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Open Letter to Pastor Judah Smith on “Inclusion”: Just for Immigrants, or LGBTQ Too?

By George Mekhail

…thinking for ourselves, no matter how much we declare we are following the Spirit. If we stray from the “traditional orthodoxy” of our day, backlash abounds. Just ask Jesus! I’m not interested in persuading you into full inclusion. I’m not looking for a theological argument or to “call you out” for your theological position either way. In fact, I make no assumptions and have no expectations about where you land on the continuum of inclusion/exclus…

Warships, Animals, Pubs Eligible For Blessings From Church of England, But Not Same-Sex Couples; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…e law allowing same-sex couples to get married will go into effect on March 1. A group called Aito Avioliitto (True Marriage or Real/Genuine Marriage) had gathered more than 100,000 signatures to force the vote; the organization called the vote a disappointment but not a surprise and said the new law will “artificially obscure” what the group calls “fundamental truths” about marriage and families, “but does not actually change them.” Aito Avioliit…

The Deafening Silence of “Religious Freedom” Defenders on Trump’s Muslim Ban

By Sunnivie Brydum

…migration ban that explicitly targets Muslims. RD made several attempts to contact ADF and suss out the group’s position on the executive order, but calls, emails, and voicemails went unreturned. The organization that promises to advocate “for your right to freely live out your faith” has apparently not yet felt compelled to comment on the most direct attack on that right in our lifetimes. While ADF’s history makes clear its Christian orientation,…

“Make The Mass Latin Again”: The Pope Francis Backlash Comes Home

By Kaya Oakes

…actions resulted in a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle signed by 100 Catholics, asking Pope Francis to remove Archbishop Cordileone. Instead of removing Cordileone, the pope elevated San Francisco’s auxiliary bishop Robert McElroy to bishop of San Diego, Cordileone’s former diocese. McElroy, like Cardinals Cupich and Tobin, is a “social justice” bishop who said in a talk last year that being judgmental is a “cardinal sin for religion,”…

‘Catholic Feminist’ Isn’t an Oxymoron, and Other Tales From a Beleaguered Tradition

By Celia Wexler

…an struggled with the institutional church and its relationship to her own spirituality and Catholic identity. They taught me that as Catholics, women do not surrender their free will or their ability to make moral decisions based on their own consciences. I learned that the institutional church—what Duddy-Burke terms Catholic, Inc.—is a fallible structure, still grappling with sexism, racism and homophobia. I grew to understand that faith can sur…

White Supremacy and Orthodox Christianity: A Dangerous Connection Rears Its Head in Charlottesville

By Katherine Kelaidis

…he church my family has attended since my grandparents arrived in Denver in 1959. And while Tim and I never knew each other, we knew a lot of the same people at“the Cathedral.” Tim told me that he came of age in the “anti-racist skinhead movement” and spent a few minutes regaling me with his tales of street fights against various infamous Denver-area Neo-Nazis. It was from this background, which undoubtedly leads to a sensitivity for finding fasci…

Forget “Nasty,” Trump’s Got a “Disgusting” Problem

By Karen E. Park

…sition in all of the Gospel stories. He associated with lepers, and in Luke 17 he cured ten of them, with only the Samaritan, the foreigner, remembering to thank him. The story that most speaks to Jesus’ rejection of disgust, however, is one involving a woman’s body, the kind of body which is most often labeled “nasty” or “disgusting.” In Mark 5: 25-34 Jesus heals a hemorrhaging woman. This woman had been ousa en rhusei haimatos, or in a state of…

Transparent Season 3: The Intersectional Messiah

By Jodi Eichler-Levine

…iously. Rabbi Raquel, who has reached some kind of nadir, roars: “IT’S NOT SPIRITUALITY!” She demands that Sara clarify just what she means by “spirituality.” Sarah fumbles. With prophetic rage, Rabbi Raquel continues: Cause I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not changing your mind whenever you feel like it. It’s not following your bliss. It’s not finding yourself by crawling through your belly button and out your own asshole and calling it a jour…

Ordination of Women: Keep it Irregular

By Donna Schaper

…s how the first 11 women in the Episcopal church were ordained. On July 29, 1974, in Philadelphia, 11 women were ordained as the first female priests in the Episcopal Church. They became known as the “Philadelphia Eleven.” While there was no law explicitly prohibiting the ordination of women, there also was no law allowing it. We continue to refer to this moment as the irregular ordination. Two years later, the Episcopal Church’s General Conventio…

The Meaning of Make Believe (Why Religion Doesn’t Have to Be “Real”)

By Neil Ellingson

…andparents’ generation). More than a third are religiously unaffiliated, up 10 percent from 2007. Still, very few of the so-called “nones” claim the atheist label. The problem is not necessarily openness to faith, it’s that the Christian words and symbols don’t seem to be working like they used to. What if reality and unreality are not a one or a zero, a true or false affair? What if there are degrees of reality? Simone Weil, whose religious philo…