Religion Dispatches
…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…
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…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…
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…a random sample size and therefore isn’t statistically representative. The number of individuals reporting victimization in Episcopal spaces is alarming nonetheless. However, I would argue the data is more likely to under- than to overestimate the scope of the abuse that occurs. To see why, the survey results must be interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+…
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…ends a bipolar paradigm to create a new East-West Christendom. He spoke of Georgia as the one to lead this effort to show the world that “Georgia Is Family!” Former U.S. President George W. Bush sent a message praising the Georgian people and the World Congress of Families; he did not attend but was honored with the Family and Democracy Award. The Associated Press reported that Georgian police had detained 10 gays rights activists that they said w…
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…astor resigned that I was able to be ordained by the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta’s (PGA) Committee on Ministry (COM). In all, becoming an ordained minister in PCUSA took almost 20 years. For the past 11 years, I have been the only PCUSA Korean clergywoman to serve in a paid position in a Korean PCUSA church—out of all 12 Korean PCUSA congregations in metro-Atlanta. In addition to the senior pastor, the Session elders (similar in position to deac…
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…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…
Read More…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
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…went for Pryor (who is himself evangelical) while 73% voted for Cotton. 2. GEORGIA. Jones wrote: In Georgia, where Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn is battling Republican candidate David Perdue for retiring Senator Saxby Chambliss’s seat, white evangelical Protestants made up 30 percent of the population in 2007 but that number is currently down to 24 percent. Again, preliminary exit polling from Georgia shows that white evangelicals were an out…
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…riness of LGBT rights that Russia shares with former Soviet republics like Georgia. In a fiery denunciation, the WCF’s Georgian host, US-educated businessman Levan Vasadze, declared that the West owes Georgia an apology for foisting “sin and depravity” – a reference to LGBT rights – upon it. Israel: Prime Minister addresses Jerusalem pride, but is criticized for lack of action on ‘LGBT problem’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke via video to…
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…istorian and theologian Vincent Gordon Harding died at 82. Harding founded Atlanta’s Mennonite House with his wife Rosemarie in 1961, a headquarters for consciences objectors and civil rights activists. He helped Martin Luther King, Jr. make the argument against Vietnam, drafting King’s “Beyond Vietnam”speech in 1967, broadening the concern of the movement and alienating some moderate civil rights supporters. Author of numerous works on American-A…
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