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Is The Episcopal Church Driving Drunk?

By J. Terry Todd

…ld-line denomination, right-wing detractors are correct in noting that the numbers are grim and the future far from bright. The question is, why? Why has this once-powerful church, with unmatched cultural capital and an impressive treasury, become so anemic? The answer is surely more complicated than the simple right-wing Anglican formula that liberalism = death. But let’s face it: this has been a tough few months for the Episcopal Church, and the…

Passover with Mohammed: A Jewish Journalist in Yemen

By Sam Kestenbaum

…ut already has a thick goatee. When I tell him I’m a Jew he takes out his iPhone and wants to play me a song. Hebrew lettering appears on the bottom of the screen and a yarmulke-clad singer stands on a stage, microphone in hand. When he begins singing, in Arabic, Ahmed knows every word. He sings about chewing qat, about falling in love. “Most of the Jews here went to Israel, but they stayed Yemeni—listen to his accent! He’s a perfect Sana’ani. He…

Mark Driscoll Hate-Tweets as Pope Benedict Flip-Flops: This Week in Religion and Social Media

By Elizabeth Drescher

…went on to a universal authority for his teaching. Benedict’s way more than 140-characters of something other than “wise and balanced” rhetoric in the World Peace Day message is worth our attention: Those who insufficiently value human life and, in consequence, support among other things the liberalization of abortion, perhaps do not realize that in this way they are proposing the pursuit of a false peace. The flight from responsibility, which deg…

Pope Francis Dismisses Condoms in AIDS Fight

By Patricia Miller

…no such compassion for those living with HIV/AIDS when asked on his return flight from his African visit if the church should change its prohibition on condom use given the continued spread of the virus. Francis replied with an obtuse mixture of parable and exegesis that made it clear he saw little flexibility in the teaching: The question seems too small to me. It seems to me also like a partial question. The morality of the church is found on th…

God May Weep For Church Sexual Abuse, But Bishop Chaput Prefers to Bark

By Anthea Butler

…d the statute was introduced by Representative Mark Rozzi, who was raped at 13 years of age. The rapist, Rev. Edward Graff, was moved to several churches until he was arrested in Texas and died in custody. So when Archbishop Chaput callously says that we should all “get over” wanting to go back and blame, read that statement in the context of current lobbying by the Catholic Church not to extend the statute of limitations. The Archbishop isn’t new…

Rage Against the New Age Machine: Three Days at the Osho International Meditation Resort

By Diane Winston

…uit of happiness. Labeled the “sex guru” for what were liberal attitudes in 1960s India, Rajneesh, as Osho was known then, was equally contrarian on politics, economics, and religion. A fervent capitalist, he hailed science, denounced institutional Hinduism and encouraged followers to leaven their asceticism with sensual pleasure and material comfort. (His vision of the enlightened man was “Zorba the Buddha.”) In 1974, when he opened a center in P…

‘Hell is a World Without You’ Shows Readers How Squarely They Would Have Been on Path to Jan 6 if They’d Come of Age in Evangelicalism

By Michael J. Altman

…vel resonates with much of the current discourse of American religion. The flight of millennial and Zoomer exvangelicals out of churches, the embattled politics of American Christian nationalism, and evangelical attacks on LGBTQ+ rights provide a backdrop for this coming of age story. RD spoke recently with Kirk, a senior editor at The Athletic and co-creator of several popular podcasts, about the book, Christian Nationalism, Hell, and what it mea…

The Blame for Ferguson: A Response

By Stephanie Gaskill

…gation in Ferguson was not just the result of individual decisions (“white flight”), but also of carefully engineered federal policies intended to prevent white and black people from living in the same places. Aghapour wants us to get better at blaming institutions. When confronted with thorny social situations, he suggests that we first “scale up,” meaning that we situate individual actions within a broader institutional context. Second, he sugge…

Hey Hey, Ho Ho White Jesus Has to Go… But The Issue is More Complicated Than You Think

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…ogically, in particular to African Americans. King’s tweet referenced the “Flight into Egypt” (Matthew 2:13) when the holy family were called to flee to Egypt to avoid the “massacre of the innocents” by King Herod. This scriptural reference has served as a prooftext that Jesus and his family were going to hide amongst “Black” people in Africa away from the fury of an infanticidal despot, hence King’s emphasis on “EGYPT” not Denmark (Europe). King…

Why Evolution Should Be Taught in Church

By Paul Wallace

…ol, to be shut out in the dark, to drift, to face the abyss with no armor. Flight is an utterly human response to mystery. But sometimes the need for control, absolutes, and knowledge careens out of control. To wit: Those who desire to have creationism taught in our nation’s public schools. They know, because the Bible says so; and what’s more, they know so well that they’re going to take control of the educations not only of their own children, b…