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Racial Justice Will Be Top Priority for New Prez of the United Church of Christ

By Frederick Clarkson

…s that don’t, for the most part, practice true Christianity. They peel off members and churches wherever possible (a source of mainline decline not usually considered by pundits and pollsters.) But some are becoming more circumspect in light of significant membership losses and institutional belt-tightenings of their own. Dorhauer takes the losses in stride, even in grief. He sees around him “a mature faith that refuses to see death as the last wo…

Gay Black Church: An Interview with Bishop Yvette Flunder

By Lisa Webster

…am one of the religious leaders in this country who has one of the largest numbers of black gay churches in the U.S. gathered together. I don’t know anybody that has a larger number of black gay churches meeting together. Not gay churches—the MCC definitely has the corner on that. Do you work together? Very closely. In fact I have an MCC credential, an ordination. Were there times in your life when you did question your ability to stay in the chu…

Aliens Are Fattening Us Up For the Rapture

By Mark Hulsether

…Nations, a case for the U.S or Israel attacking Iran, and a pitch for the phone ministry 1-888-RAPTURE. Apparently the UFO issue got onto Lindsey’s radar screen because of reports that United Nations is paying attention to it, as discussed here. Lindsey offers a mass of evidence (quite disturbing if true) claiming sightings by military personnel who witnessed UFOs disarming nuclear weapons. In Lindsey’s interpretation, such disarmament fits a sim…

Religion at Decade’s End

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ces like Tehran, or Athens, or Beijing, that are armed and enabled by cell phone technology and the almost instantaneous circulation of striking images of authoritarian crackdown, impossible to contain or control. There is an old philosophical quandary posed as follows: can a fish imagine water? Similarly, Religion Dispatches exists within the very medium that it is simultaneously attempting to theorize. It is as global as the instruments it use…

Presbyterians, Change Hearts & Minds, Begin Ordaining Gays

By MaryAnn McKibben Dana

…or More Light Presbyterians. “The repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in the military, marriage equality [legislation and litigation] and the epidemic of anti-gay bullying all had an impact upon the consideration of 10A across the country.” But what made this the year? Some speculate that enough conservative congregations have left the denomination to help swing the vote. But advocates downplay the impact of their departure, since most reports esti…

It’s Barack v. the Bible, Says Barton

By Paul Harvey

…n has 47 footnotes that say so. Yes, it’s true: Bibles being burned by the military; the president allowing for the funding of stem-cell research; the denigration of Christianity and the “preferentialism” toward Islam; the Air Force Academy (in my home city of Colorado Springs) forced to pay to “add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches, and Wiccans”; the celebration of Iftar and conscious shunning of National Prayer Day at…

Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus: 1946-2011

By Lauri Lebo

…ca is staggering under the sheer weight of its white underclass, which now numbers some sixty million. Generally unable to read at a functional level, they are easily manipulated by corporate-political interests to vote against advances in health and education, and even more easily mustered in support of any proposed military conflict, aggressive or otherwise. One-third of their children are born out of wedlock, and are unemployable by any contemp…

The Abandoned Orphanage: Hillary Clinton’s Mother Teresa Moment

By Jeff Sharlet and Kathryn Joyce

…oman Catholic order established by Mother Teresa. The nun who answered the phone said she couldn’t give her name because they aren’t allowed to talk to the press. She did say, however, that the sisters who are in the order now were not in the order when the adoption home opened, so she wasn’t sure why it closed. She added that the order sold the Chevy Chase house in 2002. “We work with the poor and we didn’t have any work there because it’s a rich…

Catholic ‘Soul-Searching’ as Ireland Votes on Marriage; Churches, American Activists Join Kenyan Anti-Gay Group’s ‘Family’ Confab; Indian Mom Seeks Spouse For Gay Son; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…th the bishops’ handling of child sex abuse allegations, and now has 1,070 members — around one-third of the country’s priests, according to one of its organizers, Father Brendan Hoban. When the Association asked its members what position to take on the referendum, Hoban told BuzzFeed News, the group “split down the middle,” so it decided to take no public stand. The group’s founder, Tony Flannery — a priest who was suspended by the Vatican in 201…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tside the church will bring their children to Sabbath school and a growing number of openly gay students will attend Adventist academies and colleges. Like the SCC’s black members in the 1960s, gay Adventists will be able to hold their faith community legally accountable for any discriminatory responses. And, as was the case with segregation, the church will find itself once again in a losing battle against social change unless it learns from its…