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Sex and the (Hipster) Church—Just a Gimmick?

By Nicole Greenfield

…ight-lights and big-worship year-old plant of a network of Australian Pentecostal churches. “Some things were a little cheesy,” Nancy Mickel, a 30-year-old Hillsong member, admits. “But in the real world, sex does come up. It’s good to know where we should stand.” From Spectacle to Conversation At hipster churches at the other end of the spectrum, churches that have embraced a more relaxed and egalitarian leadership structure with an emphasis on t…

Curing Homophobia is the Real Problem

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ohen, that homosexuality is “definitely reversible and changeable.” The American College of Pediatricians, unfortunately, has little credibility here since it was founded in 2002 by a group of ideological doctors who were concerned that the American Association of Pediatricians “promoted social policy based on political correctness and the wants of adults rather than the needs of children.” Again, religion is not pushed openly as an argument for k…

Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam

By Mark LeVine

…mily, who were musicians. Islam is also present in the deepest roots of American rock, from the music of African slaves which eventually produced blues and gospel music. And, since many of the slaves who sang the melodies that evolved into these styles were West African Muslims, their songs and melodies can be linked to the call to prayer and other African Islamic melodies. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I wanted to write a…

Wilma Mankiller: On the Passing of a Legendary Leader

By Johnny P. Flynn

…er family lands were taken over by the US Army, and they were relocated to San Francisco not long after the end of WWII. Ms. Mankiller sometimes compared her personal history with that of the Cherokee removal. “I cried for days,” she said of a family move to the West coast, “not unlike the children who had stumbled down the Trail of Tears so many years before. I wept tears… tears from my history, from my tribe’s past. They were Cherokee tears.” Sh…

Facebook Doesn’t Kill Churches, Churches Kill Churches

By Elizabeth Drescher

…volunteering in any given week at Martha’s Kitchen food pantry in downtown San Jose, California than at Sunday services at the church across the street. If Facebook is killing the church, that is, it’s probably more accurate to call it an assisted suicide. Clicking the Church Catholic Rather than “killing the church,” available data suggest that social media can be a part of revitalizing religious practice. Hence the loopy zeal with which Pope Ben…

Kagan, “Jewish Bolshevism,” and the Legacy of a Nomination

By Gordon D. Newby

…, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is from Brooklyn.” They do not represent real America, she contends. Living in New York is not the same as living in the rest of America, “not the same cultural marinade.” Pat Buchanan also weighed in on Kagan’s nomination, lamenting the fact that the Democrats, for him in the thrall of Jewish socialism, did not nominate a Catholic or a white Protestant: Indeed, of the last seven justices nominated by Democrats JFK, LBJ,…

‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

By Frances Kissling

…heir wrists, are more lauded for their courage than Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent nearly 15 years under house arrest. Months before the election is the perfect time for the CHA to press its case for an exemption from the policy, which would not only allow it freedom from following the law on contraceptive insurance, but also to assert without scrutiny that any number of health services violate its religious beliefs. In her intervi…

Holy Grail is Found!

By Gwynne Watkins

…and professor-with-flexible-leave-time Harrison Ford make their way to the sanctuary of an ancient temple, where they’re given a test: choose the real Grail from a collection of fancy cups. Glover chooses the fanciest one, drinks from it, and is disintegrated, like so: Then our pal Indy selects the smallest, dustiest vessel, saying, “This is the cup of a carpenter.” He uses his cup to save Sean Connery’s life, the Nazi lady dies, and a thousand se…

10 Noteworthy Yoga Developments to Recall in 2015

By Andrea R. Jain

…Gallery, the “Yoga: The Art of Transformation” exhibition travelled to the San Francisco Asian Art Museum and finally to the Cleveland Museum of Art. The exhibition served as the first major art survey of yoga in the United States and provided visual representations of yoga’s complex, dynamic history, ranging from philosopher-ascetics turning inward in pursuit of salvation through realization of the true self; to ecstatic devotees turning outward…

Even Amid Controversy, ‘My Soul Still Sings,’ Says UMC’s First Lesbian Bishop

By Sunnivie Brydum

…the stained glass ceiling” at the 12,000-member Glide Methodist Church in San Francisco, becoming the first woman to serve as a senior pastor at any of the denomination’s 100 largest congregations in the U.S. It was there that she experienced first-hand the expectation that she would bring her whole self to lead worship. “I have been blessed to be out because my congregations expected it of me,” she explained. “And here’s what I’ve found: Wheneve…