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Accept Gays? Only If They Know Their Place

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…sor at Mercer University, recounts Elke’s story and some of the other heartbreaking stories of gays and lesbians crushed and torn by religious hatred in his review of the book in the latest issue of The Christian Century. As an evangelical Christian whose career has been spent in the South, I must say I find it scandalous that the most physically and psychologically dangerous place to be (or even appear to be) gay or lesbian in America is in the m…

Anti-Transgender Panel at Values Voter Summit Continues Shift Towards Storytelling as Tactic

By Heron Greenesmith

…tor, only to hear a message from her God that she was not living her full truth. All stories of gender identity are valid, as are all journeys, including the stories of people whose gender identities may fluctuate over time, as perhaps Duncan’s has. It is therefore crucial to frame stories in context and with peer-reviewed data so that a listener such as Lynn Meagher can understand that the vast majority of transgender people do not desist, nor do…

Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…he story of Lazarus and the rich man. Daily, the rich man ignored poor Lazarus, but when Lazarus died he was taken to “heaven” or a place of eternal comfort. The rich man’s fate in Hades was terrible, however, as he begged Abraham to “send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” Abraham reminds rich man of how he treated the poor in his lifetime: “you received your good things, and Laza…

Hebrew Bible as Lord of the Rings

By Paul Harvey

…rom the end of David to the baptism of Jesus—regrettably missing some cool stories from the New Testament of Jesus confounding the religious teachers at the temple) carries us along mostly from one sword fight and rampaging Babylonian/Persian/Roman legion to another, knocking the Jews about from one place to another. How many slow-motion scenes of the sword being pulled out from the dying man do we need to get the point? I began to feel like a par…

When Children’s Literature is Not Defined by “Innocence”

By Jodi Eichler-Levine

…re grafted into greater American civic acceptance through their children’s stories—especially those stories with overtones of suffering, exodus, and sacrifice—in modes that have long been part of the grand narratives of American religious history. I don’t say that to degrade those narratives or to promote them—but to notice how they are always with us, and how memory work is a practice, and a very complicated one. In the case of Jews, African Amer…

Why 9/11 Changed Everything Nothing

By Paul Harvey

…ory of the Civil War? Or to the reillusionment of the faithful fighters of World War I? If so, then our stories of war, our “war on terrorism,” will simply return to shopworn themes of spiritual regeneration and a renewal of national innocence. If history repeats itself twice, then the first time, as Faust reminds us, was tragedy, and the second time might yet be too. If, on the other hand, we find other means beyond real and metaphorical war as a…

Does God Want Jeremy Lin to Win?

By Jay Michaelson

…3, with stars Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire at full strength, the New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, dropping them to a disappointing 8 wins and 15 losses. Jeremy Lin, a relatively unknown 3rd-string point guard who’d joined the team weeks earlier, took three shots, missed all of them, and ended up with two points in less than seven minutes of play. As of this past Sunday, when they defeated last year’s world champion Dallas Mave…

Catholic Bishops Meeting For Family Synod; South Africa’s Dutch Reformed Church OKs Gay Weddings, Ordination; Court in Malaysia Deals Setback To Transgender Advocates; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…family; loss of access to healthcare due to fear of exposure. We also hear stories of resistance: stories of family, friends, neighbours, strangers who have acted as allies; parents confronting homophobic school officials; organizations developing security plans to protect LGBT persons; positive media opening up more community discussion on homosexuality; community mobilizing; LGBT people joining legal suits “so that no-one will have to go through…

Watching Preachers’ Daughters Right After the Boston Bombings While Teaching a Class on Augustine’s Confessions

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…They are told it’s for their own good, by people who actually believe the stories to be true. Having been told appalling, harmful stories, those children go on to behave in appalling and harmful ways—like when, in Book II, Augustine steals some pears. Some readers accuse Augustine of overreacting here, making a youthful indiscretion into a grand and lurid sin. But Augustine’s point is exactly that it wasn’t grand or interesting. It was small and…

Do Tea Partiers Use Religious Justification For Racial Rhetoric?

By Julie Ingersoll

…uage. This all occurred in a context in which people took these to be the true meanings of these stories. This exercise does more than show us just how wrong “they” were; it pushes us to recognize the degree to which our own readings of texts (whether those texts be the Bible, the Qu’ran, or the Constitution) can never be as certain as they seem. It’s not my point here to debate the “true meanings” of these texts; I guess that’s a task for believe…