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Pope Praises ‘Complementarity’ & Resists Gay Ambassador; Irish Religious Leaders Spar Over Marriage; Colombian Atty Gen Cites ‘Bogus’ Study Opposing Adoption; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tened to boycott IKEA, after it provided Family Card holders with discount tickets to his Christian magic show, ‘Vision’. In a statement, the chain said it would not be cutting ties with the pastor. IKEA said: “Dear IKEA fans, thanks for your patience while we took time to come to an informed decision on an issue that has raised sensitivities in our community. “After listening to the questions raised, we decided to do a thorough review. We spoke d…

Rejecting Blood Sacrifice Theology, Again

By Peter Laarman

… Rob Bell, the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in suburban Grand Rapids. Both are fortyish, hipsterish white guys with well-functioning brains and impressive resumes. Both make a real point of letting you know just how smart and how hip they are. Probably necessary in order to build an audience, but also cloying. Just as Jones is now trying to make a splash with A Better Atonement, so Bell made some waves a year ago by proclaiming in Lo…

Vandalism as Conversation-Starter

By Elizabeth Drescher

…and found his way to the video and lyrics of the song.) Grace was among a number of buildings tagged in the area, and the initial response was dismay. Rather than approaching the tagging as a criminal act, however, church leaders decided to take the graffiti seriously as an expression of something spiritually meaningful—a cry for help, perhaps; even a mocking expression of religious skepticism. They approached it relationally, using the church bu…

The Forgotten Struggle Over Gender and Bigotry in Christianity

By Stephen J. Patterson

…tado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003). 4. Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 147–48. 5. Elisabeth Schuessler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Introduction (New York: Crossroad, 1983). 6. Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…

Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…self-interrogation boiled, my hand extended to the right. I reached for my phone, but I found nothing. At first I laughed at my instinct, my muscle memory. The phone, with its glowing screen, gave me solace and control. But I was tied to my cushion for another hour, and in this ashram for another day, so email would have to wait. I panicked. My heart raced. Would my editor be asking for me? Would a reply from that politician’s secretary sit unansw…

Trump’s Fear and Loathing Won’t Silence The Nation’s Sole LGBT Muslim Organization

By Omar Sarwar

…isiting Muslim counseling centers for specialized psychotherapy in greater numbers. Far from being an abstract term, intersectionality is necessary for the very survival of minority communities. Above all, though, it’s MASGD’s own community who must take priority, and that entails strengthening LGBT Muslims’ bonds with other progressive movements who seek justice and equality for all Americans. The group is fiscally sponsored by the National Queer…

Gingrich Downplays Adelson Money, Stokes Fear of “Second Holocaust” at Florida Church

By Sarah Posner

…and others, at Aloma Baptist Church in Winter Park, Florida, just north of Orlando. Gingrich was running late, so the event co-sponsors filled time with over-the-top God-and-country songs, prayer, and speeches about the causes their organizations promote. Liberty Counsel, the Christian right legal group headed by Liberty University Law School Dean Mat Staver, was the lead co-sponsor. Others included the Florida Family Action, which spearheaded the…

How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

By Peter Laarman

…cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme that Rod Dreher can toss into his debate with Andrew Sullivan without…

Beyond Alarmism and Denial in the Dominionism Debate

By Anthea Butler

…church, they’re marinating, so to speak, in the the various teachings of a number of people. I’ve covered many an event where I’ve been waiting in line to get in, and the inevitable conversation with the people around you goes something like this: they ask first where you go to church, and second which teachers you admire, and then you get into a long conversation about the relative virtues of all of them. A really good example of how all these te…