Religion Dispatches
…ential material,” said Mpofu. “Oh yeah,” echoes Bourland. “In my heart, I just begin to pray, God, let this woman rise to this place that you want her to go,” said Mpofu. “Number one, she’s a Christian. Number two, she’s a woman.” Watch a short video montage of the conference here. —Ed….
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…ican Values Survey was the increase in support for political violence. The number of Americans who agreed that “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country” has jumped from 15% to 23% over the past two years. Today approximately one in three Republicans (33%) and White evangelical Protestants (31%) believe that political violence might be necessary to save the coun…
Read More…n-forum/protest called “Fighting for Academic Freedom.” At the meeting, a number of LGBT students made clear that they were profoundly upset by the administration’s decision. One student noted that the college’s actions had “further alienated the LGBT community”; that Lena’s decision implied that LGBT people were not “creatures of value and worth”; and that Providence had “directly defied the pope’s ecumenical redirection to a deeper respect for…
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…o the priesthood declined. Only 480 new priests were ordained in 2008. The number of graduate level seminarians declined from 8,325 in 1965 to 3,286 in 2008. There is little cachet in the Catholic family these days in having a son become a priest. While no figures are available, anecdotal reports and expressed Vatican concern indicates that God is calling more homosexual men to the priesthood than heterosexuals. Celibacy still remains mandatory. E…
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…retation (MWI) of Quantum Mechanics, which Hugh Everett posited in the late 1950s. The next versions to come around were the “new” and “chaotic” inflationary scenarios in the 1980s, and the most recent has been the “landscape” of string theory, which emerged in the early 2000s. Since then, a host of rival multiverse scenarios have emerged, as well. In each case, the proponents have been ridiculed and dismissed, but with diminishing levels of ranco…
Read More…—income factors that may have made low-cost clinics more appealing, or the number of abortion clinics in the U.S. and how that has changed over the time period in question, or the possibility that people in private practice would rather not perform abortions for any number of possible reasons, including threats on their lives—you’d be left unsatisfied. Likewise, the report expresses grave concern over the fact that the very same clinics that see…
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…outhern California church. In working with young people between the ages of 14 and 18, Beyenberg notes that teens have a lot of questions abut pornography, and they really want to talk about the issues—even if some of the teens are initially shy about it. It doesn’t help that pornography has been such a taboo topic in the church, he adds. Personally, Pastor Beyenberg hopes the frank conversations will lead to abstinence from pornography. But the f…
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…priests and nuns carried out most of Church ministry. Since then, as their numbers declined, lay men and women in great numbers have committed themselves to work alongside priests and nuns. This partnership is essential for the Church’s mission to thrive. The Jesuit School of Theology is preparing ministerial leaders—Jesuit, religious, and lay—to work together as partners for tomorrow’s Church.” No Hierarchy of Abuse There’s a critical disconnect…
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…nly gay former US ambassador to the country. The New York Times profiled a number of everyday people, Muslims and Christians, who are taking part in legal challenges to the Trump administration overs its executive orders banning entry into the U.S. from a number of countries. Paul Harrison, an American man engaged to an Iranian man is among the individuals profiled: Like the other plaintiffs, the couple veer between dread and hope with each succes…
Read More…dicted that 30,000 people would participate in the service, but the actual number appeared to number around 2,000. “Our prayers will open the sky and the homosexuals will fall, we will be blessed with victory,” said Lee Young-hoon, head of the leading organization in the anti-LGBT coalition. Mexico: Supreme Court embraces marriage, Church and some political officials resist As we have been reporting, the marriage equality movement has been movemen…
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