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Vatican Equates Women’s Ordination with Priest Pedophilia?

By Mary E. Hunt

…re everyone from the Irish grandmother to the smallest child was included, welcome at the table, and edified. According to Catholic theology well understood, all Catholics are priests by virtue of baptism. Bill Callahan’s funeral liturgy held recently in a public school all-purpose room (sans air conditioning) was one such example of this reality. The gifted radio show host Maureen Fiedler of Interfaith Voices handled the whole celebration with ap…

The Belly of the Beast: NYC’s Shiny New Transit Hub Is All Wrong for the 9/11 Site

By Carolyn Bratnober

…nse) to build—yet there are no benches and few accommodations to make it a welcome place for anyone except the city’s wealthiest and, of course, tourists. From the outside, the Oculus as been likened to “a great white bird.” But the structure, as I see it, is shaped like two lids of an eye. White beams, which also form the ceiling of the interior, look to be bending outward like plumped white lashes, revealing the glass-domed roof of the Oculus sp…

Rolling the Stone Away: LGBTQI Elders Meet the Next Generation of Christian Activists at a Watershed Conference

By Mary E. Hunt

…out LGBTIQA people. Their work paid off as now many Christian communities welcome, ordain, and in some cases marry LGBTIQ people. Many of those people were in St. Louis, where a veritable rainbow of elders from groups including Dignity USA, Affirmations, Integrity, and the Institute for Welcoming Resources shared their experiences. For example, Darlene Garner who has a long, distinguished history of ministerial leadership was part of a splendid p…

Religious Leaders Need ‘Empty the Pews’ Which Chronicles the Darker Side of the ‘Nones’ Phenomenon

By Kaya Oakes

…in Christianity has caused them will take more than a rainbow banner or a “welcome” sign to address. All of which leads us to the question I asked myself several times while reading the book: who is the intended audience? I suspect Stroop and O’Neal want other exvangelicals and Nones to find some consolation in knowing they’re not alone. That’s an important thing to understand, and a big reason why Stroop’s #EmptyThePews and Blake Chastain’s #exva…

American Brokenness: A Lament

By Daniel Schultz

…th compassion; to recognize the real pain and discomfort of others; and to welcome them with open arms into the shared project of finding freedom, justice, and power together. That, as I always say, does not mean surrendering core principles or compromising them away. The truth, after all, is the truth. But I would love to see a sign at the next health care town hall meeting declaring WE SHARE YOUR PAIN AND WE NEED YOUR HELP. I would love to see B…

Better Gay at Work Than Gay in Church

By Paul Gorrell

…eager to tap into this purchasing largess through targeted advertising and promotions. For instance, American Airlines started an LGBT-focused campaign at the turn of the millennium and increased its Pink Dollar revenue from $20 million to over $190 million in just five years. Businesses also realize that LGBT consumers are loyal to companies that have pro-gay policies for their employees. At the same time, LGBT consumers are unwilling to use serv…

‘Empty the Pews’ Chronicles the ‘Nurtured Insanity’ of a Fundamentalist Upbringing

By Frank Schaeffer

…and since I’ve been a bit of a pioneer in speaking out about leaving it, I welcome this book of essays. It heralds the arrival of the next wave of questioners I helped unleash by asking some questions of myself through my novels, nonfiction books, and media appearances. A large part of what Empty the Pews does is capture a generational exodus from toxic Christianity from the perspective of (for the most part) former believers. What is the usefulne…

Obama’s Gay Marriage Support Shocks Black Church

By Anthea Butler

…esents a de-evolution, but for many others the president’s declaration was welcome news. The National Action network posted a letter signed by Rev. Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, Melanie Campbell, and Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery embracing the decision, while Rev. Jamal Bryant, megachurch prosperity pastor, was vocal in his opposition: Our faith reserves marriage for a man and a woman. President Obama, as a product of the black church, is fully aware of that…

Finding Love—and Dogma—in Unexpected Places: Jeff Chu’s Gay Christian Odyssey

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…fear. One of my goals was to meet the members of Westboro as humans. Their welcome could not have been warmer. We had pizza with them. By “we,” I mean me and my photographer and videographer. (I called them my “human security blanket” because I didn’t want to go by myself.) It’s a little unnerving, the ease with which they used words that, to me, would be considered offensive—and just slipping in the word “fag” into every other sentence, that’s no…

Lesbian Rabbi to Lead SoCal Board, Includes Orthodox

By Benjamin Weiner

…ive themselves the latitude to rule ex cathedra that gays and lesbians are welcome, Conservative Jews (not to mention the Orthodox) must find some way to square this socially enlightened perspective with the book of Leviticus. When, two years ago, the Conservative movement did find a way to accept the ordination of openly gay and lesbian Jews as rabbis and cantors, and to condone commitment ceremonies (as opposed to marriages) it was through a tsh…