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A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…onal ministers, associates in ministry, and deaconesses, and currently the number of women and men preparing for ministry in ELCA seminaries is roughly equal (Susan Candea, “Wisdom Has Blessed Us”). While there are certainly some in the ELCA who continue to oppose women’s ordination, those numbers are small and grow smaller with each passing year. The same, I suspect, will be the case for the issue of gay and lesbian ordination forty years from no…

Can Mormon Glenn Beck Unite the Christian Right?

By Kathryn Joyce

…f gay and reproductive rights. What the WCF does continue to do very successfully is serve as an assembly point for a number of highly connected religious right actors who mingle with leaders from Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America to further an American-born agenda. So while many of Beck’s beliefs may be anathema to the evangelicals he’s courting, and his nationalism is perhaps as important to some critics as theological considerations, co…

To Be Queer, Gifted, and Black: A Conversation with Theologian Pamela Lightsey

By Nyasha Junior

…k girls and women who have suffered police violence such as Rekia Boyd and Sandra Bland. How have Black women historically been erased from social justice activism? When we talk about Black Lives Matter, we’re talking about all black lives. What has often taken place is that social media has lifted up the men and responded to that violence in ways that it has not responded to violence against black women. Fortunately, pushback has started, and Say…

Why We Must Reclaim “Religious Freedom” from Christian Conservatives

By Bill Berkowitz

…armed by government overreach. “The Christian Right has systematically transformed itself into a formidable 21st century theocratic political movement, developing an electoral capacity that is broad and deep, even as organizations and leaders come and go.” Allowing a religious exemption made it a transformational, conservative civil rights case regarding the meaning and scope of religious freedom. One result was that the religious beliefs of the o…

For Buddhism, Science is Not a Killer of Religion

By Paul Wallace

…really knows how to drive, it seems, and the water buffalo and cows are outnumbered in the streets only by the small and fast-moving motorized rickshaws. So when I was taking a four-hour taxi ride from Delhi to Agra I had to have something to distract my attention from the harrowing video game-like scene out the front window. A friend who was riding with me handed me a book called What Makes You Not a Buddhist. Written by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse…

A Rationalist’s Ghost Story

By Gary Jansen

…that happened over a twelve month period in my family’s life (as well as a number of flashbacks from when I was a young boy). In addition, there were a number of things I didn’t get the chance to explore for a very practical reason: I had a deadline. Working in publishing I’m very conscious about how important deadlines are. Writers need to make those deadlines and because I worked in the industry I wanted to be respectful about that. There were a…

Will Pope’s African Tour Change Attitudes on Divorce and LGBTQ Among African Catholics?

By Kaya Oakes

…a has gone through a startling increase in recent decades. Since 1980, the number of African Catholics has grown by 238%, in contrast to Europe, where it has grown by only 6%. Some of this may be attributable to higher fertility rates in African countries, but it also reflects the church’s success in missionary efforts. And where there are a decreasing number of vocations to the priesthood in Europe, where vocations have declined by 23%, African v…

ABC’s Hit Sitcom Black-ish Does God, Pushes Theological Respectability

By Anthony B. Pinn

…on of agnosticism and atheism hits a high point during and after the Renaissance of African American literature, grounded in places like Harlem, that gave us figures such as Nella Larsen (Quicksand), Lorraine Hansberry (“A Raisin in the Sun”), and Richard Wright (Black Boy). These and others like them turned away from the supernatural and grounded the struggle for justice and the expression of life in human effort within the confines of human hist…

What Fidel Castro’s Death Means for LGBT Rights in Cuba and More, in This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…d. Although Magufuli has not said anything publicly about homosexuality, a number of his appointees have made harsh remarks. Critics of gay rights say this nation — which has large numbers of Muslims and Christians — must protect traditional values. In an August speech, Paul Makonda, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, the capital, threatened to arrest people who were linked to gay men on social-networking sites. “If there’s a homosexual w…

Bill Gates’ Comments on Covid-19 Vaccine Enflame ‘Mark of the Beast’ Worries in Some Christian Circles

By Christopher James Blythe

…hat had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name… his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” (Revelation 13:16-18) In the early twentieth century, this prophecy became linked to American fears of a powerful federal government. A 1943 letter to the editor of the Pampa Daily News was representative of this growing resentment coupling conspiracy with apocalypticism: We should count it dishonorable for a free people to produce…