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Conservative Hardliners at Synod Prompt Question: “What Are We Doing Here?”

By Patricia Miller

…m the first small group discussions held this week indicate that a sizable number of bishops believe that the preparatory document is all doom-and-gloom and doesn’t do enough to celebrate the sizable number of Catholics who are successfully leading a traditional Catholic family life, reports John Allen: The synod’s final report ‘should begin with hope rather than failures, because a great many people already do successfully live the Gospel’s good…

Latina in America: What CNN Got Wrong

By Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado

…sh. This mirrors the documentary as a whole, which depicts Latino/as in America but not of America. The Catholic Church is the quintessential example of this marginalization, where Latino/as are essential to the survival of the Catholic Church in the United States but not in any way contributing to Catholicism. There was nothing positive about Latino/as contribution to the ecclesial life of Catholicism. If I didn’t know better, as a Latina Catholi…

Was Ghana Anti-Gay Scare Just Politics?

By Warren Throckmorton

…resentative group of Muslims claiming an imminent Sodom and Gomorrah for Africa. While the accuracy of the original story is open to question, only a spark is needed to get a fire going—intentionally or not. And given the rhetoric in Ghana, it is difficult to avoid comparison to Uganda’s recent history in relation to sexual minorities. In March, 2009, three Americans spoke at a conference on homosexuality and used false and misleading information…

Why We Won’t Let Jonestown (Or 9/11 or Sandy Hook) Die

By Kelsey Osgood

…rs that are more solid in these respects.” Jonestown was, of course, an American cultural trauma, though it can be hard to conceive it as such given the more largely looming legacies of slavery, the Holocaust, and September 11th. In 1978, America was still reeling from the loss of the Vietnam War and struggling to regain trust in its government; the culture was transforming from an atmosphere of free love and pacifism into one of Technicolor consu…

A Secret History of Satan

By W. Scott Poole

…n, in some cases public policy. The book makes the case that a significant number of Americans believe in the same Devil believed in by Puritan preachers and 19th-century evangelists. This cannot be dismissed. Its essential to understand why this is so, what historical conditions gave rise to this phenomenon and what does it tell us about the United States. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I had several groups in mind, all of…

The Suppression of Sin in Evangelical Abolitionism: The Wilberforce Problem

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…part, due to attention to the issue from the evangelical media machine. A number of books have been published by Christian presses in recent years with titles like God in the Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue, The Slave Across the Street: A True Story of How an American Teen Survived the World of Human Trafficking, and Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women. The latter, written by Carolyn Custis Ja…

Coffeehouse Churches and the ‘Party-on Messiah’: How I Lost One Leper Messiah, and Gained Another, Part 3

By Mark Dery

…is alive and well and living in the radical spiritual fervor of a growing number of young Americans who have proclaimed an extraordinary religious revolution in his name. […] Christian coffeehouses have opened in many cities, signaling their faith even in their names: The Way Word in Greenwich Village, the Catacombs in Seattle, I Am in Spokane. […] ‘It’s like a glacier,’ says ‘Jesus-Rock’ Singer Larry Norman, 24. ‘It’s growing and there’s no stop…

Will the Pope’s Woman Problem Alienate Young Catholics?

By Patricia Miller

…e Francis’ relationship to women in the Catholic Church. Writing in the American Prospect, Adele Stan argued that if Francis wants to maintain the church’s relevancy in the developing world he would promote positions that empower women, like lifting the ban on contraception. Yet, she says, “the Church remains intransigent on virtually any vestige of equality for women”: An institution that bars women from leadership conveys the message that women…

New Mormon Anti-Gay Policy Sparks Mass Exodus From Church; Christian AID Workers in Africa Refuse to Help Gay Refugees; Ukraine Rejects, Then Accepts EU-Required Gay Rights Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…tive with the goal of creating a space for queer artists working in east Africa to come together and share their work locally, nationally, and internationally” has launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund “I Am Other,” a project to document the lives and stories of LGBTQ Ugandans. From its campaign page: Because many political, cultural, and religious leaders believe that LGBTQ Ugandans are “un-African” and do not exist — it is important to document…

Risky Business: The Pitfalls at the Corner of Church & Wall Street

By Elizabeth Drescher

…pian “class warfare” fears of Tea Partiers and other Republicans? When the number of Americans living in poverty—46.2 million, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau—is at an all-time high? When more than 300,000 Christian churches dot the American landscape, the majority with declining membership and largely unused real estate or financial capital that might well be put to work in the service of that stalwart of Christian faith: neig…