Religion Dispatches
…be.’” —Robert Ingersoll, 1896 I connected instantly with Kate Blanchard’s May 10 piece, “Coming Out As a Heretic.” I too grew up in a Christian family, and, despite very intense Christian devotion and deep soul- and scripture-searching, I “fell away” from the faith in my early twenties. I have been “unchurched” for about six years now and have often struggled to identify my current relationship to the Christian faith. Simply identifying as an ath…
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…sms were khilqi, or innate. The 13th century scholar of jurisprudence, al-Nawawi writes: “The scholars said effeminate men are two types. First, one who was created that way and he is not responsible for his behavior resembling women, their appearance, their speech, and their movements. Rather, Allah created upon him his disposition, so this is not blameworthy for him, nor a fault, nor a sin, nor is he punished.” The nuance between affected and na…
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…If you want to keep this republic of ours, you’ve got to keep these people away from power. The commission The Republicans in the United States Senate filibustered this morning a bipartisan House bill that would have created an independent ideologically neutral commission to investigate the January 6 sacking and looting of the United States Capitol. The United States Congress created such commissions after the Oklahoma City bombing in the 1990s an…
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…obia and Biphobia, or IDAHOT. Among the many projects undertaken: The Bedayaa Organization for LGBTQI in the Nile Valley Area (Egypt & Sudan), the Maseahat Foundaiton for Sexual and Gender Diversity, and the Trans-Homos-D Organization from Algeria launched a regional campaign called “Together Our Voice is Louder.” ILGA, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association, released the 11th edition of “State Sponsored Homophobia…
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…ose Driven Life, supports women in roles of spiritual leadership. Backlash against women isn’t reserved for the Supreme Court. The Vatican ought to send the SBC a thank-you note for distracting attention from its actions, or lack thereof, regarding women. Catholicism has neither an assembly to vote congregations out, nor any women in approved priestly leadership to expel. Parishes are simply closed by bishops, often related to bankruptcy proceedin…
Read More…along with four other young men, were killed by the very Waorani people of Amazonian Ecuador to whom they had come to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ. The story of their modern day martyrdom was told in Ms. Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor, published the following year. Copious copies of the book have sold for the past half century and it was ranked number 9 in the “Top 50 Books the Have Shaped Evangelicals” by Christianity Today, alongside wor…
Read MoreAhead of the release of Pope Francis’ first major encyclical Laudato si, dealing with global warming, Republican politicians have been falling all over themselves trying to say they know how to do his job better than he does. It’s particularly fun when this kind of reaction comes from Catholic pols, some of whom seem to think they’re literally more Catholic than the pope. On the other hand, nobody gives a crap about Rick Santorum. No, the real ac…
Read More…iving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese,” says Garrison Keillor, affectionately. And, I’m happy to report, they might be returning to giving us just what they expect of them. The Episcopal Diocese of Florida met this past weekend in Jacksonville for their annual convention, themed, “One Body,” which began with a service led by presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori calling for unity. In r…
Read MoreIt seems that President Obama’s appeal to the black caucus back in September to get out the vote fell short. Facing a Senate with no African-Americans, perhaps it is time to revive Eddie Glaude’s ‘black church is dead’ argument and look at it in light of black voter turnout. Exit polling indicates so far that 10% of African-Americans showed up at the polls across the country. Where was the black church in this election? Despite get out the vote e…
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…s just how misunderstood this “coalition” continues to be. Vox.com’s anti-gay apologist-in-residence Brandon Ambrosino, whose supposed expertise is “culture and religion,” seems surprised to find that Catholics and Evangelicals “might be less politically aligned than is otherwise thought,” with Catholics more closely “aligned with liberal values than Evangelicals.” But these numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has bothered to looked…
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