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Top Ten Religion & Science Stories of 2009

By Lauri Lebo

…road to the Eastern Mennonite College at Harrisonburg and asked a similar number of Christian students the same question. Almost every hand shot up. 7. An Evangelical to Restore Scientific Integrity in DC? In August, much to the chagrin of new atheist Sam Harris, Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian who headed the Human Genome Project, was appointed director of the National Institutes of Health. As a prominent scientist, Collins speaks ofte…

We Are All Nuns

By Mary E. Hunt

…a cardinal soon) we can predict that Archbishop Delegate Peter Sartain of Seattle who is doing this work on behalf of Rome has already had his head measured for a new hat. Catholics schooled in the ways of justice—largely by the nuns—recoil at the power play this mandate represents. Three things are especially repugnant. First, there is no real discussion. The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal William Levada asser…

Notify This! Vatican Bungles Response to Sexual Ethics Book

By Mary E. Hunt

…evention of Sexual and Domestic Violence, now the FaithTrust Institute, in Seattle, Washington, “a national, multicultural training and education organization with global reach working to end sexual and domestic violence.” It is the go-to place for work on religion and violence. Dr. Fortune’s book, Love Does No Harm, shows the strong influence of her professor and friend, Dr. Farley, who preached at her ordination and encouraged her to work toward…

Leadership Conference of Women Religious: No Retreat, No Surrender

By Anthea Butler

…m of sustained measure to stop the CDF and the Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle appointed to oversee the CDF mandate to carry out reforms in the LCWR. New President Franciscan Sr. Florence Deacon will lead the LCWR during this time. She will have to forge a path to keep the organization intact, while dealing with clerics who would rather watch and censure than engage in dialogue. As a Church Historian, I applaud this move. Anyone with an eye to…

Gay Mormons Tie the Knot

By Johnny Townsend

…, the friend I’d gone to the party with said, “Ask the host for that guy’s number. He was really into you.” That was the first inkling I had that Gary was even gay. A week later we had our first date. In discussing our histories, we learned some intriguing facts. We’d both been pre-med students. We’d both earned English degrees. We had both been teachers. We’d both been bank tellers. Oh, and we were both ex-Mormon, having both served missions in R…

Creationism 3.0: Meet Intelligent Design’s Huckster

By Michael Schulson

…ctor of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute, the Seattle think tank that powers so much of the anti-evolution movement today. The Discovery Institute claims to be a non-religious organization, particularly when it’s taken to court over repeated attempts to revise public school science curricula. In a fundraising document leaked to the press a few years ago, though, the Institute shows a keen awareness of their work’s reli…

Atheist Asked By Wolf Blitzer If She Thanked the Lord After OK Tornado Honored

By Becky Garrison

…g her a “Grace Under Pressure” award, as well as giving her son a toy microphone. In her talk and subsequent interview, she debunked Time columnist Joe Klein’s assertion that humanists did not contribute to the Oklahoma disaster relief efforts. However, she compared the lack of organized humanist organizations and secular groups like the Red Cross working on the ground to the clearly identified Christian groups who could be spotted sifting through…

Fr. John Dear, Dismissed from Jesuits: “It Is So Strange to Be Hated by So Many Church Leaders”

By Megan Sweas

…n the United States. I recently was barred from speaking in Archdiocese of Seattle. This has gone back since I entered the Jesuits in 1982, but it has gotten really bad in the last ten years as the Catholic Church leaders in the United States became more and more involved in the Republican Party, supporting the war in Iraq. Very few Jesuits espouse nonviolence either. We run 28 universities, all of whom train young people to kill through ROTC. The…

An Evangelical Leader’s Lonely Fight to End an “Unholy Alliance” With the NRA

By Sarah Posner

…shortly after speaking in Isla Vista he learned of yesterday’s shooting at Seattle Pacific University, a small evangelical institution. “If you [evangelicals] think this was only happening in strange and alien places,” he said, “welcome to our own living room.” Schenck, a lifelong member of the NRA, admitted that his is a “minority opinion,” but the “unholy alliance” between his brethren and the gun rights behemoth is “a critical theological and m…

When Religion Becomes a Trap Rather Than a Safety Net

By Holly Welker

…ormon memoir, Ricks self-published Hippie Boy in 2011. Shortly thereafter, Seattle-area teacher Margie Bowker gave the book to her at-risk high school students. They had no problem relating to Ricks’s protagonist, a young girl trapped rather than supported by the safety net religion is supposed to supply, trying desperately to acquire some security despite parents who repeatedly put her in harm’s way. Ricks’s memoir inspired students to begin writ…