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Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy: Choosing Religion Over Sex

By Lynne Gerber

…ith members of the same sex. For gay Christians caught between a religious world where homosexuality is unacceptable and sex in general is suspect and a gay world that can seem to celebrate shallow sexual conquest, the kind of deep intimacy between men the ex-gay world offers may well be sufficient for homo-oriented men. Trading sexual intimacy with men for its other variations may well be worth the deal. But, again, this is not a change in orient…

A Church (Further) Divided: Putin’s Patriarch Now Faces a Rebellion From Within the Russian Orthodox Church

By Katherine Kelaidis

…ointing once again to the deep divides that animate the Orthodox Christian world—both inside and outside of Russia—and play a significant role in the continuing conflict in Ukraine. Despite what some in the Western press have been willing to believe, Patriarch Kirill has not been an advocate for peace. In fact, he has at times seemingly gone out of his way to provoke the situation, conjuring the memory of old hatreds and false histories. This has…

Honey, I Shrunk the Church: The Vatican Manages Sexual Abuse, Canonization and the Nuns

By Mary E. Hunt

…poor, marginalized, ill, young, or otherwise on the periphery of an unjust world. They are Earth-loving and engaged in structural change to eradicate injustice. Their simple lifestyles and commitments to the poor are well known. Their contributions to theology and ministry, their ways of being responsible adults in mature, loving communities are something for the clergy to emulate, not condemn. Alas, when Cardinal Gerhard Müller made his April 30,…

Religion Round-Up: What’s Going on in Religion Around the World

By Diane Winston

…logy. More than 20 years ago, sociologist Robert Wuthnow’s classic The Restructuring of American Religion posited that education, mobility, and socioeconomic factors were trumping theological differences among American Protestant denominations. Some took Wuthnow’s argument as proof text for the culture war, but it also explains the softening of theological boundaries among the mainline and the triumph of pragmatics (shrinking budgets) over dogmati…

George Weigel’s Revisionist History Casts Vatican II as a Christian Nationalist Handbook

By Patricia Miller

…m must always be tethered to the responsibility to seek and adhere to the truth, including the truth about God.” In other words, religious freedom must be oriented to the “truth”—as conservatives define it. As Carroll notes, the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict—Weigel’s “keys”—were in fact an “ultraconservative blowback” to Vatican II, one that was “obsessed, above all, with issues related to sexuality and the place of women.” The all-male hi…

‘Id Mubarak and Many Happy Returns!

By Amina Wadud

…. Long enough for the children to get fidgity. No matter where I am in the world, this uniformity allows me to be included without special preparation. Of course there are still some places where women are not allowed to attend. But when we are allowed, we know what to expect. On the one hand, this formality of worship might seem unnecessary and a burden. So besides the advantage that a Muslim anywhere in the world can enter and know the formula,…

The Problem of Evil in Free Market Theology

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…esy. In this new world, the belligerently pro-business wing of the Republican Party—with its unwavering commitment to free markets, deregulation, extended tax cuts, and an image of America as a providential city on a very wealthy hill—suddenly appears more clearly in its true light. They are the Gnostics, the elite heretics, whereas the Social Democrats are ironically true heirs to an orthodox gospel of compassionate care for the least among us. A…

The World Was His Canvas: The Legacy of M.F. Husain

By Bruce B. Lawrence

…rab/Islamic art, to be housed in one of the several new museums being constructed in Doha. When I first met him, at the opening of the new I.M. Pei Museum of Islamic Art in November 2008, he had completed just 19 for the Doha project. (By the time of his death, he had added another 14-16 paintings, bringing the total to 33-35, in what will remain one of several incomplete thematic projects that mark his extraordinary productivity.) For students of…

Where In The World Is Barack Hussein Obama?

By Haroon Moghul

…. Because unlike Libya, and Syria, and Iran—and unlike America, France and Russia—Egypt’s revolution was remarkably nonviolent. I ask this as a strategic question (but not unaware of the moral implications): can one change a system without the employment of force? (I am asking, not advising or suggesting.) Today, El-Baradei is back in Vienna, rumor has it that Mubarak will be out of jail shortly, and Morsi remains in detention, his location uncert…

Bishops Search for Condoms in Cookie Boxes

By Mary E. Hunt

…uts Rock the Mall” in Washington DC on the 9th of June. They hope to set a world record for the biggest sing-along in history. Their new theme song says it all: “Girl Scout ignite a dream, ignite your hope, ignite the world on fire.” Now that ought to be enough to make the bishops tremble in unison. The contrast between the girls and “the big boys” will be vivid that day. My favorite local troop just got back from a horseback-riding overnight. The…