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Pope Francis Has Painted Himself into a Corner on Women Deacons

By Mary E. Hunt

…urch members a majority of whom would be young people, to imagine and construct together some new models of church to be lived out locally for a decade and then be evaluated. In the meantime, ministry, including Eucharist, would be the responsibility of the whole community. Those churches could be linked virtually, governed democratically at the local level, and be seen as catholic in the fullest sense of the term. How ministry and decision-making…

The “Marginalization” of Tim Keller: When Anything Short of Adulation Is Oppression

By Anita Little

…/status/844603619118907392 William Stell, a recent PTS alum who is now a PCUSA pastor in New Jersey and identifies as gay, also agrees that many are making a false equivalency between refusing to honor someone and silencing them. “[The revocation] was an appropriate gesture because it’s barely been a decade since our seminary affirmed the call of God in all of its students, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. It’s not about voices not bein…

Bishops vs. Nuns: Who Spoke for God in 2010?

By Eugene McMullan

…ps claim to have exclusive possession of the measuring stick of orthodoxy (Rule of Truth), nuns are less likely than bishops to make doctrinal statements. That being said, nuns are quite devout and typically orthodox. The US nuns are not “bad Catholics,” as the Vatican implied with its notorious apostolic inquiries. The real issue is their criticism of the bishops, and their commitment to the principles of Vatican II. In a letter regarding women’s…

Of Personhood and the Pill: What’s at Stake?

By Atlee Parks Breland

…ent can’t agree even amongst itself, how are women supposed to be able to trust that those 21 words will protect their access to contraception less drastic forms of ectopic pregnancy treatment? Would you be willing to bet your health and fertility on it, and sign away your rights in exchange for promises that the eventual implementation will still have the necessary exceptions? Do you trust the men (and a handful of women) of the Mississippi legis…

Build the Muslim Community Center at Ground Zero

By Donna Schaper

…victory goes to the terrorists. Forgiveness is also expensive. It is not a word to be thrown around lightly. Sometimes it needs a symbol. A community center could be a symbol that some members of the Moslem community wanted to say they were sorry for what others did. There might even be a victim (and yes, when we can’t forgive, we remain victims) who might become able to forgive if they participated in a program at a community center, got to know…

V-Day: An Arrow in the Heart

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…dern holiday, the Roman festival of the Lupercalia, held on the Ides of February (February 13-15). Recall Shakespeare once again: it was during the Lupercalia, he imagined, that Julius Caesar [TK] it three times. Just one month later, during the Ides of March, he lost his life in a bloody hail of daggers. Loving is linked to dying. While we know little about it, the Lupercalia seems to have been a curious Latin festival with mysterious Greek origi…

You Are Being Organized by Something: 10 Questions for Kathryn Lofton on Consuming Religion

By Kathryn Lofton

…ly organize themselves in the world and unconsciously are organized by the world. Insofar as ours is a world built by material and immaterial networks and grids, I think we’re missing out if we think of those networks and grids as secular or irreligious. We are missing out insofar as we are missing what I have found as the archival intention of designers. Namely, to organize themselves (and us) into a world they get thereby to organize. The proble…

Chris Christie Apologizes. . . For Saying Something True

By Sarah Posner

…ement.” Note here that Christie, aside from his use of the forbidden (but true) word “occupied,” expressed no sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Here’s the full context: “I took a helicopter ride from the occupied territories across and just felt personally how extraordinary that was to understand, the military risk that Israel faces every day.” Got that? Using the word “occupied” overshadows that what Christie took away from the experience was t…

Sing the Glory of the Smoke: The Spiritual History of Jazz

By Andrew Aghapour

…erplexed. I was miffed. I didn’t know how to go forward. So one night it struck me that maybe the R-word was getting me into trouble, given the contemporary atmosphere with all the conversations about being “Spiritual But Not Religious.” So I thought, let’s do this, let’s go for a Hail Mary pass, and change only the subject line, just that one word—“Research Project: Jazz and Spirituality.” And the responses started pouring in. So I thought, okay,…

Hail Santa! War-on-Christmas Outrage Over Satanic Tree Reveals the Self-Serving Ambiguity of ‘Religion’

By Joseph Laycock

…ch. The RFI never defines the thing they claim to defend. Religion scholar Russell McCutcheon has argued that the ambiguity of the word “religion” is a feature, not a bug. As he puts it, “[religion’s] utility is linked to its inability to be defined.” Just as Christmas can be either religious or secular depending on whose interests are being served, a group can be either a religion or an “anti-religious force” as needed in order to create the impr…