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Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

By Donna Schaper

…et. The Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialized countries to internationally binding emission reduction targets, was the first climate treaty to emerge from this process. It was passed at COP3 in December 1997 at Kyoto, Japan and came into force in February 2005 when a sufficient number of developed countries signed the agreement; the United States did not, hampering negotiations for the next decade. A successor agreement, involving all count…

Competing Visions of Family & Freedom at UN; Methodists Try to Avoid Schism on Sexuality; Catholic Cardinal Denounces LGBT ‘Demonic Ideology’; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…request for a permit by saying they could not guarantee activists’ safety United Methodist Church: Bishops create commission to avoid schism over sexuality issues The United Methodist Church, whose global policy-making body met May 10-20 in its quadrennial General Conference, is “struggling to avoid a split over gay rights,” according to Associated Press religion writer Rachel Zoll. The church has 12 million members worldwide, 7 million of those…

The Religious Right’s Apocalyptic Visions of an Obama Presidency

By Bill Berkowitz

…er be licensed to deliver babies at hospitals in any state”; overall, “the number of abortions have increased dramatically.” Everywhere in America, men, women and children are likely to be confronted by, or exposed to, pornography. When the Federal Communications Commission lifted all “restrictions on obscene speech or visual content in radio and television broadcasts,” it freed television programmers to show “explicit portrayals of sexual acts” a…

Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…f the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congregations in America (344,894) and multiplied it by another estimate of the average revenue of each ($242,910). Depending on how you look at it, $378 billion is a lot of money, or it’s not very much money at all. It’s more than the net worth of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet, combined…

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

By Elizabeth Drescher

…ll 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 Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes…

US Offers Help For Investigation of Bangladesh Killings

By Peter Montgomery

…social product of influence of countries of the European Community and the United States, which they want to impose “the new Moral Agenda” which promotes abortion, marriage between lesbians, gays and transsexuals. The president and director of the Christian Action Group spoke on a panel addressing “The new global agenda and its implications in the Dominican Republic.” They warned that international institutions like the Organization for American S…

Making ‘The Link’: AIPAC’s New Crises

By Matthew Duss

…t demand more cooperation in return for the billions of dollars in aid the United States delivers to Israel every year. In 2006, the Iraq Study Group was excoriated by many on the pro-Israel right for making the linkage argument,stating in its final report (pdf): “The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability.” The Bush administration largely ignored t…

Duterte Cites Catholic Heritage in Opposing Marriage Equality, and More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…to “ideological colonization” by influential western countries such as the United States. “And this is terrible,” the Pope said last August. “We are experiencing a moment of the annihilation of man as the image of God.” UN: Some countries challenge religious freedom report dealing with sexuality Earlier this month, United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief Ahmed Shaheed, delivered his first report to the Human Rights Coun…

Six Overlooked Gems from the Future of World Religions Report

By Timothy King

…also not clear if being “unaffiliated” really means the same thing in the United States as elsewhere. Take that earlier number of 68% of the “unaffiliated” believing in God or a higher power in the United States. That drops to 30% in France (233). According to that previous Pew research, one reason more people identify as “unaffiliated” now is that people who used to skip church and not really believe anything in particular simply felt a social p…

Exclusion is Causing Great Harm: A Conversation With Suspended UMC Pastor Rev. Cynthia Meyer

By Joel Pitney

…riends. I have a daughter who is 21, and she really has no interest in the United Methodist Church at this point. That’s a sad loss. So many people who might otherwise be attracted to the United Methodist Church—with its care for the larger world and commitment to social justice—are put off by the stance on these issues. Those who are LGBT, or who have family members or people important to them who are LGBT (and that includes about everybody), now…