Category: The Lead

Bishop Robinson talks about civil union ceremony

Bishop Gene Robinson and Mark Andrew will have a civil union ceremony in June. Religious News Service spoke with Bishop Robinson about the ceremony and how this very personal day is a both a sign of hope and a cause for consternation, depending on who one speaks to, in the Anglican Communion.

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On evangelicals and homosexuality

David Gushee writes: “In light of the hatred, mockery, loathing, fear and rejection directed at homosexuals in our society — and in our churches — I hope to God that I am not and never have been a perpetrator. But I fear I have indeed been a bystander. I am trying to figure out what it might mean to be a rescuer.”

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Teachers preaching creationism in public schools

US Courts have repeatedly decreed that creationism and intelligent design are religion, not science, and have no place in school science classes. Try telling that to American high-school teachers – 1 in 8 teach the ideas as valid science, according to the first national survey on the subject

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Blue laws and church attendance

In their study, which appears in the May 2008 edition of The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Gruber and Hungerman show what happens when religious services must compete with shopping, hobbies and other activities.

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The sacramental divide

Catholics are sacramental in a way that is profoundly different from the way Protestants are sacramental. If a hospital patient asks the chaplain for communion, the chaplain can be 99 percent certain that the patient is Roman Catholic. Lutherans, Presbyterians and other Christians may say that they give equal weight to word and sacrament or that communion is a central part of their faith, but how many, when they go into the hospital, ask for the sacrament?

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Five things to know about being Episcopalian

The Wenatchee World, the “fiercely independent voice of North Central Washington,” offers up some local wisdom about the Episcopal Church in the form of five bullet-points from the Rev. Patton Boyle of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Wenatchee.

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A new take on mainline’s decline

Commentary from USA Today this week posits that mainline megachurches might be the solution to declining mainline churches—or does it? Once you read past the lede, you’ll find the piece takes a closer look at the phenomenon and doesn’t buy the oft-touted explanation that all our mainline people have run away to more conservative havens. In fact, with all the attention raining down on mainline churches as a result of renewed focus on faith on the Democratic side of the political process, signs are pointing to hope for these churches.

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Before Rolling Thunder, there’s Motorcycle Mass

In preparation for this year’s Rolling Thunder event, where hundreds of thousands of bikers descend on the nation’s capital in honor of fallen and missing heroes, several thousand strong showed up in New Jersey for the Motorcycle Mass, led by a Catholic priest, Father Mark Giordani. He’s actually been doing this since long before Rolling Thunder, now in its 21st year, began: Giordani, himself a biker, started the tradition 39 years ago.

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