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Christian Colleges, Gay Faculty—and the Boy Scouts

By L Marston

…+ [sic] and straight students to grow and learn.” (A few CCCU schools have officially recognized student clubs for gay students and allies, such as Eastern Mennonite University’s Safe Space.) In his interview, Dr. Le Roy stated, “We have gay and lesbian students here. I have met with them. I have talked with them. They are Christians and they are trying to figure out, ‘What does this mean?’ ‘How do I live?’” He then added, “The Scripture that I ne…

Mormons Absorb SCOTUS Prop 8 Ruling

By Joanna Brooks

…taking out a defensive position in defense of religious freedom. (Read the official LDS Church reaction here.) In one Washington, D.C., area stake, LDS Church leaders sent an email message to members requesting their attendance at a National Day of Prayer on religious freedom convened by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this Thursday in Arlington, Virginia. “We have been encouraged to have 20 members from our stake attend this event,” the m…

New Challenges to Gay Marriage Bans From Within States & Denominations

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…e-noticed move by much of the media (and even hard to find on their own website), The Disciples of Christ voted at its general assembly in Orlando, Florida this month to affirm LGBT people as members and leaders in the denomination. On the heels of that move, 85 retired United Methodist clergy announced they would defy their denomination’s ban on performing same-sex weddings. “We will refuse to treat people as inferior, second-class citizens of Go…

Why is the State Department Opening an Office of “Religious Engagement”?

By Austin Dacey

…n religion. The office of religious engagement arose from the efforts of a number of State Department employees including the former policy staffer Judd Birdsall, who in 2009 started an informal discussion forum that was to become known as the Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group. Last October, the working group submitted a white paper (posted by working group member Chris Seiple) proposing a permanent institution housed at State. “In many pl…

Who Says The “Partly Jewish” Are Bad For The Jews?

By Susan Katz Miller

…d. As for expecting synagogues to adopt “syncretistic practices,” the opposite is true. Interfaith children want access to an inspiring Judaism, whether they choose Judaism, or whether they continue to draw from both religions. It remains essential, for the world and for interfaith children, to preserve the specificity and particularity of each religion. At the same time, I agree with Orthodox rabbi Brad Hirschfield, who wrote a recent essay poi…

Jerry Brown’s Cynical, Unethical Prison Plan

By Peter Laarman

…urplus to keep every single current inmate locked up, albeit not in the 33 official state prisons. Never mind that California voters passed Prop 30 to restore cuts to schools and colleges, not to fund yet more incarceration. Part of Brown’s devilish deal involves making use of a private prison facility, one owned by notorious Corrections Corporation of America, but with unionized state prison guards getting the custody jobs. Even in this deep blue…

Syria and the American Apocalyptic Imagination: Isaiah 17:1 as “Evidence” of the End

By Jason C. Bivins

…mption But the common experience is in the existence of a really real that official discourse is obscuring, and that the intrepid blogger or diligent exegete can tell us what’s really going on. And so the endless apocalyptic rears up once again, on self-recorded Youtube uploads, on niche cable programming, in a hyperlinked world of insistence: Damascus is, we are reminded, geographically central to the projected Second Coming of Christ. This mode…

Egypt and the Problem of Religion

By Asma Afsaruddin

…e military takeover (a position he subsequently denied having taken on his official website). The governments of conservative Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf countries, have supported the coup as well, anxious as they are about the democratic “contagion” spreading to their realms. The Gulf countries’ embrace of the avowedly secular Egyptian military and the Azhar elite’s support of the military coup unhinges the usual a…

Why the Women’s Ordination Question Will Shape the Future of Mormonism

By Joanna Brooks

…rum—a development some trace to the March 2013 launch of Ordain Women’s website featuring pictures and testimonials from rank-and-file Mormons who support ordination and a more equitable role for women in LDS Church leadership and service. Today, the global operations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are governed and directed by an all-male organizational chain of command. Mormon women may participate in some decision-making at…

The Truth about Catholics and Condoms

By Jon O?Brien

…holic-run health care centers might start incorporating condoms into their official HIV prevention programs. Sadly, however, we still hear some members of the Catholic hierarchy trying to take back the Pope’s words and doing their best to prevent condoms from reaching people who need them. But it’s important to hold onto the truth. Pope Benedict did affirm that condom use can help prevent HIV—reflecting the prayers and activism of Catholics the wo…