Thirteen months ago Sightings commented on a report by the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, and its unsurprising finding that most theological seminaries do nothing to prepare future ministers to deal with sexual issues. They do almost as little on economic issues.
There is an excellent essay titled, “The Fundamentalist Agenda,” by Davidson Loehr. Although there are parts within it with which I don’t agree, it deserves to be read in its entirety, as it gets at the root of the exclusion of all those who don’t
Compared to twentieth-first-century believers, early Christians wrote surprisingly little about homosexuality. While some Christian writers of the first three centuries appear to condemn all forms of homosexual behavior, most commented on only specific aspects of it, such as intercourse with minors. No author of this
Most of us remember the Pepsi commercial showing a scene from the 1960 movie, “Spartacus.” One by one the slaves revolt, standing up and declaring “I’m Spartacus!” Kirk Douglas looks on with a tear in his eye, drinking his Pepsi in inspiration. It worked for
Religion-in-public news recently featured a Pew poll that demonstrated how many Americans mix faiths. More on that in some other week. Recent news stories raise a screech question: Will there long be faiths to mix in America? “Faiths” here means bodies of believers, gathered in
Recently, we learned that, despite Gov. David Patterson’s approval of same-sex marriage rights in New York, the New York State Senate didn’t have enough votes to pass the bill and, therefore, same-sex marriage is not likely to occur in New York in the near future
“(Jesus) sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said
Close on the heels of a similar decision by the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America lifted its ban on calling gay and lesbian pastors and approved of supporting committed, same-sex relationships of church members. The 4.6-million-member ELCA, holding its weeklong Churchwide Assembly
The top ecumenical – some are saying un- or anti-ecumenical – news of the year occurred October 20th with a Vatican announcement. Bypassing forty years of Anglican-Roman Catholic conversations-cum-negotiations and blindsiding Archbishop Rowan Williams, the head of the seventy-million-member Anglican Communion, Vatican officials announced that
Feeling frustrated as leaders or members of progressive congregations as they try to be lesbian- and gay-affirming probably should not be surprising. Some sources of frustration are documented in a journal article by Krista McQueeney of Salem College titled “We are God’s Children, Y’All:” Race,