Religion Dispatches
…has changed his beliefs for political advantage, particularly on marriage. Rudd responds that he came to his decision “through an informed conscience, and a Christian conscience, that it was the right thing to do.” Rudd goes on to say he doesn’t think people choose to be gay. “It is how people are built,” he says, adding that he considers it a “completely ill-founded view” to think of homosexuality as abnormal. But things get really interesting…
Read More…r are informed, for instance, by labeling on screen or in voice over, the true nature of what they are seeing. Reconstructions must not, however, distort the known facts.” It’s bad enough that we flippantly observe that someone is “drinking the Kool-Aid,” without regard to the origins of the expression in the deaths at Jonestown. But faking the Kool-Aid in re-enactments goes even further, turning religious tragedies into cheesy melodramas. Seeing,…
Read More
…I find especially enjoyable are the wonderful people I meet throughout the world. Truly those persons engaged in ending AIDS and hunger are caring, compassionate people. The volunteers that assist me are truly the “salt of the earth,” and the most caring, compassionate people I know. The persons we are privileged to partner with in Africa and Asia and elsewhere are really good people. When you are helping AIDS orphans in Kenya or assisting women a…
Read More
…workshops and conferences. Its website says the organization, which still runs today “recognizes diversity, challenges male chauvinism, patriarchy and cultures that aim at oppressing women.” Uganda has drawn global controversy over the Anti Homosexuality Act that was passed into law bu then suspended by the courts on a procedural issue. More from the story: In Uganda, where homosexual acts are punishable by prison sentences, being openly gay requ…
Read More
…y John Allen Jr., a veteran church reporter who had previously written for National Catholic Reporter, CNN, NPR and many other outlets, most of them operating independently of the Catholic church. Allen has also written several books about the Vatican, including a 2000 biography of then-cardinal Ratzinger that was seen by many as critical of the former prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In spite of some readers ho…
Read More…san Goff, supports the blessing of same-sex unions. More from Christianity Today’s Ruth Gledhill: In his pastoral letter, Archbishop Okoh says: “In the beginning, the focus of our concern was North America and we thank God that he has raised up the Anglican Church North America as a new wineskin in that continent. “Now our concern is increasingly with the British Isles. A line has been crossed in the Church of England itself with the appointment o…
Read More…ter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/1010497564435730434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2018%2F06%2F23%2Fpolitics%2Fmike-huckabee-ms13-pelosi%2Findex.html As many on social media pointed out, this is a classic dehumanization strategy—take a blameworthy sub-group like MS-13 and conflate them with a larger group, such as migrants coming from Mexico and other parts of Central and South America. This is part of a larger degeneration…
Read More
…e pre-eminent guardian of western liberal values, voted against the bill.” BBC News reports on a Berlin mosque where “men and women pray together, women are allowed to lead Friday prayers, and gay, lesbian and transgender people are welcome.” “Our mosque is open for everybody,” says mosque founder Seyran Ates, a German Turkish-born lawyer and women’s rights activist. “And we mean that really seriously: everybody, every lifestyle. We are not God. W…
Read More…es of families we have in our country.” Egypt and Sudan: Stories of LGBT struggle for survival Susanna Berkouwer, Azza Sultan, and Amar Yehia have published “Homosexuality in Sudan and Egypt: Stories of the Struggle for Survival” in the Harvard Kennedy School’s LGBTQ Policy Journal. Gay and lesbian Sudanese and Egyptians struggle daily to cope with the constant fear, discrimination, and physical abuse that they and their peers face, harboring a re…
Read More…iated the wedding of two men in Badalona, Spain, last Saturday. At Morocco World News, Karla Dieseldorff writes, “An image of Taleb dressed in hijab, next to the newlywed couple at the city town hall has made the rounds on social media networks stirring outrage and receiving all kinds of comments.” Fátima Taleb, 39, is the first ever Muslim woman to be elected councilor in Guanyem Badalona, in eastern Catalonia, Spain, according to Spanish newspap…
Read More