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Why I Give Zero F*cks What Anti-Gay Christians Think

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…homosexuality as “gospel” (which is a complete bastardization of the “good news” such a word is meant to convey) is to give them a source of authority that they do not possess. What would be our authority to stop believing them? Let me tell you about this guy named Jesus. Back in his day, there were fundamentalists—those religious leaders who had set themselves up as keepers of the orthodox flame. They did, back then, what modern day fundamentalis…

God Will Not Make You Straight: An Interview with GCN’s Justin Lee

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…but eventually I had to acknowledge I wasn’t straight and that there was a word for guys who were attracted to guys and that word was “gay.” That sent me through a real period of struggle and a journey trying to understand what in the world that meant for me. I got to know gay people and I talked to my Christian friends about it. I even got involved with the ex-gay world and tried to become straight. That didn’t seem to work, and ultimately it fo…

No God but Country: The Religion of John McCain Has Something Important to Tell Us

By Kathryn Lofton

…maybe it’s not just more candidate bullshit, that this guy it’s maybe the truth. Or maybe both the truth and bullshit—the man does want your vote, after all. The man does want your vote, after all. And so we return to where we begin. How do we ever know the mysteries of the man’s soul? And what, really, should those mysteries have to do with our political estimations? To declare that McCain is not Christian against his (once rare; now constant) pr…

Beloved Immortals: Science, Miracles and ‘Jellyfish Time’

By Beatrice Marovich

…bodies, with their green fluorescent protein! My mind gropes for a better word than “magic,” but it’s the only word that keeps surfacing. This sounds, I realize, deeply unscientific. You will allow me this indulgence, perhaps, because I am a scholar who studies theology—theories of divinity. I traffic in ideas that hover uncomfortably close to magic. This is the work that I do and I’m simply not qualified to think much about, for example, how the…

As the Right Peddles a Conspiracy About Trans People and Easter, A Reflection on the Spiritual Nature of My Gender Transition

By Ryann Croken

…er that gives no explicit, logical promise of security. Whenever I see the word “heaven” nowadays, I think of the word “heaving,” as in, effort, as in lifting, as in vomiting, as in, mostly, the thing that seas do, which you cannot control. That’s why transphobia seems to me, among other things, a spiritual offense, one so often committed by petty zealots in the name of religion. In an immediate material sense, transphobia is dangerous—to me and m…

Yearning For A God We Can Live With

By Benjamin Weiner

…d. “I have been questioning the certainty of my religious insider-outsider worldview,” he writes. “Such certainty had a tendency to divide my world and isolate me from the ‘outsiders’ who… I believed, could not teach me, bless me, or correct me in the matters of God.” His remedy is to postulate a deity beyond any one particular faith, orienting the seeker in the direction of the other. Romantic Religion Both authors are well aware of the trenchanc…

Sydney’s Anglican Diocese Gives $1 Million To ‘No’ Campaign on Marriage; and more in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…d States and Canada.” The brief cites the widely discredited “New Family Structures Study” by Mark Regnerus. It is critical of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision, which overturned state laws that criminalized consensual gay sex. Australia: Anglican Diocese of Sydney Gives Anti-Marriage-Equality Campaign $1 million The Anglican Diocese of Sydney contributed $1 million to the campaign that is urging a vote against marriage equality in an ong…

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…unger man, Sentamu had to leave Uganda in fear for his own life under the brutal rule of Idi Amin. In response to a recent question on whether he thought Christians are persecuted in the UK, he replied: “I know what persecution looks like. What is happening at the moment in England, it ain’t persecution.” Well, what is happening to gay people in Uganda plainly is persecution, and Archbishop Sentamu has been to stand side-by-side with the persecuto…

No Garden to Get Back to: Understanding Post-Avatar Ecological Depressive Disorder

By Ryann Croken

…sustains our existence right here on real, live 3-D Planet Earth. In other words, if you want to heal yourself, start by healing the world. By striking at the root of the problem, not only can you alleviate your symptoms, you can reverse them, giving your life a newfound sense of vitality, gratitude, exuberance, meaning, and mission. In this sense, PAEDD can ultimately be a blessing both for you and everyone and everything around you. As I said be…

The Journalist and the Bishops: CNS Editor Fired For Tweeting Opposition to LGBT Discrimination

By Patricia Miller

…ed gay marriage in GOP talking points, fooling no one.” The USCCB owns and runs the Catholic News Service, but officially CNS is editorially independent from the bishops’ conference and provides news to both secular and religious outlets. In reality, however, it’s always existed in a somewhat liminal space journalistically speaking, combining fundamentally solid reporting with a pro-hierarchy tilt in story selection, heavy on stories that feature…