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The Gospel of Contradiction: An Interview with Mary Gordon

By Nathan Schneider

…the packaged certainties of radio preachers and the theocratic elements of American politics. But why, she wonders, do people so consistently read them that way? I spoke with Mary Gordon at the dining room table of her New York City apartment, across the street from Barnard College, where she now teaches English. What caused you to write a book about Jesus? What readers did you have in mind? When I started, I was concerned with the prevalence of…

The Suppression of Sin in Evangelical Abolitionism: The Wilberforce Problem

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…cuments the furor over the approach evangelicals have taken in framing the new abolitionist movement. She cites Melissa Ditmore, who argues in the social-justice-oriented magazine New Internationalist that “too often anti-trafficking has become anti-sex work.” Arwyn Jackson is amazed that the work she does has become so controversial. “It should be the most unifying subject of our time,” she says. But “it’s now becoming a divisive issue just becau…

PCUSA’s Nod to “Traditional” Marriage Understandable, but Not Accurate

By William E. Smith

…t and change. Many of these developments, furthermore, continue to shape a number of the assumptions American Christians have about the nature of marriage. Consider the following examples of historical changes in Christian marriage and whether we can honestly still call today’s version “traditional.” 1) Were individuals always required to be conventionally alive? For the majority of the past two thousand years, Christian women could marry Jesus, w…

Condemnation, Condolences in Wake of Orlando Massacre and More

By Peter Montgomery

…r an Islamic center, but had his visa cancelled and left the country after news reports that he had suggested in a 2013 lectures that death was a “compassionate” sentence for homosexuals. Sekaleshfar had lectured near Orlando, Florida in April. Canada: Toronto Unity Mosque celebrates 14th all-inclusive iftar The night before the killing in Orlando, nearly 200 people attended Toronto Unity Mosque’s 14th annual all-inclusive iftar – a meal to break…

Like a Virgin

By Donna Freitas

…forthcoming in April from Oxford University Press on the subject), I met a number of evangelical Christian young women who had “repackaged their virginity” (as one woman called the process). I wonder how dismissive and cynical people would be after hearing some of their stories? There was nothing funny about these young women’s sexual identities. Yes, my feminist radar went up and pushed me to simply critique what, at least on the surface, sounded…

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

By Jori Lewis

…reassignment surgery (a process many people call “the transition”), so the number of transgender-identified people is likely much higher. The term “transgender” encompasses anyone with a gender identity that is different from his or her birth sex. A transgender person could be someone who just cross-dresses from time to time in private; someone who identifies as gender-queer (that is, neither male nor female); someone who is just taking hormones b…

Union Busting for God: Catholic Colleges Invoke “Religious Freedom” to Violate Catholic Teaching

By Kaya Oakes

…who asked to remain anonymous pointed out a letter he wrote to the school newspaper, in which he noted that DePaul’s administration has tried “to undermine and deter unionizing efforts, through both subtle and obvious methods, using unhelpful innuendo and scare tactics in their addresses to faculty, borrowing moves from a standard anti-union playbook.” Instead of allowing unionization, DePaul created an “adjunct faculty task force” that would bar…

The Religious Right’s Apocalyptic Visions of an Obama Presidency

By Bill Berkowitz

…er be licensed to deliver babies at hospitals in any state”; overall, “the number of abortions have increased dramatically.” Everywhere in America, men, women and children are likely to be confronted by, or exposed to, pornography. When the Federal Communications Commission lifted all “restrictions on obscene speech or visual content in radio and television broadcasts,” it freed television programmers to show “explicit portrayals of sexual acts” a…

What do the January 6 Commission, Covid Deaths and Gun Massacres All Have in Common? God’s Chosen

By John Stoehr

…something about mass death. They have cited the Second Amendment and its preservation of the right to self-defense as their reason. There’s something to that, but only something. It’s no coincidence the Sandy Hook Massacre came shortly after the American people reelected the country’s first Black president. Barack Obama’s reelection was confirmation, for them, that the rules of democracy were no longer reliable. The Republicans have since launche…

Ministries of Presence: A Report from Nepal

By Cathleen Falsani

…alese sojourn, I heard the distinctly flat-accented voices of men from the American Midwest waft up from the street through an open window in my second-floor hotel room. One of the voices belonged to Heuertz, but the others I didn’t recognize. A few moments later, I encountered three big middle-aged guys from Wisconsin with rucksacks strapped to their backs, dressed like a cross between trekkers and construction workers, which is, essentially, wha…