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After Roe: 3 Troubling Trends from the ‘Compassionate’ Anti-Abortion Crowd

By Robert Repino

…in this camp also tend to call for religious organizations to provide the services that pregnant people will need in a post-Roe world. In reality, religious institutions provide a fraction of the services that state and federal governments do, only with no oversight and no accountability. Social Security alone costs over a trillion dollars a year. There’s no possible world in which religious institutions could make a difference, even if they vow…

Knighting Viktor Orbán for ‘Defending Christianity,’ Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Demonstrates That ‘Culture War’ is the Only Theology That Matters to the Global Right

By Katherine Kelaidis

…g the celebration of EuroPride in Belgrade. Then on Sunday he led a prayer service for the “sanctity of marriage and family” while thousands of Serbs, in no small part inspired by the Patriarch, took to the streets to protest the planned EuroPride events. These events and the feteing of Orbán are not unrelated. Notable throughout the week, the Patriarch routinely emphasized the idea that it was outsiders coming to change Serbia’s values who were t…

The Politics of Anti-Gay Persecution: Gambia, Egypt, Jamaica, Russia, with a Helping Hand from US Religious Conservatives; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…as held in Jakarta, Indonesia in November. Inspired by the theme, I John 4: 18 “Perfect Love Casts Out Fear,” the conference offered an introduction to LGBT issues in the context of God’s call to accept and love all persons including those with different sexual orientations and gender identities. Human dignity, human rights and LGBT equality were central to every conversation, presentation and worship service. Sixty participants from Indonesia, Ma…

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

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…life growing up, others from e-mail. He hears more stories after a worship service, where as many as 1,000 visitors are invited to meet him. I apparently missed the seminary class that taught pastors not to get “sidetracked in controversy.” Instead, my classes taught me that it was theologian Karl Barth that counseled pastors to use both the Bible and the newspaper in their preaching, but Osteen will have none of that. Anything that might get in t…

Defending the Helpless: New Bible Highlights Poverty and Justice

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…l plea on The 700 Club for cash donations to Operation Blessing to support airlifts of refugees from the Rwandan civil war to Zaire (now Congo). Reporter Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot later discovered that Operation Blessing’s planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the African Development Corporation, a Robertson-owned venture initiated with the cooperation of Zaire’s then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. I can’t help but believe…

Oppose Afghanistan But Not a Pacifist? Tough.

By Gabriella Lettini

…integrity of our military compromised; we break the moral backbone of our servicemen and women. When this happens, the international just peace community, which the president so eloquently valorized in Oslo, is weakened. And we trivialize our broader commitment to morally responsible public life. President Obama asserted that a just peace can only last if it is grounded in the “inherent rights and dignity of every individual.” It is time our nati…

Trendwatch: Thieves Taking the Christ out of Christmas. Literally.

By Daniel Silliman

…il for the crime, while the other two spent 60 days in jail, did community service and gave the church $500 each. The 19-year-olds described the theft as a prank and pretty much everyone agrees baby Jesus theft is meant as a joke, whether or not they think it’s funny. “It really is just not funny at all,” said a Catholic monsignor in Indianapolis, after two drunk 26-year-olds were arrested heisting a nativity at his church. “What can you say? Just…

Life After ‘Roe’: Clergy Consider Handing Out Morning-After Pill in Church

By Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons

…2,000 faith leaders led by mainline Protestants and Reform Jews. Founded in 1967, the clergy fought for the liberalization of abortion laws and helped thousands of women obtain legal and illegal abortions. Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper participated in CCS while she was a student at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She was arrested for counseling women on how to get from Chicago to New York City to obtain abortions. Half a century later, Schaper…

Brazilian Evangelicals Launch ‘Sin-Free’ (Read: Gay-Free) Version of Facebook

By Peter Montgomery

…ll be taken up by the Neighbourhood Policy.” Spain: Marriage Equality turns 10 This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of marriage equality in Spain. Pink News reports that 31, 610 same-sex couple have been married in the country, and notes that in 2012 the Constitutional Court rejected a bid to invalidate the marriage equality law. Pew Research reported that in 2013 88 percent of Spaniards agree that society should accept homosexuality. Nigeria:…

The Panic Over Churches’ Tax-Exempt Status in a Gay-Married World

By Sarah Posner

…iage ceremonies. As I noted then, the religious right was galvanized in the 1970s by the IRS’s revocation of the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University over its policy banning interracial dating. That revocation–upheld by the Supreme Court–was a result of an IRS rule that permits the agency to deny or revoke a non-profit’s tax-exempt status if it violates a fundamental public policy (in that case, public policy against race discrimination). The…