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From Kneel-Ins to the Condemnation of “Racial Sin”: The Meaning of the PCA’s “Overture on Pursuing Racial Reconciliation”

By Paul Harvey

…ons of race have again come to the forefront of theologically conservative American Christianity. The demographic changes leading to the “de-Europeanization of American Christianity” obviously have something to do with it. The PCA itself, a church deeply steeped in the history of the white South, is comprised today of about 20 percent non-white parishioners, for example. A similar number holds for Southern Baptists. This puts them about mid-point…

Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

By Mark D. Jordan

…n our side. Number 1 could be “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Number 2: “God doesn’t discriminate.” Number 3: “Sex is only for procreation.” And so on. We could get clever, of course, and assign separate groups of numbers to arguments pro and con or to thematic clusters. I can even imagine some seminary librarian proposing a sort of Dewey Decimal System to organize the arguments. This would allow long series of arguments to be cited b…

The Sacred and the Dead: Operator, Can You Help Me?

By Maren Haynes

…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. Where Pigpen called up the trusty telephone operator, I did my pining alone, with only the camaraderie of a searc…

In the Aftermath of the “Himalayan Tsunami”

By Luke Whitmore

…(first as Uttaranchal) in 2000, the region has seen a massive rise in the number of visitors to the region, especially by the growing Indian middle class. Roads widened and hotels and visitor services grew exponentially. Building a new hotel or a restaurant by the side of the road felt like a smart investment—even when the road was near a river. Kedarnath saw the building of new cell phone towers, a railway reservation office, helicopter landing…

American Sin: Why Pope Francis’ Mercy is Not Our Mercy

By Kaya Oakes

…er of languages, economic classes, ethnicities and cultures represented in American Catholic churches, American Catholics resist singularity. And it follows that they are going to be inconsistent in how they define mercy, as the hierarchy of the American church is often wont to demonstrate. Even the variety of American “Mercy Doors” found online defies comparison to the huge, ornately carved bass doors Francis pushed open at St. Peter’s when he de…

“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

By Spencer Dew

…sovereign of the universe something of which Krieger, again, in that deep American tradition best personified by Herman Melville, remains suspicious of—which is to say armed against. War in the name of faith is a recurring theme, as with cell-phone videos of beheadings. Krieger reads such rage within a dichotomy of “fundamentalist repression” and its opposite, freedom. Alhough she prefers the phrase “over-pervy libertinism” as, for her, the dicho…

Yes, It’s Worse To Be Gay in Russia

By Chrissy Stroop

…e that describes a recent Levada Center poll. “Can you imagine only 7% of Americans opposing a law forbidding ‘gay propaganda?’” Sharlet asks. And of course he’s right that the American “liberals” downplaying the severity of the anti-LGBT climate in Russia are wrong. While I do not doubt that in some parts of the US, same-sex couples are still justifiably afraid to hold hands in public, a country in which a slim but growing majority of the popula…

Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

By Wendy Norris

…nks. You have to determine that on your own.” Haggard’s weekly Oval Office phone calls and grip and grin NAE photo ops with former President George W. Bush are now mere vestiges of an old life, prior to what he calls the “crisis.” At New Life, which Jeff Sharlet described as “not just a battalion of spiritual warriors but a factory for ideas to arm them,” worship services were extravagant multimedia, fog machine-choked productions, in which Haggar…

Swiss Priest Sacked for Blessing Lesbian Couple; Mormon Equality Advocate Excommunicated; Pope-Backed Anti-Gay Referendum Fails; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…th hate from politicians and religious leaders seeking political power and cheap popularity.” She and more than 130 volunteers then distributed the magazine across the country and into some unlikely hands, including to Uganda’s Parliament, president, and other politicians, as well as churches and media outlets. Nabagesera says Bombastic has been a “big hit,” allowing her to attract correspondents in every country across the African continent. She…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…t Atheists and Agnostics are not readily blended populations. Finally, the numbers in the Pew report obscure an understanding of American religiosity as it is expressed in practice—that is, as people do religion or spirituality rather than as they believe. While the researchers marked practice in the conventional categories of worship attendance and prayer, other practices that my research has suggested are religiously or spiritually meaningful to…