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What American Flag-Worship Looks Like to a New Citizen

By Rosalind C. Hughes

…th the right hand over the heart. After an item has been blessed in divine service – palm leaves, linens used to dress or to wipe up at the altar, a metal chalice – and has reached the end of its useful service, the preferred method of its disposal is consumption by fire. Palm leaves are often turned to ashes for use the following year on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian holy season of Lent. Chalices may be melted down and recast. We…

Anachronistic Arrogance: How Scorning Our Intellectual Mothers and Fathers Makes Us Real Dumb Real Fast

By Peter Laarman

…s’ collapse, I called for the great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress,” to open the service. Much consternation and rebuke from some congregational insiders following the service: Did I not know that Martin Luther, author of “Ein Feste Burg,” was an anti-Semite? Another instance. When I came to California and to my current position, I was asked immediately by the ACLU to join in an effort to have a tiny, almost invisible, cross expunged from the seal of th…

I Was a Stranger: New York Activists Stage a Lenten Action for Sanctuary

By Kaya Oakes

…s. Cardinal Dolan is scheduled to preside at Saint Patrick’s Holy Thursday service this week. The feet of undocumented immigrants are battered by their flights from violence, poverty, and war. Right now, they are also ready to run from the possibility of deportation and the possibility of yet another separation from their families. Whose feet will Cardinal Dolan, so willing to pray over President Trump, choose to wash? When Jesus washed the feet o…

“I Died Inside.”

By Joanna Brooks

…pe. I wanted to stay in and help. So you prepared for a lifetime of Church service, starting as most young men do with two years of missionary service. You had a plan to work and pay for your mission. You started your paperwork. You met with your bishop. And when you did, you brought up gay marriage. Why? I brought it up because I was afraid of being sent out on a mission and the issue of gay marriage coming up and not being able to preach that it…

Hold Your Applause: Potential Changes to Roles of Catholic Women and LGBTQ+ People May Just Be Vatican Breadcrumbing

By Mary E. Hunt

…of power derived from the models offered by the world, or is it rooted in service?” (par. 57). It’s as if the Church were without power struggles and as if no social models were rooted in service. Wrong on both counts. A path to women deacons is hinted at here but not women priests. I’m reminded that Hansel left a few breadcrumbs but that he and Gretel were foiled by hungry birds. So it goes. Breadcrumbing works like other forms of intermittent r…

A Primer on Activism from Unitarian Universalists

By Kim Bobo

…vice. The rest of the UU protestors began the day at the 6 a.m. interfaith service, in which Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray of the UU Congregation of Phoenix, played a central role and UU singers participated in the joint choir. The more than 200 UUs, some in clergy garb but most in their bright yellow shirts emblazoned with the Standing on the Side of Love logo, were visible in the service and then in the march down the street. Once groups convened do…

Conservative Republican Muslim Condemns Fox Report on Congressional Staffers as “Anti-Muslim Bigotry”

By Sarah Posner

…rayer events, he said, are “very pro-American, and tend to be about public service, and the honor of public service.” He also said that the claim in the Fox piece that Council on American Islamic Relations plays a big role in choosing speakers “is not true. . . . they have absolutely no hand in choosing anybody.”* The CMSA’s events, said Khan, are “something all Americans could be proud of. They are a shining example of freedom of religious expres…

The “Religious Freedom” Issue That May Cost the Accused Boston Bomber His Life

By Anthony Santoro

…ty. This tends to exclude members of particular faith traditions from jury service, as the Death Penalty Information center noted in 2005: “Catholics who have heeded their Church’s call to end the death penalty” are among those “believers of all stripes who… will not be able to serve even in the guilt-innocence phase of the trial.” (DPIC, “Blind Justice,” 6,) On January 8, the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty echoed…

Judge Halts “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Discharges

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…led Tuesday that the policy “infringes the fundamental rights” of military service members and prospective service members and violates their rights to due process and freedom of speech. Her ruling bars the Pentagon from enforcing or applying the policy and orders the military to immediately suspend and discontinue any investigations, discharges or other proceedings related to potential violations of the law. Alexander Nicholson, executive directo…

A Solstice Devotional for the Faithless in Trump’s America

By Sunnivie Brydum

…hristmas Eve service at my family’s Lutheran church was always my favorite service of the year. The candles, the carols, and the quiet reverence soothed my soul, even as I drove myself and my little sister across town to switch between our divorced parents’ homes at the stroke of midnight. These days, neither of us goes to church, and my mother’s Pagan practices feel like the closest reflection of my own knotted spiritual beliefs. And while I seek…