Religion Dispatches
…and not in fear. * The author wishes to thank Jorge Aquino, Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco, for reviewing an earlier draft and providing valuable commentary….
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…I don’t know yet if I’m going to do that. We’ll see. I just came back from San Jose where I photographed 15 megachurches there. Do you have any cities of interest that you’d feel most compelled to go to? Well, Texas has a huge amount of megachurches. That’s like the biggest state for megachurches and would be an interesting addition to the project. But I’m not really sure of where I would go. One of your megachurch “megazines” is on view at a gall…
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…claim. Unlike previous terror attacks claimed by ISIS in the West—like the San Bernardino and Orlando shootings—Lahouaiej Bouhlel made no declaration of loyalty to ISIS. Authorities have not uncovered any ties to terrorist organizations or recruiters. Lahouaiej Bouhlel was Tunisian. But he was not a practicing Muslim. According to his neighbors and his father, he drank alcohol, ate pork, danced, womanized, never fasted, never prayed, and never wen…
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…equences of the church’s standing within the Anglican Communion, which has sanctioned the Episcopal Church in the US for its stance on marriage and LGBT ordination. Also in Canada, Vancouver’s city council voted unanimously this week “to support the equality, diversity and inclusion of transgender people by implementing a series of recommendations made by a consulting group that specializes in trans issues,” according to CTV News. Iraq: Religious…
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…ad list of crazed attackers that includes the killers at the Columbine and Sandy Hook schools. On the other hand, he was ethnically a Muslim, which automatically convicts him in some simplistic minds. And he is said to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) before the police opened fire on him at the end of his murderous rampage. This phrase, however, is somewhat like the English language expression, “Lord of mercy,” that can be expressed by…
Read More…Cardinal’s successor, Monsignor Francisco Ozoria Acosta of the Diocese of San Pedro, calling him “a man who is known for his moderation and prudence in the management of religious and social issues,” An addition, Francis DeBernardo at New Ways Ministry responds to reports that Emeritus Pope Benedict claims in his memoir to have dismantled a “gay lobby” within the Vatican: Since there had been so much speculation about the existence of such a grou…
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…. We must stand for that. By comparison, in his statement on the massacre, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone revealed the dark heart of what so many in the church’s leadership believe to be the truth about LGTB individuals: …we stand in solidarity with all those affected by this atrocity, regardless of race, religion, or personal lifestyle. That’s right, it’s too bad your “personal lifestyle” got you killed. Just as the Catholic Church…
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…iew, she speaks to Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University and author of Sustaining Faith Traditions: Race, Ethnicity and Religion Among the Latino and Asian American Second Generation (NYU Press, 2012). Their conversation explores a few of the ways he sees Asian American Christians decolonizing their faith from white Christianity, how that shapes their approach to social justice and their impact on t…
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…d news of the revival was reported in the city’s press the same day as the San Francisco earthquake—it also speaks to the fact that, from the beginning, Pentecostalism has appealed to minorities, migrants, the downtrodden. William J. Seymour was born in Louisiana in 1870 and grew up in African-American Catholicism steeped in strong elements of the supernatural. In 1895, he fled the poverty of subsistence farming and racial persecution. In his trav…
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…were described then) founded the Council on Religion and the Homosexual in San Francisco. Well before Stonewall, pastors there took on the police and city officials for their discriminatory behavior toward lesbian, gay, and trans people who simply wanted to have dances or go to bars to meet others. The pastors won. History records that Christian leaders were in the struggle for gay rights from the beginning—a small matter of pride given the enormi…
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