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3 Reasons Catholic Bishops Are Holding Their Tongues on GOP Health Care Debacle

By Patricia Miller

…ortion services by private health plans—they still hope to get several much-wished-for goodies from the Trump administration beyond the promised roll-back of the contraception mandate. Here are three things the bishops are still hoping to gain from Trump and the GOP. A massive federal tax credit for parochial schools. As Politico reported: Catholic leaders are meeting with GOP lawmakers and members of the Trump administration, hoping to shape a fe…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…olk by your own bishops, until you tell the U.S. bishops to stop their hate-mongering against us, until you condemn anti-gay laws destroying lives across the globe, it’s meaningless. On Friday, Reuters reported that former Pope Benedict says in his forthcoming memoir that he had managed to “break up” a “gay lobby” that was trying to influence Vatican decisions. Seventh Day Adventist Church: activist says history on race offers hope on LGBT people…

Show Me the Way of the Hebrews: The Making of an African American Rabbi

By J. Lester Feder

…rshipped Jesus Christ.” (Dan Ross’s impressive senior thesis is the only in-depth history of the congregation.) A group of African Americans who thought of themselves as the children of Israel yet who worshipped Jesus Christ—this is not as odd as it may at first sound. Around the turn of the 20th century, some of the children their forefathers’ white masters. The Hebrew bible’s exodus narrative had long made it central to black theology, making Ju…

An Extravagant Welcome For All: Believe Out Loud, a Faith-Based LGBT Campaign, Launches

By Peter Laarman

…nationally on February 14—Valentine’s Day. The campaign will also offer on-the-ground organizing support to existing advocacy groups both inside and outside of denominational lines. Extravagant Welcome While some 40 million mainline Protestants in seven denominations form the primary target audience of Believe Out Loud, the campaign’s viral outreach is also expected to attract the attention and involvement of significant numbers of Roman Catholic…

Exclusive: Christian Right Bill Mill, Project Blitz, Hasn’t Gone Away, It’s Just Gotten More Secretive

By Frederick Clarkson

…me as the old playbooks, advises legislators to engage in political sleight-of-hand in the framing of legislation, the CPCF’s about page remains unambiguous about their intentions. Their mission, they say, is to unite “government leaders at local, state and federal levels, as well as everyday citizens” to restore “Judeo-Christian* principles to their rightful place.” To carry this out, they say, “We support legislators who promote policies that up…

A Post-Christian America? Not Quite—Though Devoutly to be Wished

By Peter Laarman

…say “I’m not with them”? You witness the Terri Schiavo madness, the loony 9-11-related comments of Falwell and Robertson, Ralph Reed’s embrace of Jack Abramoff, the Ted Haggard melodrama—who wouldn’t cringe in embarrassment? Who wouldn’t want to have another religion, or no religion, rather than be identified with the Christers? The second point deserves some discussion. Frances Kissling posted a fine piece in this magazine earlier on the god-awfu…

Life as a Game Show: Reading Slumdog Millionaire

By Paul Courtright

…s, probably not; or whether “it is written.” As we work our way to the fade-to-white-light finish and the final answer, we become less and less persuaded that randomness, cheating, or even his personal brilliance drives Jamal’s story. Dev Patel plays Jamal as a fairly modest, ordinary guy: street smart and resilient, but not a genius. Despite the presence of primarily Muslim main characters, there doesn’t appear to be a particularly Islamic vision…

Catholic Leaders Offer Criticism, Support to Boxer Pacquiao After Anti-Gay Comments…

By Peter Montgomery

…legally marry. The Way Forward Working Group (WFWG) report makes a precept-upon-precept case for how such civil marriages could be blessed by the church. The Anglican Church in this province is governed by a set of documents, the most significant of which are the Church of England Empowering Act of 1928, and Te Pouhere , the Constitution of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, which came into force in 1992. The working grou…

The Abortion Debate, Texas Style

By Dhawn Martin

…oments, however rare, however fleeting, offer a glimpse of generous and yet-to-be realized coalitions that strive for the common good, whatever that might look like. Texas, like the union of which it is a part, is built on tall tales, epic myths, and on the grand ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. I, for one, believe in the potential of politics to create more perfect unions. So today and every day that I am at the Capitol during this call…

The Fretting About Whether Democrats Are “Friendly” To Religion

By Sarah Posner

…in mid-2009 to levels similar to those seen in 2005 through 2007. About one-in-five say Democrats are unfriendly toward religion (22%), up from 15% who felt that way last year but about the same as in surveys conducted in 2005 and 2006. Views of the Democrats’ stance toward religion have soured sharply among groups that were already inclined to view the Democratic Party negatively, such as Republicans and white evangelical Protestants. But they ha…