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Episcopal Conference Lives Up to Episcopal Jokes

By Julie Ingersoll

…might be returning to giving us just what they expect of them. The Episcopal Diocese of Florida met this past weekend in Jacksonville for their annual convention, themed, “One Body,” which began with a service led by presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori calling for unity. In recent years the convention has been tense with debates over the future of the diocese and even the Church itself. But this year, “nothing much happened,” according to…

Distant Churches and the Isolated Poor: Lessons from Katrina, Ten Years Later

By R. Drew Smith

…high-poverty neighborhoods at their own volition, entering and leaving as part of a weekly Sunday commute, and capable of opting (individually or institutionally) for quite different locations and demographic and social environments if deemed necessary. Impoverished residents are less able to relocate at will, but even when they do they may change their location but likely not their social and demographic environment. For contemporary churches to…

With Election Takeaways Like ‘Too Transgender’ or ‘the US is Shifting Right,’ Dems are Determined to Learn the Wrong Lesson

By Chrissy Stroop

…rd—rather than as a snapshot of a single election cycle. If the Democratic Party in particular reads it this way (and there’s every indication that they do) they will likely take it as a signal to move even further to the Right, when their rightward movement may well have been a key problem in the first place. In any case, while the facts do not bear these early narratives out, what we do know is that genuine economic struggle and a broken informa…

The Gospel of Contradiction: An Interview with Mary Gordon

By Nathan Schneider

…ruggled with Jesus and left him for good reasons not to take seriously the parts in the Gospel that would give you a good reason for giving up on it. I had to read the parts of the text that I didn’t like. At the end of the book, I am still with Jesus. But I felt that I could only do that with integrity if I fully grappled with the parts of him that I really didn’t like at all. How do you imagine this book will come across to Jewish readers? My gr…

A Twisted Love Story: How American Evangelicals Helped Make Putin’s Russia and How Russia Became the Darling of the American Right

By Katherine Kelaidis

…allying cry for the American Right in general and American evangelicals in particular, who made it their mission to save “Godless Russia,” seemingly unaware that before 1917, it had, in fact, been “Holy Mother Russia.” In a pattern we’ve seen repeated again and again among American evangelicals before and since, they understood the persecution of the local indigenous Christian population and the suppression of a region’s historical Christian insti…

The Religious Case Against Religious Discrimination in Cakeshop Case

By Patrick Hornbeck

…reat all their customers equally “safeguard the ability of each citizen to participate fully in society with dignity.” To the contrary, a decision in Philips’ favor could give sanction to those who, relying on their religious beliefs, might refuse to serve others of a different faith, or of no faith. The denominations are careful to note that there are situations involving religious practice where the First Amendment clearly prohibits the governme…

How a Ruling for Masterpiece Cakeshop Could Embolden White Nationalists

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ed on a highly effective framing of “religious freedom,” which painted any participation in or association with abortion as a heretical infringement on the “sincerely held religious beliefs” of true believers. “On the one hand, conservative Christians have managed to frame their opposition in a way that is compelling to a lot of people,” Wenger said. “They are making a kind of freedom of conscience claim for themselves, but it’s doing so in a way…

Proposition 8—the Rematch?

By Bill Berkowitz

…do that in their mother tongue, it’s much more powerful.” Breakaway Episcopalians—Part II: As discussed here last week, conservative clergy have decided to form an entity separate from the official Episcopal Church. According to the Christian Science Monitor, a “network of groups from the United States and Canada… [prepared to] unveil a draft constitution for a unified entity that they hope will be recognized by Anglicans elsewhere in the world.”…

Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

By Chris Stedman

…cations Director Jesse Galef offered a long list of reasons atheists might participate, and how their involvement might improve some of the problems within the interfaith movement. Despite Galef and Speckhardt’s serious concerns and reservations, they have been actively involved in intentionally interfaith efforts, and I suspect their participation has informed their conclusions about the idea. However, those speaking out against atheist involveme…

Conservative Christianity and Its Discontents

By Karl Giberson and Randall J. Stephens

…the late Peter Marshall—the two most popular historians for homeschooling parents, Tea Partiers, and evangelicals in general. Barton—whose education consists of a bachelor’s degree in Christian education from Oral Roberts University—dismisses his critics, suggesting that the peer review process and the heavy interpretive component of professional history make it unreliable. He dismisses complaints about his credentials by referring to the unvarni…