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Bishop Says Gay Couples Cannot Be Part of Parish Life; Does Rising Evangelical Political Power in Brazil Contribute to Anti-LGBT Violence?; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…logian Pope Francis chose to present the document to the press. In the US, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput released new guidelines in response to Pope Francis’s exhortation on the family. Among Chaput’s directives: divorced and remarried couples must live chastely like brother and sister; priests should try to break up cohabiting couples who aren’t ready to marry; gays must be chaste unless they are in heterosexual marriages. Chaput wrote t…

Tearing Down Evangelical Icons: Why Penn’s Decision to Remove George Whitefield Statue May Be Good for American Evangelicalism

By Peter Y. Choi

…urate. It’s true that Whitefield intended to build a school for orphans in Philadelphia. He preached in a structure called the New Building as part of that work, which Benjamin Franklin later purchased to build the university. Whitefield preached in that structure before the roof was even installed, providing an apt image of the breakneck speed at which he moved for most of his life. It may have made for a dramatic scene of worship, where hearers…

The Vampire Who Beat Wells Fargo

By Joseph Laycock

…mber is even higher for mortgage companies. Last month, Patrick Rodgers of Philadelphia “foreclosed” on a local Wells Fargo branch. In an act of legal jiujitsu, Rodgers was able to prove that Wells Fargo exhibited a pattern of failing to communicate with its clients and was awarded $1000. When the bank didn’t pay, he arranged for a sheriff’s levy to sell the bank’s assets at auction. A deputy sheriff arrived at the bank branch and prepared an inve…

Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

By Sarah Posner

…e for Peace, on whose Rabbinical Council he serves. (Compared to J Street’s 800-plus-member Rabbinic Cabinet, JVP’s two-year-old Rabbinic Council has just 50.) Rosen told me he was not forced out, but that his decision to step down was driven by “stress between individual congregants and me,” and was made “for my congregation’s well-being and my own well-being.” Rosen described Israel’s 2009 war in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, as the “breaking point…

Lifestyles of the Rich and Pious

By Patricia Miller

…n on Madison Avenue appraised at $30 million. • Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who warned a few years back that the local gay pride parade might “morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan,” lives in a “one of a kind,” 19-chimneyed mansion in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood conservatively valued at $14.3 million. And he is waited on by three nuns who live in a nearby coach house—very Downton Abbey. • Seattle Archbishop James Sa…

Pride Month & Prejudice; ‘Worrisome Time’ For LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ciety,” he said. CNN traces the start of the backlash to early 2016 when a number of political leaders began making “unprompted attacks on Indonesia’s LGBT community.” It notes that conservative Islam is a growing political force, evident in the arrest and conviction of Jakarta’s Christian governor on blasphemy charges. The report says human rights activists have been disappointed by President Joko Widodo’s “lackluster” defense of LGBT people. Sal…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…waste American money to buy their expensive oil when we could have our own cheap oil?” “Why is he trying to make rich people poor?” “How is it right to punish rich people for working hard and realizing the American Dream?” It was late on a Friday night and I was tired, so I half-heartedly responded by explaining that there are other factors to consider in every charged question she’d been armed with. But I wondered, “Why the hell was the Salvation…

Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…

Spiritual McCarthyism and the Catholic Vote

By Bill Berkowitz

…ion (she is a rabid defender of abortion). At about the same time, radical Chicago priest Rev. Michael Pfleger bailed on Obama by withdrawing his name from the Advisory Council. Now we find that there is no listing for the group on the Obama website. As of this writing, the status of Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Council is unclear. (Phone calls to Obama headquarters were not returned.) However, the dust-up between the always vociferous Donoh…

‘Don’t Call Me Black No More, I’m an Israelite’: Kendrick Lamar, Black Hebrew Religion, and Black Suffering

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…hosted a “Seder in the Streets” this past Passover in which members of the Chicago Jewish and African American community took part in the yearly ritual together—not in shining banquet hall but in the heart of the South side Chicago neighborhood of Englewood. Rather than inviting prominent African American preachers and Jewish rabbis for an interfaith photo-op, Manasseh hosted everyday people to share their communal “bread of affliction.” Rather th…