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As a “Cult Leader” Disgraced Pastor Mark Driscoll Does Not Rank

By Jesse James DeConto

…indubitable, and religious teaching is no exception. A slim-cut corduroy blazer or post-hardcore worship leader doesn’t make a truly new kind of church. Postmodern Christianity is nothing if not a tension of faith and doubt—a desolidification of authority—and no Seattle aesthetic can turn Mars-Hill-style rote memorization into Blue-Like-Jazz improvisation. One example: Many post-evangelicals flee to Emergent or mainline Protestant churches specifi…

Seattle ‘CultureMaker’ Nathan Marion: We Need New Abbeys in America to Foster Community, Arts

By Jesse James DeConto

…hbors and neighborhoods. From Seattle and Portland, Houston and Austin, to San Diego and Birmingham, Ala., Marion advises congregations about how their buildings can belong to the broader “parishes” that surround them. Writer and musician Jesse James DeConto, who works with churches in Durham, N.C., to host a monthly Beer & Hymns sing-along at a local brewery, recently talked to Marion about how churches can offer a ministry of presence through th…

Transitions: Caitlyn Jenner, Gender Identity, and Christians Behaving Badly (Again)

By Daniel Schultz

…ty, we’re going to have find it somewhere other than gender. There are any number of theories out there. But to my mind, what makes us children of God is ability to respond in kind to the yearning love of God, both to God, and to one another. And human worth is simply a gift from God, dependent on nothing other than God’s grace. I think that’s a predicate with which even the most conservative Christian would agree. It’s how you defend the worth of…

To Let It Go and So To Find A Way: U2, (A)Live with Grief and Grace

By Cathleen Falsani

…concert at The Forum arena in Los Angeles on May 27. Photo by Cathleen Falsani for Religion Dispatches. After attending a U2 show in San Jose, Calif., earlier this month, Noel Gallagher of the band Oasis described it as a “psychedelic experience” that was “staggering.” “It starts off as a punk rock gig but then it gets intimate, there’s a lot of truth in it about where they come from and the people that they are,” the notoriously prickly Gallaghe…

Russian Attack on LGBTs at UN Rejected; Gay Cake Controversy Rages in N. Ireland; Bishop Calls for Marriage Referendum in Puerto Rico; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Company. The hundreds who couldn’t make it into the full-to-capacity hall sang “Amazing Grace” on the sidewalk. A bakery supporter said it seems as though Christians “have no rights.” One pro-marriage-equality columnist, Fionola Meredith, said she was supporting Ashers in the name of free speech and said that forcing the company to endorse same-sex marriage would to “nothing to advance the cause of equality.” United Kingdom: Thatcher biographer d…

Cruz Backs Bishops on Religious Liberty Claims

By Patricia Miller

…, who is under fire for imposing a strict “morality clause” on teachers in San Francisco’s Catholic schools. But in an indication of how the religious liberty issue crosses the political lines of the Francis papacy, the letter was also signed by two noted moderates: DC Archbishop Donald Wuerl, whose DC offices would fall under the law, and Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley, who is considered Francis’ closest US ally. Of course, with Ted Cruz’s anti-…

Post-Paris Reflections: We May Have to Learn to Hope

By Donna Schaper

…reat of terrorism. The lead news stories all these last ten days have been San Bernardino or Chicago or the French election, moving to the right in Islamophobia. What if good people and decent governments worldwide commit to less than 2 degrees Celsius as a goal and find themselves spending all their money and energy on a security state, which would shut down the very movements that brought the world to a good goal? We can’t lose our streets right…

Greek Orthodox Bishop Says Spit on Inhuman Gay Scum: This Week’s LGBT Global Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…he Czech man and his French husband adopted the boys as new-born babies in San Francisco, where they bring them up, MfD writes. However, the children spent their holidays with their grandmother in the Czech Republic where the father, aged 41, had no rights to them. “Now we can be granted Czech citizenship, thanks to which we can move to the Czech Republic,” the Czech father, who works as a financial director in the USA, is quoted as saying. “Our t…

Chatting with Myanmar’s Buddhist “Terrorist”

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…h Gnanasara, but insisted that their agendas were separate. Nonetheless, a number of news reports claim that Wirathu’s 969 and Gnanasaara’s BBS movements are in league, and there are reports that Wirathu has been in contact with Buddhist monks from Thailand’s southern border with Malaysia, where pitched battles have been taking place between Buddhists and the Muslim majority in that locale. Wirathu said it wasn’t just Buddhists who were concerned…

Times‘ Cutesy Guide Veils Humanity of Muslim Women

By Mariam Durrani

…ewsworthiness, you’ll find a peculiar section called: “What in the World.” Sandwiched between articles on cows belching in India and a cutesy rumination on nicknames for Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, you’ll find an article about what to call that thing on a woman’s head in various Muslim countries. “What’s That You’re Wearing? A Guide to Muslim Veils,” includes a .gif with seven repeating images of faceless bodies wearing “veils for Muslim…