Queer Religiosities: An Introduction to Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion by award-winning scholar and teacher Melissa M. Wilcox, would make an excellent textbook in an “introductory” course in which I’d like to enroll. And it was especially written for use in such a course,
Listen to the podcast interview It was a dream about a waterfall that finally gave David Hayward the peace of mind he needed after leaving his career as a pastor in 2010 after almost thirty years of service. Religion had been Hayward’s life from the
Listen to the podcast interview Jennifer Knapp was fly fishing along the banks of a river somewhere in middle Tennessee when the world learned that she was a lesbian. Rumors about the sexuality of the contemporary Christian music singer had been swirling around for years,
In 2012, Matthew Vines produced a video that went viral, even though it did not feature even one kitten doing something funny or cute. Instead, his video was a speech he gave to his Presbyterian Church USA congregation in Wichita, Kansas, explaining exactly why six
A pastor friend of mine recently posted this status on Facebook: “‘Just follow my rules and behave, and nothing bad will happen to you,’ is the exact opposite of the message of Christ.” It reminded me that the version of the Christian message I was
Despite the massive leaps and bounds the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has made as a whole on the civil rights front — as judges across the country strike down state marriage bans and the marriage equality case makes its steady march to the
“I need you to talk with an ordination candidate for moment. He has a question for you.” The voice on the phone was the pastor whose independent Atlanta, Georgia-based church had ordained me just over a decade ago. “Sure,” I said, not at all sure
On April 30, I attended a presentation sponsored by the Ottawa International Writers’ Festival featuring a talk by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner on his latest book, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person. Job is a much-maligned book of the
Is it possible to love and hate a book at the same time? That’s what I’ve been struggling with for the past week, after reading Timothy Kurek’s book The Cross in the Closet. As a gay man I find the premise of the book —
Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life (Whoever and Wherever You Are) is an amazing book with an amazing backstory. The author, Jim Palmer, was a popular writer who had written two best-sellers in the evangelical Christian world: Divine Nobodies: Shedding