Search for "USA 1800-299-7264 Emirates Airlines Phone Number , Reservations "

The Right Wing Slant on Religious Freedom is a Slippery Slope

By Frederick Clarkson

…h instance of religious discrimination by a child-placement agency. In 2019, USA Today reported on Aimee Maddonna, a Catholic woman who was denied the opportunity to volunteer at a state-funded evangelical agency in South Carolina. She had hoped to use the experience to learn what it would take to become an adoptive parent. But that was not to be. Americans United for Separation of Church and State now represents four families who were turned away…

Man-made Breasts, Or, Grace in Graceless Times

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…eaking out about the primacy of what Prejean called “opposite” marriage? Oh, yes, certainly it can — just as it is seen by my sister as hypocritical for Sen. Byrd to support civil rights for blacks or other minorities. As people of faith we do ourselves a disservice when we take pleasure in pointing out the seeming hypocrisies and shortcomings of those who may be on the other side of issues we hold dear. If we read our Bible closely we’ll find tha…

When the Church’s LGBTIQ Loss is the World’s Gain

By Mary E. Hunt

…“the world’s premier nonprofit organization dedicated to achieving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workplace equality.” If their membership reads like a list of Fortune 500 companies, it’s because they are Fortune 500 companies: Dell, Disney, Toyota, Marriott, and scores more. More than 4,000 people from 40 countries attended their 2017 Workplace Summit, their eighteenth annual opportunity to educate and network their members. O&E opened…

The Ordinary Jesus: An Excerpt from Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age

By James Carroll

…typical encounters, not supernatural ones. Again and again he turned to God, and, as the tradition says, he turned into God—but that, too, occurred in the most ordinary of ways. Day by day. Act by act. Choice by choice. Word by word. Ultimately “lifted up,” as John says, on the cross which was the Resurrection. And the cross is central to this meaning not because God willed suffering but because, in Jesus, God joined in it. “The quality of the suf…

Identity Theology: Political Correctness with a Halo

By Carlos Wilton

…rch,” elevating the ordination of women to confessional status. By contrast, when the PCUSA’s General Assembly voted to begin ordaining LGBTQ people several years ago, it spoke of the need to maintain safe spaces for conservative dissenters who believe scripture prevents their presbyteries and sessions from ordaining those in same-sex relationships. As such, it drafted constitutional language on this issue that is permissive rather than mandatory—…

Two people on a podium with a board that reads "Project 2025 kills democracy"

Project 2025: How Trump Loyalists and Right-Wing Leaders Are Paving a Fast Road to Fascism

By Peter Montgomery

…y vindictive’? Why Trump’s push for more presidential power alarms his foes,” USA Today, October 26, 2023, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/10/26/donald-trump-presidential-power/71255801007/. [9] Lisa Mascaro, “Conservatives aim to restructure U.S. government and replace it with Trump’s vision,” Associated Press, August 29, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb0…

God and the Gay Christian: An Interview with Matthew Vines

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…not for all the groundwork that’s been laid. I don’t want anybody to think, “Hey, we’ve been talking about this forever and you come along and people treat it like it’s something new.” I want to be intentional about recognizing how much I appreciate and am indebted to all the work that has come before in terms of grassroots organizing and activism, the writing, the scholarship, all of that. Because back when progressive Christians were not affirm…

Enlightenment’s Islam: A “Necessary Fiction”

By Rob Goodman

…troversial, Islamic-themed mural. Bearing signs reading “No Islamization – USA,” the protesters called for government action to defund the proposed mural, which would occupy a prominent space on the dome of the library’s Main Reading Room, and is set to depict a turbaned figure holding scientific implements and labeled “Islam.” Library administrators argue that the mural acknowledges Muslim contributions to the history of science, and that the Isl…

Challenge to ‘un-Africanness’ of homosexuality; LGBT Catholics in Africa face church cooperation with persecution; lesbian cartoon project debuts in bangladesh under shadow of violence; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…called—has been created to raise awareness about Bangladesh’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community. In Bangla, dheemeans wisdom. The character has been conceived and developed by Boys of Bangladesh, the country’s largest gay rights group. The comic strips are designed as flashcards to be distributed at seminars, workshops and conferences across the country…. Dhee’s story will tackle challenges faced by a young lesbian in an orth…

God Hates Nags: Why in God’s Name is Westboro Protesting Kim Davis?

By Rebecca Barrett-Fox

…. Jenkin’s careful study of divorced Christians suggests significant unease, pain, and shame on the issue of divorce and remarriage among believers, and churches have responded in creative ways that provide both theological and practical avenues for divorced persons—as evidenced, for example, in new Catholic rules on annulments. Yet the dissonance is not fully resolved. For example, in online chatrooms and in advice columns, evangelical Christians…