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Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…t. I wanted to make the priest’s total commitment to service, especially a service so rooted in wisdom, social justice, and peace. That this commitment entailed celibacy didn’t seem to matter—it was a sacrifice, after all. The vows only legitimated my deeper desire. Until I had a chance to live it out. Something about the politics of living in community coupled with the nobility of the cause—the work of God! – put a sour taste in my mouth. Conflic…

7 Problems with Trump’s Hastily-Tweeted Trans Military Ban

By Sunnivie Brydum

…e transgender community, Trump’s actions today are just one more sign that he will do everything in his power to harm us.” In the interest of full disclosure (something the President might want to study up on, himself), I have spent the past five years reporting on the state of open trans service in the U.S. Armed Forces. At The Advocate, I was the lead reporter covering the slow march toward open service, and in the course of that reportage, I me…

From ‘Management Gurus’ to ‘Corporate Chaplains’: A Review of Spirituality Inc.

By Brittany Shoot

…Chick-Fil-A, arts and crafts giant Hobby Lobby, and home services provider ServiceMaster (even their name a pun on “serving the master”). Chick-Fil-A, for example, operates in a similar fashion to McDonald’s except it provides Sundays off for employees nationwide, and in their children’s meals, a customer is more likely to find a Veggie Tales toy than a promotion for the latest G-rated Pixar film. In each of these cases, Lambert makes passing refe…

‘Manufactured’ Smear Campaign Attempts to Intimidate Church ‘Fasting From Whiteness’— It Didn’t Work

By Frederick Clarkson

…aw enforcement (who they say have been helpful) and took their Palm Sunday service online. Rev. John Edgerton told RD, “Threatening a church because you do not like the way they practice Christianity is a crime. Our Constitution guarantees the right to the free exercise of religion. A campaign of threats like this is intended to do one thing: intimidate us into changing how we practice our faith.” First United Church of Oak Park, a mostly white, s…

Covering Religion in The New Year: The Atheist Bus And More

By Diane Winston

…the atheist bus adverts, said: ‘You wait for ages for an atheist bus, then 800 come along at once. I hope they will brighten people’s days and make them smile on their way to work.’” So will it be a year of smiles for the faithless—or, perhaps, the faithful? A lot depends on the economy. Religion didn’t fare particularly well during the Great Depression. Despite the seeming need for alternative realities, church attendance didn’t swell in the 193…

Gambian Leaders Portray Anti-Gay Law as Defense of Islam, Ugandan Politicians as ‘Christmas Gift’; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…y other view of unions on the same level as christian marriage would be disservice to society rather than a service,” Bishop Liam MacDaid told a news conference. “In a same sex union, children would be deprived of what a man and woman can give to children in a stable marriage.” Chile: Son of Former Interior Minister on Being Gay and Jewish Raimundo Hinspeter, the son of a former Minister of the Interior, published a reflection in the Jewish Journa…

Culture Wars Today, Tomorrow, and Forever?

By Bill Berkowitz

…tion concerning AFA, including instructions on how to participate in AFA’s online Action Alert site.” You can give the other 24 cards “to your friends and family.” Exactly what is being “Push[ed] Back”against isn’t quite clear. Wildmon doesn’t really say. One needn’t stretch one’s imagination much to get the sense that when push comes to shove, just about everything advanced by the Obama administration will be subject to “Project Push Back.” Equal…

Thoreau’s Ferocious Critique of Philanthropy Does Not Make Him “Selfish”

By Alda Balthrop-Lewis

…would be joining the Witness Protection Program after her piece was posted online. But the truth is, it’s so easy to get the man wrong. I am sympathetic to the instinct that animates Schulz, the suspicion that Americans love Thoreau mostly because selfish individualism is our national religion and he is one of its loudest—or at least most famous—defenders. But Schulz’s reading of the man’s writing is facile. Where Thoreau writes—responding to the…

World Congress of Families Blessed By Georgian Orthodox Patriarch and George W. Bush; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…adrennial General Conference in Portland, Oregon. From May 10-20, more than 800 delegates will debate changes to church policy, including several that seek to lift longstanding bans on LGBT ministers and same-sex marriages. This is the first Methodist General Conference since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015. LGBT-affirming Methodists have failed to change church policy, with the denomination’s numerical strength now in the south –…

Clergy May Soon Find Taxes Soaring As Result of an Under-the-Radar Ruling

By Patrick Hornbeck

…bitively expensive; congregants preferred to see their donations go toward services rather than clergy housing; and new religious ventures, especially the nondenominational and evangelical churches that began to flourish in the second half of the twentieth century, could not boast the historic endowments of their mainline counterparts. So in 1954, Congress enacted the provision of the tax code at stake in Gaylor v. Mnuchin. A House committee said…