the view that committed gay relationships are unacceptable. It is surely no coincidence that both of these bodies have a straight white man problem: too much power in the hands of straight men who aren’t especially interested in the rule of reason and whose reading of Scripture is cramped, at best. Seen in this context, it’s a cheap dodge for liberals within…

An Open Letter to Black Clergy on the Disdain for Protest

By Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

…egy is based on the belief that our churches support black resistance against state violence. Even the most hardened young black activists mourned the bloodshed in a holy space that serves to help and hold an often-broken people. As an ordained clergyperson nurtured in the bosom of the black church, I am all too familiar with the way in which we tend to spiritualize the material suffering of black people. Sermons and sonnets saturated with grace o…

Can a Greek Monastery Be Ground Zero of Global Financial Meltdown?

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…chools operate with surprising inefficiency, with students scoring the lowest numbers in Europe despite having four times as many teachers as Europe’s highest ranked system, in Finland. There are there separate government owned defense corporations. As for Greek health care, it is unclear whether waste or outright theft by state employees is the greater drain on a hopelessly overburdened system. And then there are the pensions: all men who work i…

“Hey You! Anti-Semite!”: A Jewish Krewe does Mardi Gras

By Barbra Barnett

…g and debauchery, but the parade tradition is about more than drunken tourists and cheap plastic beads. New Orleans’ Mardi Gras parades began in 1857, with the Mistick Krewe of Comus, a secret society that wanted to emulate the Mardi Gras parades of Mobile, Alabama. From the start, Mardi Gras krewes were exclusive, elite clubs. Such organizations can be important networking opportunities in a small community like New Orleans, where people are used…

Spiritual McCarthyism and the Catholic Vote

By Bill Berkowitz

…e Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, publishing magnate Stephen Strang, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the 15 million-member National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and mega church pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes. And, the Obama campaign has bigger plans. According to a Religion News Service report, Team Obama “is also launching a grassroots effort, tentatively called Joshua Generation, with plans to hold concerts and h…

Gay Marriage Supporters Rally People of Faith for Washington’s November Vote

By Nicole Neroulias

…s Christ of Latter-day Saints gatherings because they feel rejected by its stance against homosexuality. But that can’t be what a loving God wants, Holley believes. And as a Mormon, he’s particularly adept at assuring voters that gay marriage won’t lead to polygamy. A few phones over, Howard Heller, 58, of Burien, enthusiastically told voters about his own “selfish” reason for wanting R-74 approved: so that he may legally wed Carla Robinson, whose…

Google’s Benevolent Interfaith Big Tent

By Lucia Hulsether

…aring the story, she returns home, opens Google India, and tracks down the phone number for the sweet shop her grandfather mentioned. Within seconds, she has called the store on her smart phone, and Yusuf’s grandson—who answers—has likewise opened Google to research visas for a reunion too long denied. We can understand the implications of this storyline by putting it into conversation with its longer historical context. The logic of the plot—that…

How Muslim Civic Activism Helped Pass California’s Prop 47

By Nick Street

…tions. The victory of Proposition 47, for example, makes California the first state in the nation to “de-felonize” drug use. This sentencing-reduction measure won 60 percent of the vote and united a surprising array of supporters, including a conservative evangelical Christian billionaire whose advocacy for criminal justice reform attracted the attention of “some of his friends on the left.” Another story-behind-the-story is the galvanizing effect…