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After Embracing Female Bishop, Pope Spins Again on Women’s Ordination

By Kaya Oakes

…sala and primate of the Church of Sweden, read the gospel at an ecumenical service to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Pope Francis embraced Jackelen at the passing of the peace. This morning, when he boarded a plane back to Rome, Kristina Kappelin of Swedish TV asked the pope if the Catholic ban on female priests was “forever.” “On the ordination of women in the Catholic church,” the pope replied, “the last word is clear.” Referring…

Why I Will Not See The Help: A Rant

By Rosetta E. Ross

…that all honest work has dignity. However, the reality is that persons in service work, especially service work in US homes, generally are grossly undercompensated. This undercompensation often occurs because their social or legal status makes them easy targets for exploitation. There is honor and dignity in their work to support themselves and their families, but the structure that allows their undercompensation dishonors such persons, marking t…

When Religion Kills: The Narco-Traffickers of the Borderlands

By Luis Leon

…w others get close to God.” Credo sixteen extols the virtue of patriotism. Number nineteen advises humility and nobility, while twenty-two announces that no woman should fear a Knight, but, rather, should feel protected by him. Twenty-nine reiterates that every Knight should be “firmly and truthfully in the just cause of God.” Numbers thirty-four through thirty-eight prohibit drugs, kidnapping, and mandate drug testing. Forty-three requires member…

Why I Joined Over a Thousand Faith Leaders in Masterpiece Case Brief

By Marie Alford-Harkey

…rpiece Cakeshop is a business open to the public; it cannot choose to deny service to same-sex couples. If Phillips believes baking a cake for a same-sex couple violates his religious beliefs, he can choose not to operate a business. The same would be true if an atheist baker believed that baking a cake for a baptism violated their beliefs. An individual is free to hold and to practice such beliefs, but they are not free to use those beliefs to cl…

The Curious Case of Mormons and LGBT Rights

By Alan Michael Williams

…ment, enter temples and are usually not allowed to hold church “callings” (service responsibilities). The reality is, the situation is very uneven. One can still find new accounts online of those disciplined for merely “coming out.” Conversely, I have a friend in Seattle who was called to the stake Sunday school presidency even though his stake president knows that he dates men. Negotiated cases like his are the result of a local service need for…

Chilean Mine Rescue: Largest Global Spiritual Event Ever?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…Digital social media, that is, has allowed us to employ technology in the service of real and meaningful engagements with others even when these engagements are not face-to-face. The 6,040 people in the Facebook group “Chilean Miners,” for instance (people from Germany, Ireland, Argentina, Canada, Ohio, Wyoming, and so on) were watching the live feed from the mine in their homes, workplaces, cafes and other distributed locales, but praying togeth…

Will Internet Kill Mormonism Too? Or Just Missionaries?

By Holly Welker

…missionaries convert, on average, six people during their 18- to 24-month service, the online apostles in Provo have averaged around 30 converts per missionary per year, says [BYU Professor Gideon] Burton. And these people stick around. Ninety-five percent of the Internet converts have kept active, a retention rate more than triple the norm…. The idea that a “self-selected cohort curious enough to reach out directly” yields better teaching contac…

Revelations from Family of Secrets (an addendum)

By Frederick Clarkson

…Champagne Unit” of the Texas Air National Guard in order to avoid military service that might send him to Vietnam; how he failed to fulfill that service; and how his failure was systematically covered-up and politically defused. Also covered are the allegations of how W. was an abuser of illegal drugs in addition to his apparently drinking problems as a young man. One important story from W.’s past that has long been rumored is confirmed in this b…

Dispatches from the Borderlands: Missing Voices

By Daniel Ramirez

…ealt to a community attempting, like other ethnic groups, to move into the American mainstream (the crucible of military service in World War II helped to overcome the setback). The draconian measures championed by some politicians and opinion shapers would repeat this wrenching experience for, among others, 3 million young U.S. citizens. As we flirt with legalized xenophobia and family disintegration, perhaps the silent shepherds will take up the…

McCain’s VP Courts Conservative Evangelicals

By Kathryn Joyce

…distinguished her beliefs from the pious rules-oriented religious right of American politics, ostensibly making her a more independent-minded evangelical. It’s the same image raised by the popular photographs of Palin sitting on couches draped with bear-skin rugs, next to taxidermied Alaskan King Crabs: a new archetype even a purist can appreciate. Tough, Western Christian women in dresses with guns. The truth of the matter to remember, for all me…