Religion Dispatches
…eckoning, then one can see their fruits in Germany today. Last month, following a number of horrid, hateful slogans chanted at Jews (in the context of otherwise legitimate protests against Israel’s attack on Gaza), and a number of violent incidents, there was a large public vigil in Berlin to protest anti-Semitism. Among the attendees were German President Joachim Guack, members of Germany’s parliament, leaders of both of the country’s major churc…
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…eremy Kidd and Tarynn Witten posit a reason: “The tendency not to identify with a formal religion may reflect an affirmation of one’s own dignity that these religions fail to honor, an expression of protest against certain religious tenets, and/or a refusal to align oneself with institutions contributing to the marginalization of gender and sexual minorities. The difference in religious identification appears to reflect thoughts and feelings towar…
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…ble for them and contrary their nature and morals.” Tahtawi’s sentiments reflect the growing alignment of Muslim reformers with the thinking of people like C.S. Sonnini and other Europeans who saw the Islamic world’s tolerance of sexual diversity as a sign of its backwardness. Today, vocal Muslim critics of LGBTQ+ rights often accuse gay and queer people of imposing a “Western” concept or forcing Islam to adjust to “Western values” failing to gras…
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…y, as many of the dioceses in the United States become uninsurable and the number of Catholic churches dwindles. As membership shrinks, the number of ordinations decreases, and the coffers dry up, perhaps the Vatican and its leadership will be forced to look at its decrepit, hierarchical structure, and fix it. I doubt it, however. Like the spider who crawled across Pope Benedict’s robes this weekend in Prague, everyone except the Pope can see the…
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…their denominations’ leaders down this particular road, and there is a growing number of religious institutions that have embraced marriage equality and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights in the public square. Cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop make it clear that the boundaries of a national settlement on gay rights remain fuzzy. As this vitally important conversation proceeds, let us not miss yet another opportunity to tell the story of religious advocacy…
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…meaning—itself may be regarded with some skepticism, given its association with what is widely regarded as part of an amoral Western cultural and political onslaught on the non-Western world. More recently, the foolhardy attempt to forcibly impose “democracy” through the barrel of a gun in Iraq and elsewhere under Western military occupation has unfortunately tainted this term in a negative vein. In conscious opposition to hardline Islamists who h…
Read More…o keep up with events. President Clinton, facing re-election, met directly with pastors of burned churches and with the National Council of Churches. He then moved quickly to pass the Church Arson Prevention Act, which established the Church Arson Prevention Task Force, an unprecedented collaborative effort between the Civil Rights Division of Department of Justice, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, FEMA, the FBI, and others. The Church…
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…erested and challenged by the book. For example, I am fascinated by the growing number of pop culture addicts who want to examine how their interest in fantasy, science fiction, horror, and the fantastic in general connects to theology, popular religion, and the sacred more generally. There is a real and growing audience out there for this approach as evidenced by Gary Laderman’s book Sacred Matters, Joseph Laycock’s very interesting study Vampire…
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…llowing them to escape. One of my favorite pictures in the world is of him with a wine glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. As Pope, he said, “See everything, overlook much, correct a little.” He opened up the world in a way ascetics don’t. At the same time, the Desert Fathers are very compelling to me, though I don’t want my kids to be Desert Fathers. I don’t want to be a Desert Father. I want to go to the movies. I want dogs. But if y…
Read More…raped, evicted, and fired from their jobs due to being gay, and said a growing number of LGBT Ugandans are feeling for Kenya. Musaala, 58, was born in Ireland and educated in England and Uganda. He was ordained in 1994 in the Archdiocese of Kampala and began ministering to gays and lesbians in 1999. His archbishop considered that work “not in step with the church,” Musaala said. In March 2013, Musaala wrote a paper challenging priestly celibacy a…
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