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NC’s Gay Marriage Ban: “It’s Going to Hurt the Church”

…hing of a “toxic and counterfeit gay-affirming gospel” to being injured by the church as a child. “In some ways he’s right,” Bakker told me in response. “It’s called empathy.” He continued: “Every time someone accuses me of cheap grace, I go back and say no, it’s free grace. Grace is free. The reason I understand the Bible the way I do is probably because I interpret through the pain that I’ve been through. But it’s not me compromising. I know wha…

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Václav Havel: Democracy as Spiritual Discipline

…ocial marasmus. There is no reason to think that this struggle is a lost cause. The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle. Havel utterly rejected the kind of dishonest and destructive “ends justify the means” politics that seems to dominate so much of our political discourse: …Of course, I don’t know whether directness, truth, and the democratic spirit will succeed. But I do know how not to succeed, which is by choosing…

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Pope Francis Dithering About Women, Skittish About Cops

…ts own, that thousands of children and vulnerable adults have suffered because church leaders refuse to give up power. Alas, the hierarchy rejects change, manically swatting it away at every turn while Catholics exit in droves. Even so timid a move as ordaining women deacons—that is, sacramentalizing and acknowledging that the bulk of the church’s ministry is now done by women—is too much for these men. Asked about the work of the commission he se…

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Of Mosques and Men

…a dormitory and besides going to class and a small part time job, I was a free bird. In Ramadan a free bird, flies high on the rituals of the month. I stood for 20 units or tarawih every night that I was fasting. Like the first time reading through the Qu’ran in Arabic on my own this was exhilarating. Somewhere around 12 or 14 units, I lost track of everything outside of the recitation and the ritual performance—the zone. It was even more intense…

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Why Must Jesus Contain Gluten?

…harist, it included a restatement of a prohibition of totally wheat-gluten-free hosts. This was often reported as something of a snub of the Celiac sufferers (or gluten intolerant) among the faithful. But reading through the directive and the supporting documentation, I was struck by their attempts to accommodate communicants who can’t tolerate some essential aspect of the rite. The bread for the host can be so low in gluten as to qualify for “glu…

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Trump’s SOTU Address Was a Christian Nationalist Dog Whistle

…ludes the following line (emphases mine): In reaffirming our heritage as a free nation, we must remember that America has always been a Christian nation. Time magazine’s transcript, meanwhile, reflects what the president actually said: In reaffirming our heritage as a free Nation, we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation. It’s entirely possible that the speech wasn’t deliberately edited; that Trump, who’s famous for ad-libbi…

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Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

…they put their shoes in rows on the street. Not allowed to protest, they amused themselves and many others with the amuse-bouche of the human spirit. Ordinary people won’t stop acting and amusing. The question is the spirit of the world leaders who imagine themselves the main course. Here at COP21 there is a youthful spirit, a nearly Minnesota niceness, a palpable sense of hope. YES WE CAN, SI SE PUEDE is the spirit of every display. Whether the s…

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What’s Missing From Popular Discussions of Today’s Christian Nationalism?

…ould be Black. I went through all that I went through so that you could be free.’” It’s a message that has a strong appeal to some immigrants, as Jennifer S. Carroll, a former Navy commander born in Trinidad who served as lieutenant governor of Florida, made clear at a panel titled “Majority Minority.” “I wanted to give back to my country because my country gave myself and my family so much,” said, Carroll. “And that’s what immigrants are all abou…

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The Roberts Court’s “Special Solicitude” for Corporations

…ing unemployment benefits after they were fired due to their ritual peyote use did not violate their free exercise rights. RFRA, Ginsburg argued, reinstated the law to pre-Smith jurisprudence without creating any “new rights for any religious practice or for any potential litigant.” “Despite these authoritative indications, the Court sees RFRA as a bold initiative departing from, rather than restoring, pre-Smith jurisprudence,” she wrote. RFRA did…

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The Harvard Gym Controversy is Not About Religion

…women, but yes, they are less concerned about being seen. And is that because they are less pious than Muslim women? (Perhaps, I might argue). But the reason is because we live in a patriarchal world, where men are generally not at risk of physical danger from women. It is because women are objectified, raped, assaulted, bought and sold worldwide. Most women, one writer argued, are too shy to request women’s hours at the gym: Muslim women have th…

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