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An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church Self-Destructing?

By Anne Eggebroten

…and procession to find a few confused and pitifully human old men at microphones still trying to send out impressive puffs of smoke. Within 20-40 years, we will have women priests ordained with the blessing of canon law (not outside canon law as at present). This will happen sooner than previously expected because each act of abuse or cover-up weakens the power of the male hierarchy. Their convoluted reasons for why only men can represent Jesus C…

The Faith Outreach Canard

By Sarah Posner

…major problems with this argument: first, it’s factually inaccurate — the numbers are simply wrong. While Democrats experienced significant losses compared to the last mid-term election in 2006, which was a good year for Democrats across the board, Sapp overstates the losses by a factor of two. The actual decreases in support between 2006 and 2010 for Democratic candidates in the House were 8 points among all white Protestants (37 percent to 29 p…

Special Hell: Progressive Catholics Reckon With the Rise of Trump

By Patricia Miller

…f conservative Catholics that Trump assembled in October, he promised, “I will stand with Catholics and fight for you”: I will defend your religious liberties and the right to fully and freely practice your religion, as individuals, business owners and academic institutions. I will make absolutely certain religious orders like The Little Sisters of Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs. And while the Cat…

55% of Utah Mormons Believe LGBT People can “Change”

By Joanna Brooks

…ew hurtful, crude comparisons between the electoral battle to establish civil equality for LGBT people and a classroom of children “voting” on the gender of a cat. After massive expressions of protest from Mormon and non-Mormon LGBT advocates and allies, Packer’s speech was revised for web publication, and a Church spokesman offered a statement—incredibly progressive by LDS standards and timetables—that denounced bullying and acknowledged gay peop…

The Devil is in the Details

By Amina Wadud

…and I don’t want to have any overdue amounts on that account either. Meanwhile, I am still collecting prayer requests and that means praying now and still remembering to call their names at Arafat. Yesterday I learned that a dear, dear friend has just gotten a cancer diagnosis. I’ll be really blessed to make a du’a for her speedy and complete recovery, but these are the things that make this time and this experience all the more meaningful. May Al…

What Pence and Kaine Reveal About Divides in Catholicism

By Patricia Miller

…and the church insisted that Catholics opposed the decision, a significant number of Catholics similarly ignored them, having decided that on matters of sexuality the hierarchy wasn’t to be trusted? It’s that split within Catholicism that freed up Catholics to affiliate with whatever political party best met their priorities: social justice issues for left-leaning Catholics and sexual restraint, law-and-order, and a muscular national defense for r…

Do Space Aliens Need Baptism? The View From Gliese 581g

By Paul Wallace

…water freezes. Astronomers—wits ever—have come to call this region the Goldilocks zone (not too hot, not too cold…). It turns out that we live near the center of the Sun’s Goldilocks zone, and Venus and Mars also occupy it but sit close to its inner and outer edges, respectively. (If these planets’ atmospheres had evolved differently, they too would be able to support liquid water.) The search for life on other planets has been ongoing for a long…

Commies, Blacks, Jews, the UCC and Other Threats to America

By Daniel Schultz

…ous left. It means we’re doing our job. And just in case anyone missed the number of religious progressive groups endorsing the rally, here’s a list culled from One Nation site. Their list of endorsers is pretty long, so I apologize if I missed somebody: Rainbow PUSH Coalition The Shalom Center Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations Sikh Coalition The Religious Institute The Community Church of NY Unitarian Universalist Pennsylvania C…

Halloween, Evangelicals, and the Macabre

By John W. Morehead

…loween is evil. Its roots are correctly understood as pagan, but the possibility that not everything that comes from paganism must be evil is ignored; as is that fact that Halloween incorporates a number of elements and influences that have accrued during its journey through various cultures. In truth, some of these elements are Christian, like the feast of the dead that attempted to maintain communion with the saints, both living and deceased. Th…

We Were Here Before September 11th

By Amina Wadud

…he one constant in that picture was African-Americans. Ours is the story still not well known, despite our numbers. For one thing, after September 11th we were given a small reprieve. American prejudice and intolerance floated from us as African Americans, who happen to be Muslim, and focused on Muslims who happen to be Americans. Therefore the hatred built up against foreign Muslims immigrant and their offspring. More than a few African-American…