Theo Hobson says that he was just about to give up on organized religion because “all major forms of church were full of illiberal assumptions.” Then he found the Episcopal Church.
An editorial in Uganda’s biggest daily newspaper that ought to be unremarkable stands out because it calls for protecting the rights of LGBT people in a nation whose leadership refuses to recognize that gay people are humans beings. An unpublished op-ed by David Kato shows that he was a person with a voice and a story.
Every Christian claims Jesus, so essential questions of how we understand Jesus, his earthly ministry, the meaning of the crucifixion, the nature of his call upon our lives (questions to which a non-Christian is largely indifferent) become the grounds of our essential debate and, literally, a matter of life and death.
Bishop Jeffrey Lee of Chicago reminds us that the roots of the strife in Sudan are political, not religious.
“Inspiration seems in short supply in the Religion Newswriters list. Protests, pedophiles, and laments lead the news. What would happen if we flipped these stories and reported them for the courage and conviction that can be found if we only dig a little?”
“Anti-gay Christians love to quote John 8:32, which says that “the truth will make you free.” According to them, if only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people would simply accept the truths of the Christian faith, we would discover the error of our ways…”
“When Jesus appears somewhere, that changes the whole society.” Father Samaan, priest of the St. Simon Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo, Egypt, is not speaking theoretically. He’s describing what he’s seen.
A Vanity Fair reporter recently asked Scientology-affirming actress Juliette Lewis an affable, offhand question: Can a Scientologist celebrate Christmas? Her affable, offhand response:
Bishop Gene Robinson writes in the Huffington Post about the “bright, straight line” between anti-gay theologies and attitudes and the recent string suicides and anti-gay violence.
What lessons can we learn in the Episcopal Church and around the world as we reflect back on the way the media handled the story, the way the world reacted and the way such a relatively simple threat exposed tensions between American rights of Freedom of Speech and the sensibilities of other cultures and religions?