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The British (Bible) Invasion: KJV 400-Year Anniversary Rolls On

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…bandoned it? The cries go up that the new translations are simpler to understand and that Christianity in certain countries, especially in the United Kingdom, is on an inevitable decline due to a multitude of causes and therefore drastic renovations were needed. In my view one cause of the decline is the retreat from the words of the King James Version. Do we tolerate (save for schoolchildren) the dilution and simplification of the words of Shakes…

Comedians on God’s Family Issues

By Gwynne Watkins

…working his way around to the question If God is our father, what happened to our mom? Another great comedian who has pondered the dynamics of God’s family is Eddie Izzard. Here, he imagines God chewing out Jesus for saying weird stuff at the Last Supper. (“Why didn’t you just say, drink this wine, it’s a merlot?”) And for the Christian perspective, here’s comedian Michael Jr. pondering what it must have been like for Jesus’s little brother, the…

Lindsey Graham and Al Qaeda Share the Same “Allahu Akbar”

By Nathan Lean

…like al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman Zawahiri, however, see jihad as a holy war. Just last week, the nefarious Egyptian doctor posted “general guidelines for jihad” on several online forums, as if he, of all people, is the authoritative voice for defining such things. Absurdly, for many people on the right, he is, the authoritative voice. Graham and others employ the term precisely in a way that legitimizes that understanding and gives currency to such us…

Global LGBT Recap: Francis’s First Year; Homophobia and Development; African Activists Push Back

By Peter Montgomery

…erforms simple gestures as a priest looking after his flock.” One of the most striking actions taken so far under the Francis papacy was a request that local bishops survey Catholics on a set of contentious issues, including premarital sex, homosexuality, and communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. National Catholic Reporter discloses that only about a third of American dioceses appear to have given laypeople the opportunity to respond to…

Occupy the Greek Orthodox Church

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…fair share as well. The Greek Orthodox Church pays very low taxes on its vast real estate holdings and its clerics are paid by the state. That hand-in-glove relationship may be about to change. In an amazing development, the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreiou, went to Mount Athos two days ago to meet with the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomaios, to discuss the decidedly un-spiritual matter of the Orthodox Church’s responsibilities in this ti…

No Shocker for This Gay Ex-Jesuit, Vatican Rejects Gay Priests (Again)

By Benjamin Brenkert

…tnut Hill), St. Francis Xavier (New York City), DeSmet Jesuit High School (St. Louis), Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) or the Rock Church (Kansas City)? To those closeted gay priests and seminarians who consecrate the Eucharist and who pray for peace and mercy, the time has come to, as Jesus did, to flip the tables in places of worship, to come out. Be the voices crying out in the wilderness, pray for the courage to virtuously identify yourself as g…

Time to Face Facts: White Evangelicalism Has Always Been Right Wing

By Neil J. Young

…ent. He notes that 15,000 college students at an evangelical conference in St. Louis last January “enthusiastically applauded a call by an African-American speaker to work diligently against racial injustice” and support the Black Lives Matter movement, but he conveniently ignores what soon followed. As Mark Oppenheimer pointed out in a piece for the New York Times, support for Black Lives Matter quickly dissipated among these young evangelicals o…

More Bleak Times For Indonesian LGBTs; South Africa Bans Extremist Anti-Gay US Pastor; Mexican Marriage Struggle Heats Up; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…church,” he said. Catholic Voice describes itself as Europe’s latest and fastest growing Catholic newspaper. Its stated mission is to “serve the Church in complete fidelity to the Holy See through our writing and publishing”. Philippines: Boxer apologizes for comparing gays to animals, maintains ‘biblical beliefs’ on sexuality Manny Pacqquiao, the Filipino boxer who has drawn international criticism for anti-gay comments, “admits he was wrong to c…

New History Finally Recognizes Afro-Creole Spiritualists

By Paul Harvey

…Ta-Nahesi Coates)? By definition alternative religious movements push against the status quo of religion, society, culture or politics. They are a critique of dominant culture, and therefore provide an effective platform for advancing radical and alternative views. For unorthodox black religious movements like the Cercle Harmonique, the Moorish Science Temple and others, this critique of dominant culture includes racism. Before Stokely Carmichael…

Yale Clings to Racist Legacy… And Cash. Lots of Cash.

By Peter Laarman

…ke in that Sen. Calhoun was no ordinary racist but was, in fact, the foremost and most ferocious advocate of racial subjugation during the antebellum period. Calhoun’s famous “slavery a positive good” speech needs to be read through to get a feel for this man’s snaky brilliance (Calhoun was Yale’s valedictorian in 1804). But it was brilliance put to an evil end. Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson undoubtedly did much harm to African Americans by bringing…