Religion Dispatches
…a testament to the best of human efforts to join together in common cause. 10. RD celebrates its Two-Year Anniversary (February 4th). Sorry. This may have been sacred to only a few… Can you blame me? *** Finally, just so I can’t be accused of slapping the label on any old thing, here is a list of items in the news that, for too many Americans, have nothing at all to do with the sacred—they are thoroughly mundane, lacking in urgency, ultimate valu…
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…im a “landmark” sermon series aimed at answering “three primary questions”: 1. What is the difference between “Progressive” Christianity and Biblical Christianity? 2. Does that difference really matter in a relativistic age? 3. How can a Christian decipher what he or she should believe? A post at the Fountains UMC website adds detail: the series will focus on questions such as “Why does it matter that the Bible is reliable?”, “Why does it matter t…
Read More…big tent approach to coverage of American ir/a/religion. But do the Gallup numbers point to new ways we might be thinking about business as usual? Two findings are striking. First: Gallup reported that although Americans felt religion’s influence was declining, many—75 percent—agreed that more religion would be positive for the country. Not surprisingly, churchgoers were most gung-ho about religion’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who…
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…other thing is, this is a personal plea to white clergy—we didn’t have the numbers. White clergy did not respond to this. https://www.facebook.com/publictheologian/photos/a.832371280191875.1073741829.832236016872068/1364676620294669/?type=3&theater What does that feel like for you, as a trans queer Latinx, who is also public theologian and activist working in these spheres? What does that absence from white clergy signal to you and others who hold…
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…s favor them. 5) …but Christians are divided on same-sex marriage. Similar numbers favor (46%) and oppose (46%) allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally—but attitudes vary significantly by denomination, with white Evangelical Protestants, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses being most strongly opposed, and Unitarian/Universalists, white mainline Protestants, and Catholics most strongly in favor. 6) Americans’ double standard on religious vio…
Read More…languished under Jim Crow. The promises of “equal protection” waited until 1954 to be delivered by the US Supreme Court to persons of African descent. To put it very plainly: corporations counted more as persons than “we the people” did. The next two sections of the Fourteenth Amendment were more mundane and predictable: Section Two redefined how we distribute numbers of representatives state-by-state, by “counting the whole number of persons in…
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…numbers continue to shrink and people leave the church, but within the next 10 to 15 years things will change. We’ll see more affirming churches, more people asking questions and people’s faith developing in ways we haven’t seen before. The evangelical church will dig its heels in on tradition over love and will have a hard time. But, you never know what will happen tomorrow, who will come out, or who will become an ally. I’m going to continue to…
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…to critics of the “Come, Let Us Reason Together Governing Agenda” by citing 1 Corinthians to the effect that ears and eyes and hands should live and let live. He then goes on to chastise his doubters, including myself, for divisiveness and failing to appreciate points of commonality with their social and political opponents. (Excuse me, social and political potential partners.) You could almost cut with a knife the desire for reconciliation here….
Read More…rting him among the centrists and independent voters he will need in large numbers to win. His expression of confidence in her credentials echoes precisely what I worried about immediately after the vice-presidential debate. “She has more executive experience than Senator Biden does,” McCain quipped. Note the term: executive. By that same logic, Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than is Senator McCain himself. And what the Senator fail…
Read More…ada. In subsequent years, the numbers fell: there were 209 church arsons in 1997 and 166 the following year, according to their annual reports. The last report was issued in 2001. Altogether there were almost 900 reported cases of church arson in the late 1990s—a huge number compared to what we’ve seen in the last two weeks. A second difference is that of public response. In 1995-96, there was a unique alliance of actors creating “perfect storm” c…
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