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Gay Black Church: An Interview with Bishop Yvette Flunder

By Lisa Webster

…am one of the religious leaders in this country who has one of the largest numbers of black gay churches in the U.S. gathered together. I don’t know anybody that has a larger number of black gay churches meeting together. Not gay churches—the MCC definitely has the corner on that. Do you work together? Very closely. In fact I have an MCC credential, an ordination. Were there times in your life when you did question your ability to stay in the chu…

These Are the New Battlegrounds for LGBT Rights Under Trump

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ed to codify into state law a faith-based “right to discriminate,” and, in Kansas and Texas, grant a $2,000 reward for cisgender students who “caught” a transgender student sharing the bathroom with them. That was the state of affairs even with a professed friend to LGBT folks in the White House. But that kind of municipal involvement is going to be our best bet to resist Trump’s agenda. While it may seem counter-intuitive to focus a national resi…

Confessions of a Hater

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…estboro Baptist’s Fred Phelps, who reportedly lies near death in a Topeka, Kansas, hospice after being excommunicated from the church he founded in 1955. But I remain a hater. The student who asked me this question had revealed a lot about himself the first day he wheeled into class. He was what we community college types call a “non-traditional student,” an older, grizzled, white-bearded Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair (I later learned his amputa…

Angry Voters, Right-Wing Populism, & Racial Violence: People of Faith Can Help Break the Linkages

By Chip Berlet

…mention Republican Scott Brown, the right-wing populists, and the Oklahoma City bombing in one article? Can there be a role for people of faith and their allies in ensuring that no such linkage develops and that history does not repeat itself? To find out I turned to the Center for New Community (CNC), a national nonprofit that helps build local alliances among congregations from different faith traditions and other institutions seeking to resist…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…years. I came about the time that folks from Burma began arriving in large numbers and uniting in membership with Crescent Hill, and much of my time in those early years was spent trying to figure out how in the world we might be able to be a unified body that includes people who don’t speak English, who have a completely foreign background and cultural experience. It took a lot of hard work but we reached a place a number of years ago where, whil…

The Prophet Amos on Unemployment and Our Leadership

By Peter Laarman

…can’t find any job; among younger males, especially African-Americans, the number is much higher—in many areas one in two workers is without work. Yet Congress, with a Democratic majority, can’t get it together to extend unemployment benefits. Our solons just flew out of town for a weeklong holiday vacation. Republicans, joined by Democratic deficit hawks, insist that any extension be “deficit neutral” and come out of unspent stimulus money. But…

The Trouble With Francis: Three Things That Worry Me

By Mary E. Hunt

…dinals. But on closer inspection, it is clear that women ought not to book tickets to Rome just yet. Juxtaposing “valued” and “clericalized” is odd at best, pernicious at worst. In a church in which ordained male clergy have jurisdiction— that is, authority to make decisions about things that matter—to claim that women who cannot be ordained are valued is a hard case to make. Valued for what and how? We have heard from Francis all about women’s su…

Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…reduced to a kind of majordomo or personal assistant. He fixeth my parking tickets, he secureth me a good table in the restaurant, he leadeth me to book contracts. Even in these minor tasks, the invocation of God seems more of a courtesy than a necessity.” Gone, too, from Osteen’s theology is any mention of topics that might intrude on happy thoughts: Osteen avoids using current events in his messages so he doesn’t get sidetracked in controversy….

Pope Tweeted into Retirement

By Rachel Wagner

…presumably to be grounded in singular identity, suffers amidst the multiplicity. What’s a pope to do when he must compete with Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga in the same visual and symbolic space? He can issue missives, tweet calls for faith, and hope for better times. Only a few weeks ago, in anticipation of World Communications Day 2013 (perhaps already considering stepping down before the May event later this year), Benedict prepared a statement o…

When Blasphemy Was a Riot (But Didn’t Cause One)

By Sophie Gherardi

…he Untouchables), which came out almost a year ago and sold twenty million tickets in France (and nearly as many abroad). Intouchables is a funny and moving comedy, but as politically correct a story as you’ll find: a black young man bordering on delinquency is hired by a tetraplegic wealthy man to be his assistant-nurse-chauffeur. They have a ball together doing crazy—and sometimes nasty—things, and save each other from an apparently inexorable f…