Religion Dispatches
…is the essence of the problem. Suresnes was unsealed in the early 1950s to welcome twenty-four unknown dead of World War II. But these dead did not join the row-on-row ranks of the knowns of World War I. Instead, they were buried between two sections of the graves area and arranged in the shape of a Latin cross. (The new section of the cemetery was dedicated in 1952 by AMBC Chairman General George C. Marshall.) This was a remarkably intentional ac…
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…would be best as an army general. Rejection is big for me. Acceptance and welcome is also big for me, as being taken in when you have been thrown out means a lot to a person. But what means the most to me is the rogue behavior, the civil disobedience that marked my own ordination into the church. Never forget that is how the first 11 women in the Episcopal church were ordained. On July 29, 1974, in Philadelphia, 11 women were ordained as the firs…
Read More…of women and families when they have not been invited – and indeed are not welcome.” As devotee of the First Amendment, I have conflicting feelings about restrictions on speech. Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union noted such conflicts in a statement: “We agree that a fixed buffer zone imposes serious First Amendment costs, but we also think the Court underestimated the proven difficulty of protecting the constit…
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RD is thrilled to welcome Patricia Miller as its newest blogger. Miller, whose book Good Catholics: The Battle Over Abortion in the Catholic Church is due out in May from UC Press, will write about the emerging issues related to the Catholic hierarchy and reproductive rights, as well as the Catholic Church and Catholicism more broadly. Read her first two blog posts here and follow her on Twitter: @patti_miller. –eds The 41st anniversary of Roe v….
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…r became the Mormon prophet who received and implemented the revelation to welcome men of African descent into the lay priesthood—wrote in his book The Miracle of Forgiveness that homosexuality was one in a series of “ever deepening degeneracies” pursued by the sexually depraved. Although Kimball died in 1985, the view he articulated remained virtually uncontested until the early 1990s, when small, nuanced changes in speeches by high-ranking LDS C…
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…pep-rally type prayer) about how the Roman Catholic Church “encourages the promotion of the dignity of every human person, regardless of their physical, mental, cultural, social and religious characteristics…” Tell that to a trans person, a family growing through the generosity of a surrogate, or a pregnant person who decides to end their pregnancy. Their human dignity is erased by the content of this document. Their rights are threatened and/or r…
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Editor’s Note: Welcome new readers! If you like this post sign up for RD’s daily email newsletter here. —- I no longer recognize marriage. It’s a new thing I’m trying. Turns out it’s fun. Yesterday I called a woman’s spouse her boyfriend. She says, correcting me, “He’s my husband,” “Oh,” I say, “I no longer recognize marriage.” The impact is obvious. I tried it on a man who has been in a relationship for years, “How’s your longtime companion, Jil…
Read More…y of prophetic millennialism. Beck, a convert to Mormonism, recalls the strident prophetic voice that distinguished Mormonism from 19th-century Protestant groups. Many Mormons have a long cultural memory of persecution. Though they may welcome their church’s modern emphasis on their similarities to other religionists, I believe there remains a longing in them for the ‘peculiar people’ identity conveyed by the divisive prophetic voice and the histo…
Read More…nd felt a great thrill at this discovery”—and we rush for the keyboard to report that a scientist did a bunch of research and is, like, majorly stoked. We can’t help it; it’s those coke-bottle glasses we’re issued when we get our “welcome to your culture” info packets. Not vision-enhancing, those specs. Seems to me, though, that this public exchange between Wieseltier and Luhrmann is worth carrying forward somehow. Look to these pages for more in…
Read More…quick cut away. Avert your eyes, people … the lesbians might kiss! You’re welcome here, just don’t do THAT! Oh, UCC … how you have disappointed me. Was the kiss in the original cut and then left out because someone said, “Oh, we can’t cross that line”? The UCC is the only mainline church to give its denominational support to same-gender marriage, but it’s too squeamish to show a lesbian kiss in their new ad? Punked, by my own denomination. Et tu,…
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