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Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

By Wendy Norris

…the dour head of pastoral ministries at Focus on the Family, denounced the prayer services in the press, in a widely-circulated email, and on his blog. London reportedly told the Religious News Service of Haggard’s plans to hold prayer services, “When you think of the ethics of that, it, to me, just defies explanation.” Not to be left out of the media feeding frenzy, other high-profile pastors in the conservative evangelical Christian community qu…

Yes, It’s Worse To Be Gay in Russia

By Chrissy Stroop

…bia in Russia is frighteningly widespread. The breakdown with respect to approval or disapproval was as follows: 42% of respondents were definitely for the law, with another 25% leaning that way. Only 5% of respondents were leaning against the law, while a paltry 2% were definitely against it. 26% were undecided. Even more disturbing: respondents aged 25-39 were reportedly one of the strongest demographics in support of the law (along with workers…

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

By Patrick Hornbeck

…iderable, effect. Those churches with the financial resources to do so may prefer to provide their ministers with housing directly, since Crabb’s ruling leaves subsection 107(1) intact. But that’s an option that less well-endowed congregations, which already struggle to meet the financial needs of ministers and their families, will almost certainly find unfeasible. Will lay leaders shrug their shoulders and remind their ministers that the only cer…

Vatican Reverses Anti-Liberation Policies in Mexico

By Ruth Chojnacki and Jennifer Scheper Hughes

…gians and dismantled institutions that promoted liberationist thinking and practice. But the Pope’s approval of Bishop Arizmendi’s plan to ordain 100 new indigenous deacons to serve the Maya populations of Chiapas is a game changer. Ordination of Maya indigenous deacons in Chiapas was the brainchild of Bishop Samuel Ruiz (1924-2011), one of the beloved (so-called) “red bishops” of Latin America and a renowned advocate of Mexico’s Maya and other in…

Religious Exceptions Not So Exceptional According to New Study

By Patricia Miller

…der exemption that would in effect bar their insurers from providing contraceptive coverage as specified under the accommodation designed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a consolidated case challenging the exemption in the spring. The large number of Catholic nonprofits currently using the accommodation and potentially seeking a broader exemption means that potentially thousands of women could…

Heterosexual Martyrs and Gay Saints: Did AIDS Coverage Clear the Way for LGBT Equality?

By Diane Winston

…Falwell’s other concerns—the homosexual threat to families and the need to proactively protect citizens from gays with AIDS—were. Stories also chronicled how AIDS divided churches: congregations angrily debated whether or not to use a common communion cup and if heterosexual marriage was biblically based. As the decade progressed, coverage shifted from medical reports on the epidemic’s spread to feature stories on its human toll. Inasmuch as peopl…

Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…o was a married heterosexual man with kids, whose slight variation of male propriety resulted in his execution. Estonia: First pride march since violence disrupted event a decade ago On July 8, about 1800 people took part in the first gay pride march in the capital city of Tallinn in a decade. In 2007, AFP reports, the march “descended into chaos” when “participants were attacked with stones and beaten by opponents.” Czech Republic: ‘We are fair’…

Milquetoast Liberal Religion Won’t Challenge Conservative Values: A History Lesson

By Sheila D. Collins

…“sentimental, moralistic, idealistic and politically naïve,” nevertheless “produced a greater progressive religious legacy than any generation before or after it,” paving the way for everything else in social ethics. Faced with mass unemployment, social workers-turned-government administrators like Harry Hopkins, head of Roosevelt’s Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and his assistant, Aubrey Williams, held the view that unemployment was cau…

Kirk Cameron Joins the Anti-Mormon Chorus
(Sort Of)

By Julie Ingersoll

…ad heard that there were plans to put me on the list of speakers. I bought tickets… then there was a mix up… and I was cut from the list, if I had indeed been on a list… but I had some Christians who expressed concern…. and then I read your article and I… decided it would be best for me to wait and see how things play themselves out. Howse asked if Beck’s apparent view that “we all pray to the same God” isn’t by definition false teaching. Cameron…

A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…onal ministers, associates in ministry, and deaconesses, and currently the number of women and men preparing for ministry in ELCA seminaries is roughly equal (Susan Candea, “Wisdom Has Blessed Us”). While there are certainly some in the ELCA who continue to oppose women’s ordination, those numbers are small and grow smaller with each passing year. The same, I suspect, will be the case for the issue of gay and lesbian ordination forty years from no…