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Why Even Progressive Christianity Must Own Its Complicity in Anti-LGBT Violence

By Layton E. Williams

…many Christian churches and leaders—has led to countless hate crimes, alarmingly high numbers of homeless LGBT young people, and staggering rates of depression, self-harm, and suicide among LGBT youth and adults. Of course, a growing number of churches and denominations today have rejected such a destructive understanding of human sexuality. Religion Dispatches recently compiled a list of the official positions on LGBT issues currently taught by…

PCUSA’s Nod to “Traditional” Marriage Understandable, but Not Accurate

By William E. Smith

…iven the tensions this issue has caused, both within the PCUSA and among many other denominations, it shouldn’t be very surprising that the phrasing in the PCUSA’s Book of Order was changed from “between a man and a woman” to “between two people, traditionally a man and a woman.” “Traditional marriage” is common in the rhetoric of those opposed to same-sex marriage, and it’s a phrase that’s likely to bring to mind images of a kind of Father Knows…

Census Reveals Gay People are Shockingly… Normal

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…e way of a good lie and have vowed to continue their efforts to keep discrimination against gay people in place. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, addressed the same-sex marriage issue during an interview on the CBS program 60 Minutes, urging policymakers not to tamper with the definition of what he termed “authentic marriage.” “I love my mom, but I don’t have the right to marry her,” said the archbishop, whose national public profile as a spokesman fo…

Will the Pope’s Woman Problem Alienate Young Catholics?

By Patricia Miller

…ber of other comments insulting to women more broadly, which hasn’t helped minimize doubts on the part of many women about Francis’ ability to see them as full persons. Gina Messina-Dysert, author of the forthcoming Faithfully Feminist, noted that: Francis has made some important, positive comments about women and said it is time to reexamine the role of women in the church. But he continues to reveal a highly patriarchal view of the value and tra…

Trump is a Nightmare, Sure, But Can He Actually Do Anything?

By Sunnivie Brydum

…Carolina’s House Bill 2, Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and any number of ill-fated attempts to block the forward march of marriage equality. But my professional pedigree also breeds skepticism. And although it’s long been clear that the current administration is hell-bent on turning back the clock on basic civil rights for anyone who’s not a straight white evangelical Christian man, I often wonder whether the near-constant panic tha…

Trump’s “Muslim Ban” A Gift to Terrorists

By Ali Olomi

…r officers, the president signed an executive order that, according to the New York Times “suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.” The response to the proposal has been swift; spontaneous protests in support of immigrants and M…

A ‘Pro-Life’ Buttigieg Ambush, Trump’s Corrupt Counsel, and More

By Daniel Schultz

…stians no longer hold a majority the US, and some of them want their hegemony back. You can see this play out in a number of ways in the headlines. 2. There’s a specific desire to maintain the hegemony of conservative social practices, leading Trump to appear at the March For Life, the first president ever to have done so. The effort appears to have paid off, with marchers shouting things like “four more years” and “we love you.” 3. Though Democra…

A Twisted Love Story: How American Evangelicals Helped Make Putin’s Russia and How Russia Became the Darling of the American Right

By Katherine Kelaidis

…ion, American evangelicals began to flood into Russia, with a generation coming of age on mission trips to Moscow and Bible-buying fundraisers for St. Petersburg. Instead of meeting with hostility from the Russian Orthodox Church, these Protestant firebrands were generally welcomed. Which is the part of the story that’s perhaps most difficult to explain; Orthodoxy as a faith tradition has spent centuries resolutely opposed to corruption or co-opti…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Reversal on Contraception

By Patricia Miller

…ng a contraceptive that used hormones already present in a woman’s body to mimic the natural infertility of a pregnant woman, he hoped the Vatican would find a theological basis to approve the method. In 1958, when the Pill was already being tested on human populations, Pius XII said its use would be acceptable “as a necessary remedy because of a disease of the uterus or the organism” even if it had the secondary effect of causing sterility. This…

Evangelical Pastor Argues for Full LGBT Inclusion: “I Think It’s Inevitable”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ept them it’s like the original Gentiles coming to faith. There’s so much God-activity in all of this and pastors who aren’t welcoming these people are missing out….