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Global LGBT Recap: Nigeria Jails Gays, Russian Orthodox Spox Calls for Criminalization Referendum

By Peter Montgomery

…sion talking about the LGBT people being less than human. For example, the number two person in the state broadcasting company – actually now he’s the number one person – hosted a show devoted to the question of whether it was enough to protect our children to ban homosexual propaganda or whether more needed to be done. He argued that more needed to be done. He said and we need to outlaw blood and sperm donations by them. And if they die in car ac…

Of God, But Not God: A Methodist Minister Speaks About Church’s Refusal to Open Its Doors to LGBT

By Joel Pitney

…ere not companionship-based. They were economic arrangements. Okay, that’s number 1. Number 2, let’s say that your wife didn’t provide you with a male offspring. A man could take another wife and another wife and another wife until one of them did. This is the “sanctity of marriage” that is being protected. Are you kidding me? Wow. Okay, so that’s Old Testament. Then along comes Jesus. Well for those of us who follow Jesus, I always like to point…

Why It’s Heresy to Read the Bible Literally: An Interview with John Shelby Spong

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…use it was so evil. Then, ten years later, they come back and say, “Now, I really understand what you’re talking about and now you’re speaking to me.” I really appreciate that. Writing is a strange gift. You put it out into the void and you really have no idea how people will respond to it except by the mail you get. Speaking again as a recovering Southern Baptist, I was taught that our job was to go out into the world and convert people to my rel…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…and an inappropriate concern with money and power (51%). But do such data really tell us much about American religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice. Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Belie…

The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

By Paul Wallace

…hese ideas correlate with reality? To find out, I say again: Get to know a number of highly intelligent, thoughtful Christians. Don’t go to the ones who talk a lot about hell or insist on converting you. The thoughtful ones are out there, I promise. With the Internet they’re not too hard to find and they live in every city and town in America. Ask as many questions of them as possible, and encourage them to ask as many questions as possible. Take…

Christian Nationalists Didn’t Seek to Desecrate the Capitol But to Purify It

By Adam Willems

…lationship to the nation. To be seen as insurrectionists or traitors plays really, really well into their persecution narrative. Which is not to say that we should walk on eggshells around white evangelicals because the feelings of white Christian nationalists might get hurt. It’s more about the defenses they’ve constructed around themselves. They have this, like, magical shield around them that converts whatever insult is thrown at them into powe…

God Dissolves into the Occupy Movement

By Nathan Schneider

…ather than active, albeit subtle, racism. But I do think this represents a really interesting effort on the part of occupiers to—so to speak—kill the Buddhas of power and hierarchy in our society. And celebrity really is a huge Buddha. Even well-earned celebrity. I’ve witnessed other—including white—notable people getting essentially no attention during visits to the plaza. I think it’s really telling that Lewis chose not to hold a grudge. From hi…

Refusing Religion, Claiming the Future: A Roundtable Discussion on “The Nones Are Alright”

By Peter Laarman

…nasty superiors and terrible bishops and liturgy in a language they didn’t really understand. It made me think about what I missed, generationally, and what’s being lost. You’re right that there is something sad about the passing of the old edifice, but will it ever really entirely go away? My friend, whom I write about in the book, who’s a former “none” turned Benedictine monk might be the only member of his novice class, but as long as there are…

I Met God, She’s Black: An Exhibit Makes the Black Female Body a Temple

By Anita Little

…ated. A number of the women who showed up were from the black church and a number were deans or presidents of colleges, so it was this really wide range of experiences in this space. I think this is a very historic moment. Where else would you get to see more than 100 pieces of artwork from black women? You don’t. If you went to the de Young museum or to MoMA, you would see one or two pieces from black women artists, but if you don’t know those ar…

Awakening, Counter-Awakening, and the End of Church

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…political position about the rights of these people, but are these people really people? And are they people with their full wisdom, their full experience, their full sense of who they are? Are they really, truly welcomed into the deepest realms of making community? What do you believe this new awakening will look like if we have the courage to move forward? The awakening that we are pushing toward is one where we can go past boundaries that onc…