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Two Former Nuns Get Civil Union in Italy; Kenyan Govt Partners with World Congress of Families; Mexican Activists Debate Outing of Priests; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…of the north that have led on progressive social issues, with the Catholic south dragging behind. This time, though, it is Germany, the leading country in Protestant Europe, that lags the rest. Without a major realignment in German politics, that is unlikely to change for a long time to come. Italy: Former nuns join in civil union “Two former nuns who met in a convent have been joined in a civil union in a ceremony in a small town in northern Ital…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…an religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice. Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes the difficulty with sur…

Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…f the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congregations in America (344,894) and multiplied it by another estimate of the average revenue of each ($242,910). Depending on how you look at it, $378 billion is a lot of money, or it’s not very much money at all. It’s more than the net worth of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet, combined…

LGBT Editor In Bangladesh Murdered by Islamists—and More, In this Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…d home, but that a three-day counseling session at Tergo changed her life. South Korea: Human rights activists call for government to recognize LGBT group Human Rights Watch has echoed calls from the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association for the government of Korea to stop stalling the Beyond the Rainbow Foundation’s efforts to register as a nongovernmental organization. LGBT activists i…

What Color is Vatican Smoke?

By Marian Ronan

…according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, seven thousand black South Africans were killed under apartheid, and the number imprisoned was far higher. The Catholic Church neither kills nor imprisons ordained women and their supporters; excommunication, while painful, is not at all the same, even when financial losses accompany it. In 2007 I published an article in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion explaining in some detail why…

What Fidel Castro’s Death Means for LGBT Rights in Cuba and More, in This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…d. Although Magufuli has not said anything publicly about homosexuality, a number of his appointees have made harsh remarks. Critics of gay rights say this nation — which has large numbers of Muslims and Christians — must protect traditional values. In an August speech, Paul Makonda, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, the capital, threatened to arrest people who were linked to gay men on social-networking sites. “If there’s a homosexual w…

When God and Gender Mix: New Book Examines the Southern Holiness Movement

By Colin Chapell

…seline” of normative ideas of gender among white Protestants by looking at Southern Baptists and Methodists. By examining the emergent Southern Holiness movement, I was able to see how changes in theology altered—often radically—the ways in which personal identity were perceived. Examining these changes, both in theology and gender construction, thus demonstrated how important faith commitments are to how the faithful view the world. Ye That Are M…

Where’s the 2020 Democratic Faith Outreach Discussion… Or Has the Folly of Courting White Evangelicals Finally Hit Home?

By Chrissy Stroop

…haps the most visible evangelical critic of Trump of all, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Russell Moore, “seems to have been effectively muzzled,” according to Du Mez. “His recent op-ed about not sacrificing the old [to the coronavirus pandemic on behalf of the economy] is as prophetic as he’ll get these days,” she added. Andrew L. Whitehead, an associate professor of sociology at Clemson Univ…

The Week in Religion, Poetically:

By Michael J. Altman

…t spiritual care covered in the federal health package. A new law in North Carolina requires schools and colleges to give students a minimum of two excused absences for religious observances. “ Rep. Rick Glazier, who co-sponsored the bill, says: “It has to be a bona fide holiday; you don’t get to just take the day off because you want to pray at home.” Here’s hoping the bill is more precise than “bona fide holiday.” Also in North Carolina, a court…

Polygamy Bus Tour, ‘Spiritual’ Healthcare for Christian Scientists, Baptizing an Alien…

By Michael J. Altman

…ew cathedral cat. Catherine of Tarragon will spend her retirement in North Carolina and Carmina will take up residence at the church. Christian Surfers, USA unites Christianity with the waves. The small town of Sidney, NY wants a Sufi graveyard gone. The city claims the bodies were buried illegally and wants them removed. In Washington, two Muslim inmates are suing the Pierce county jail for religious discrimination; among other things, they compl…