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Black Women and the Sacred: With “Lemonade,” Beyoncé Takes Us to Church

By Yolanda Pierce

…rship. It celebrates beauty and resiliency, as any good, uplifting worship service in the African-American Christian tradition should do. But the visual album doesn’t shy away from the trials and pains experienced by those women who may not get a chance to speak or to lead on Sunday morning, but who testify about their lives on a Wednesday or Friday night. To understand “Lemonade” is to understand the contrasting realities under which black Christ…

Sex and the (Hipster) Church—Just a Gimmick?

By Nicole Greenfield

…culturally savvy, young evangelicals. (Although as a recent Religion News Service report indicates, more direct sex talk is a growing trend even among traditional evangelicals.) For the middle-aged Youngs—married 30 years and parents of four, image-obsessed and raking in millions as leaders of an ever-growing church empire—the attempt to fit into hip Christian culture would seem futile. They are wannabes, as Brett McCracken, author of Hipster Chr…

DADT Repeal: The New “Religious Freedom” Issue

By Sarah Posner

…ty of this hurried vote may well be the religious freedom of chaplains and Service members.” Blomberg continued, “We hope that our nation’s leaders will work to ensure that none of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are ever made to choose between serving their country or obeying their God as result of this damaging policy decision. And ADF stands ready to defend Service members if they are ever unconstitutionally required to make that cho…

Jesus, Gentrification, and the Hypocrisy of “Diversity”: An Interview with D.L. Mayfield

By Kaya Oakes

…tholic missions in California, where I grew up, and where scores of Native Americans died due to the missionary efforts of the recently canonized Junipero Serra, among others. More recently, Catholic missionary efforts have focused more on providing food and medical aid in countries like South Sudan, where few secular NGOs have been willing to go. And recent discussions of Tim Kaine’s work in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps have lead to further confusi…

The Tense History Behind Jimmy Carter’s Liberty U. Commencement Address

By John Fea

…ty by talking about the Christian roots of American freedom and connecting American destiny to the old belief, dating back to the 17th-century Puritans who settled New England, that America was God’s great “city upon a hill.” Reagan opposed abortion, promised to fight moral decay in American culture, and assured Falwell and the rising Religious Right that he would keep the federal government from intruding on the lives and schools of ordinary evan…

Openly Gay Mormon Appointed to LDS Church Leadership Position

By Joanna Brooks

…o reaching out to the many LGBT Mormons who live within his congregation’s service area. “We have so many people on the Church records who are inactive, whose families are still members. Many of them served honorably as Mormon missionaries. Many identify as LGBT. I want them to understand that like me they do have a home here,” Mayne says. “As an openly gay priesthood leader, I hope my example also shows that not only do they have a home here but…

‘He Gets Us’ and Sleazy ‘Swift Boat’ Ads Share a Central Figure — Further Evidence of a Right-Wing Bait-and-Switch

By Chrissy Stroop

…ious, and only served to underscore that the fundamentally anti-democratic American Right considers Democrats, liberals, and progressives “unpatriotic” and “un-American” simply by virtue of their ideological disagreements. But the hypocrisy didn’t matter for how things played out. The Swift Boat ads undoubtedly contributed to tanking Kerry’s chances against incumbent George W. Bush, and the campaign led to the rise of the term “swiftboating” to de…

The “Nones” Are Here… And Have Been for Over 100 Years

By Emily Mace

…ter of fact, actually do you?” Wouldn’t it be better to attend any kind of service—even one as secular as theirs—to increase the chances of having that kind of uplift? Adler’s implied question raises a point still relevant to unaffiliated Americans of today: does a life without religious institutions offer the same benefits as one lived in the context of a religious tradition? Another Ethical Culture leader, Percival Chubb of the Ethical Society o…

Mexican Bishops Exorcism Against Equality; African Bishops Oppose ‘Enemy of Human Race’; Israeli Islamic Leader Anti-Gay Op-Ed

By Peter Montgomery

…an. Lithuania: Army’s says men who love flowers are gay and unfit for Army service. A report from Eric Rosswood at the New Civil Rights Movement: The Lithuanian army has reintroduced compulsory military draft this year, and randomly selected candidates will have to report to a military recruitment office in order to be screened for suitability for military service. According to the Lithuania Tribune, that screening includes a psychological test th…

RIP: Bishop Otis Charles and Rev. Robert Nugent

By Peter Montgomery

…ry 1 at age 76. The Washington Post carried Kevin Eckstrom’s Religion News Service obituary of Nugent, which notes that Nugent had been silenced by the Vatican for his work with LGBT Catholics. In many ways, the scrutiny of Nugent’s activism symbolized the Vatican’s approach to all talk of homosexuality under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI — what one gay Catholic group called a “witch hunt” — compared with the more tolerant “who am I to judge…