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Ted Haggard’s New Church: Gay-Friendly?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…e didn’t say it in those exact words—but that was his message. Yes, you’re welcome as lesbians to be in our church, but we expect that we’ll convict you that you’re wrong and will want to change. That’s the message of Haggard’s brand new church in Colorado Springs, which he announced this afternoon. Asked if his new church would take a position on homosexuality, Haggard said “we will take positions.” “I’m going to teach the Bible, chapter by chapt…

Blessed Be the Warmakers

By Svend White

…o hasten my journey there, people of other religious persuasions are quite welcome to believe I’m hell-bound. I disagree, and even if I’m wrong I have never understood the appeal of Pascal’s Wager anyway. (On this, I’m with the atheists: no god that damns anybody eternally can be trusted, much less loved.) Getting back to Left Behind, I’m disturbed by how almost Nietzschean the films are in turning conventional Christian morality on its head. It i…

Taking Evangelical Support of Israel at Face Value Is a Terrible Idea: A Response

By Chrissy Stroop

…ove you, in other words, but you’ve been replaced. By me. Of course you’re welcome to convert and join in the fulfillment of your faith. This belief is often accompanied by a sort of patronizing respect for ultra-Orthodox Jews, as well as a sneering dismissal of “cosmopolitan” Jews who “don’t believe their own scriptures,” to quote a young man I knew in college who assured me that Jews who do believe their scriptures are “easy to convert,” because…

Bryan Fischer’s and the GOP’s Special Christian First Amendment

By Sarah Posner

…cy, and replace it with shari’ah… it’s sedition.” (emphasis added on the treason charge). Benen writes, “The fact that Fischer is an unabashed bigot doesn’t seem to matter.” Welcome to the GOP’s Christian nation, to which God gave the First Amendment to protect Christians from satanic intruders….

Forty Years Ago, the Worst Mass Murder of LGBT People in the U.S.

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…73. The denomination began for the simple reason that LGBT people were not welcome in mainstream congregations—not openly, anyway. Certainly, a large majority of music ministers in mainstream churches were serving in the closet, but not many churches were happy to have openly LGBT people in their pews, much less their pulpits. It’s easy for us to forget, in our Will & Grace, Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Lambert world that LGBT people used to huddle toge…

New Ex-Offender Program Puts Church Ahead Of State

By Mark Bergen

…to reignite the culture wars in the name of religious liberty. In a video promoting the Declaration, Colson likened contemporary America to Nazi Germany, and “elites” and “intellectuals” to Hitler. For decades, PFM has placed its volunteers inside prison walls to minister directly to inmates. In addition to questions about the programs’ effectiveness, such partnerships with state institutions have drawn legal challenges. InnerChange, a PFM progra…

Sex and the Seminary: Wake Up and Smell the Incense

By Mary E. Hunt

…g men (I was the only women in the class and I did not receive the warmest welcome on record) how to handle confessions. The priest professor role-played a variety of penitents while the students took turns acting the part of the priest. One young man decomposed in the chair when the penitent confessed her alleged sin of oral sex. (Note the priest could not bring himself to act out a man who engaged in oral sex.) When pressed for a response, the y…

Meeting on the Bridge: Fr. James Martin’s Ministry to LGBT Catholics Becomes a Book

By Kaya Oakes

…ou can’t even use the word LGBT. They’ll use something like “Spectrum” or “Welcome Ministry.” It has to be so coded that it doesn’t ruffle any feathers, and that’s not the case for women. And that’s very sad. To me, LGBT people are sometimes treated like lepers. One of the things I’ve learned in this informal ministry is the unbelievable things priests, sisters, brothers and lay associates will say to LGBT Catholics. It’s just horrifying. One of t…

Did Pope Francis Win, Lose or Draw at the Family Synod?

By Patricia Miller

…ting for Pope Francis to change the Catholic Church. The unexpectedly warm welcome given to gay Catholics in the mid-synod report raised hopes that a major change in the church’s attitude, if not its teaching, was just around the corner. The fact that those changes were scrapped—along with language acknowledging value in “irregular” partnerships and a possible opening for divorced Catholics to receive communion—in the final document shouldn’t come…

The Pope, the GOP, and the March for Life

By Sarah Posner

…urse, has set the hair aflame. Conservatives are pouting that they aren’t “welcome” in New York; Sean Hannity even had a tantrum about moving elsewhere. Cardinal Timothy Dolan writes a litany of St. Patrick’s activities “respecting life,” asking at the end, “does any of this seem ‘extremist’ to you?” The March for Life is still a big deal. One of the nation’s two major parties supports it, and will later in the week that party will consider whethe…