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Catholic Bishops Meeting For Family Synod; South Africa’s Dutch Reformed Church OKs Gay Weddings, Ordination; Court in Malaysia Deals Setback To Transgender Advocates; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ave to go through what I have gone through.” Catholic Church: Family Synod highlights splits The three-week Catholic bishops’ synod on the family got under way last week with high hopes among some LGBT advocates and visible tensions between more conservative and more progressive factions within the bishops. (See Patricia Miller’s RD piece on conservative hardliners staking out their positions.twitter.) A priest who came out on the eve of the confe…

Poll: Negative Church Messages Contribute to Gay and Lesbian Suicides

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…in general, Americans are more likely to give their own places of worship high marks; nearly half Americans give their own place of worship either an “A” (28 percent) or a “B” (17 percent) on their handling of this issue.” Among those giving high marks to how their churches are “handling the issue of homosexuality” are white evangelicals who give their church an “A” (49 percent) or a “B” (27 percent). Catholics are most likely to rate their churc…

Bobby Jindal Hypes His Christian Cred at Liberty U.

By Murali Balaji

…extent, his parents). As the Post notes: His religious education reached a higher plane during his junior year in high school, he told his dinner audience. He wanted to ask a pretty girl on a date during a hallway conversation, and she started talking about her faith in God and her opposition to abortion. The girl invited him to visit her church. Jindal’s conversion, while apparently authentic, speaks to the idea of how pressure to convert can eve…

Australians Vote Overwhelmingly For Marriage Equality; and More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ts in Australian society. Opposition was concentrated in suburbs with high numbers of working-class immigrants on the suburban fringes, including locations popular with Islamic communities. Brazil: Conservative Christian activists protest gender theorist Judith Butler At Inside Higher Ed, philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler describes to Scott Jaschik her experience earlier this month in Brazil, where “she faced an ugly protest at which s…

Set to Privilege Christianity in Public Schools, Texas Sends a Message About Who is Welcome — And Who is Not

By Steven K. Green

…slims, Hindus, and Buddhists each accounting for approximately 1%. But the number of unaffiliated Texans—aka “nones”—come in at 18%. Although these figures may suggest that Texas is still a “Christian State,” employers, particularly in high-tech and research centers surrounding Houston and Austin, need to attract workers who often come from diverse backgrounds. Religious provincialism can be off-putting to prospective employees. The Texas Legislat…

Why President Obama Should Not Visit the Western Wall

By Melissa Weininger

…repeatedly with abuse and the police refused to help, they petitioned the High Court as the group Women of the Wall. In the intervening years, Women of the Wall have twice petitioned the High Court, and the Court has ruled that the government must establish a committee to resolve the issue by offering a solution that allows the women to pray at the Wall. Since 1997, the women have been allowed to pray at Robinson’s Arch, a site to the south of th…

As Far-Right Surges in US and Germany Debate Rages Over Disqualification of Those Who Would Destroy Democracy

By Annika Brockschmidt

…or the first time. But Klotz stresses that history also reveals why such a high bar must be met in order to ban political parties: The Basic Law has deliberately placed high hurdles in front of a party ban. This, too, is a lesson learned from National Socialism. It had been made far too easy for [the Nazi Party] to ban the SPD [Social Democratic Party] in 1933 and all other parties shortly afterwards. After fundamental rights had already been rest…

A Reporter’s Guide to the New Apostolic Reformation

By Frederick Clarkson and André Gagné

…pen some windows on the international presence and influence of the NAR by highlighting some of the leading apostolic networks, their leaders, and their multi-national, multi-racial and multi-ethnic character. That said, the numbers of nations and people that we mention are sourced solely on the claims of the groups themselves. We have no way to independently verify these numbers, so they should be used advisedly. Simply put, the global vision of…

10 Noteworthy Yoga Developments to Recall in 2015

By Andrea R. Jain

…dies scholar Candy Gunther Brown’s expertise—in 2013, Brown testified in a high-profile court case against allowing yoga in Encinitas, California public schools since it, according to Brown, promotes Hinduism—in support of his own argument that yoga is dangerous for Christians. In an op-ed published in John Brown University’s newspaper, The Threefold Advocate, faculty member Deborah Dana warned students about yoga, arguing “yoga has its roots in t…

Why is Huntsman’s Mormonism “Tough to Define”?

By Joanna Brooks

…d interest in Mormon issues and happenings. And because the stakes are so high, many unorthodox Mormons try to maintain as much privacy as possible, or even hesitate to fully claim a Mormon identity in public, if they do not meet the standards of Mormonism’s most orthodox believers. Some want to avoid the kind of “no-win” situation admitting lack of orthodoxy often provokes in Mormon social contexts. Others do not want their unorthodox behavior t…