Religion Dispatches
…o ask this question a long time,” said white-haired Nadine Hansen of Cedar City, Utah, a lay scholar of Mormon theology and history, as she stepped forward to request access to priesthood session. Hansen smiled and shook hands with Peterson. Other participants, like Stephanie Lauritzen of Salt Lake City, were turned away from the door of the historic Mormon Tabernacle with tears streaming down their cheeks. A few minutes before the session’s sch…
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…ade a fabulous video, and tweeted it, and you should watch it.” The Panama City twitter account joined in, declaring, “The City of Panama belongs to all those who live in it. From the Mayor’s Office we promote respect for diversity #CeroDiscriminacion.” Armenia: Justice Ministry says couples married in other countries should be recognized The Justice Ministry has confirmed that a same-sex couple married abroad should receive the same benefits in t…
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…and occupying space around Parliament for about 20 days, though in smaller numbers than in American rallies. It’s part of the broader effort to bring global attention to the “convoy.” CBC has reported on the prayer circles and speeches and signs, while Christine Mitchell has written about the Christian nationalist imagery of 2 Chronicles in the crowd. More worrisome, though, is how much international presence, interference and support there is. Fo…
Read More…ve religious and political temperament. The Modesto I grew up in was not a city of open-minded religious pluralism. Modesto is the city where, as a teen, I was invited by a friend to a service at his church. It turned out to be a performance of “Heaven’s Gates, Hell’s Flames,” a dramatization of the final moments of peoples’ deaths. The play vividly promised eternal hellfire for those who had not given their heart to Christ. My fourteen-year-old s…
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…Second American Revolution.” When Timothy McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City Bombing on April 19, 1995, he was hoping to spark the Second American Revolution. Instead, people were shocked at the loss of 168 innocent lives in the bombing. As a result, the militias that had formed, especially after the aggressive handling of the Branch Davidian community by ATF and FBI agents in 1993, became quiet until Barack Obama was elected president in 2008….
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…eo-Nazi groups are among those who reportedly took part in the protests. A number of people were injured during the clashes. Activists also claimed they were attacked by religious groups on the street who accused them of pedophilia and used homophobic slurs against them. The Chilean LGBTI movement has held public demonstrations for nearly two decades, but Monday’s clashes are the first time the police have made arrests at them. Representatives of…
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…mpaigns in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. In 2005, they printed 800,000 postcards in Canada “in a campaign that [argued] that the redefinition of marriage to include gay and lesbian couples would promote pedophilia, pornography and unsafe sex.” As Marianne Duddy-Burke of the LGBTQ Catholic organization Dignity USA commented in a press release, “The Knights are deeply invested in advancing a particular brand of Catholicism, and I am con…
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…Bible study—outnumbered Catholic volunteers by about 15 to 1. Also in the city I was in the vast majority of inmates were from the poorer parts, where there are more Pentecostals. But the main reason for the dominance of Pentecostalism was because they believe in the potential for God to radically change a person’s life. The once-I-was-lost-but-now-I’m-found narrative in Pentecostalism really resonates with inmates. That’s when I decided to focus…
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…ger chilling effect in the American Jewish world, yes; I’ve gotten so many phone calls and voicemails [from people] who have had something happen to them—this summer I do believe it has gone off the rails.” Yet, Kleinbaum said, “I do think my job is to create a Jewish space in which this discussion can take place without saying this person is not a good Jew and another is a good Jew. That, I think, is a reachable goal for my community.” Many rabbi…
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…er of the amazing things about him. He was approachable, answering his own phone and mail, meeting with complete nobodies like me. I thanked him for the basketball lessons that I had learned from him, but more importantly for the life lessons. His beloved wife Nellie had passed away in 1985 after 53 years of marriage, and my wife had died suddenly in 1992. Coach gave me a powerful model for dealing with that loss, a reminder that those we loved we…
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