Search for "VIPREG2024 1xbet free promo code today United Arab Emirates"

Methodist Clergy Pledge to Defy Church in Blessing LGBT Unions

By Pamela R. Lightsey

…desire to be in lifelong relationships with loving partners? Last week, 70 United Methodist Clergy in Minnesota pledged to defy church polity against performing such ceremonies. This week, as of Thursday, 134 clergy in the Northern Illinois Conference have pledged the same. If they follow through with their pledge, they face the possibility of losing their clergy orders. It should be noted that losing one’s credentials is not simply losing the abi…

On Guns and Religious Liberty, Ben Carson “Not an Authentic Adventist”

By Sarah Posner

…s’s eventual return. There are approximately one million Adventists in the United States, and 18 million worldwide. Observing the Sabbath on Saturday, not Sunday, and a commitment to health and wellness, including vegetarianism, are prominent features that distinguish Adventism from other Christian denominations. Protecting the Saturday Sabbath observance has driven Adventist involvement in legal challenges under the Free Exercise Clause, such as…

2021 National Prayer Breakfast: A Kinder Gentler Christian Capitalism

By Becky Garrison

…ralistic with nones representing the largest religious voting block in the United States. Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State opines, “While it was a relief this year not to see the breakfast descend into the kind of embarrassment it often was during the Trump years, that hardly means the event is worth saving. This year ought to be its last.” However, given President Biden’s endorsement by progressive faith leaders,…

Rick Warren’s Biblical Blowback

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…d by troubling implication, the judgment is now to be directed against the United States, not against the Iranians. The bizarre implication of the way Warren reads his scriptures places the United States in the surreal position of being like the Amorites, the Amalekites, or worset—which is precisely what the so-called Enemies of Freedom are claiming that we have become. Behind all of these scriptural and theological confusions lies a still deeper…

Attacks on Tim Walz’s Lutheran Denomination are Undermined by Reality — I Mean, Is ELCA Even Exciting Enough for Controversy?

By Daniel Schultz

…he difference between the ELCA and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the United States’s next largest (and far more conservative) Lutheran body. The Christian Post took things further, declaring the ELCA “notoriously progressive” for, among other sins, endorsing Black Lives Matter policy proposals and implying on social media that churches might allow people to write their pronouns on their name tags. Mollie Hemingway, Editor-in-Chief of The Fed…

What’s Wrong with Wright’s Words

By Andrew Murphy

…us released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people…Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.” And during the twentieth century, Martin Luther King powerfully “refuse[d] to believe” that the bank of American justice was bankrupt, and brought his dream to W…

Why the Media and Democrats Should Reject the Christian Right’s Pearl-Clutching and Address Problematic Religious Views

By Chrissy Stroop

…do not share them must be on the table in a fair, democratic society: Like freedom of the press, religious freedom is an important First Amendment right. But when believers use their faith as a bludgeon to attack othered groups and to prevent equal accommodation of members of those groups in the public square, we have moved beyond the bounds of a truly democratic approach to pluralism. To be sure, some media coverage is directing critical attentio…

Methodist Church’s ‘Dismantling Racism Initiative’ Excludes Some Black Lives

By Pamela R. Lightsey

…re matter, are members of the LGBTQ community? How serious can Black LGBTQ United Methodists take this new initiative that doesn’t contain a clear stance against homophobia and transphobia? Have our denominational leaders not yet learned Black Lives Matter means ALL Black Lives Matter, including members of the LGBTQ community? It was not too long ago that many of us sought to make this point at the denomination’s 2016 General Conference. About 150…

God TV: Televangelism 2.0

By Sarah Posner

…to reconnect with younger viewers, it is likely that God TV’s debut in the United States will send channel surfers in the Alecs’ direction.” Recently God TV has been broadcasting live a healing revival of the Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley, from Lakeland, Florida, which Charisma dubbed the “Lakeland Healing Outpouring.” During the revival, which has been ongoing for more than a month, Wendy Alec claimed to have received a prophecy from God that…

Is ‘Beyond Doubt’ Correct About the Decline of Religion? Yes… Sort Of.

By Lucas McCracken

…ugh scientific, rational means. To give an example, for many of us moderns today—even those who are religious—if someone in our family gets cancer, we take them to the oncologist rather than simply solicit God for supernatural healing. And for those among us who do rely on strictly religious means to solve material problems like disease, they’re met with scorn, contempt, and even disgust, as if they haven’t adequately kept astride with the march o…