Now joining the ranks of cake bakers, wedding photographers, website designers and other evangelical Christians suing to avoid the appearance of supporting homosexuality is a fire fighter in Southern California. Jeffrey Little is a captain with the Los Angeles County…
Jesus will not rescue America without our help, Pavlovitz says
Prayerfully waiting for God or the “arc of the moral universe” to heal America’s political, racial and religious divisions will do nothing to alter the nation’s downward spiritual and moral trajectory, activist and author John Pavlovitz said. In fact, no…
‘I am a fact … that does not yet have a name’
The Apple+ series Franklin — with Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s most influential founding fathers and the new Republic’s first ambassador to France — has historical significance. The story features the eight years, beginning in 1776, during…
ABC Chicago adopts resolution calling for Gaza cease-fire
American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago unanimously adopted a resolution May 18 calling for an end to genocide in Gaza, the end of Israeli occupation of Palestine and an immediate cease-fire and rebuilding of Gaza. The Chicago group is the…
Queer folks are used to having to come to terms with workers who come late to the vineyard
You know the parable: After the work, after the harvest, after the painful hours of crushed dignity and thankless labor, the day grows cool. As the work becomes easier and the task less thankless, some new friends come to join…
Coalition offers training for churches and faith leaders in how to interact with angry protesters during Pride events
Against the backdrop of rising anti-LGBTQ violence, Interfaith Alliance and its partners will provide training for faith leaders and congregations to serve as buffers between hate groups and those attending Pride month events in June. “While this year it is…
From the Protestant Reformation to Columbia University, some thoughts on protests
Typically, historians view Oct. 31, 1517, as the beginning of the period known as the Protestant Reformation. Ordained as a Roman Catholic priest a decade earlier, Martin Luther came to a deep conviction of the need for reform in the…
Forty years
As the vote was announced, we wept and hugged. We wept and prayed. We wept and rejoiced. Outside in a convention center courtyard, we sang praises to God through joyful tears to the beat of Marcia McFee’s conga drum. Mittie…
Christianity Today considers gender in heaven
Evangelical obsession over gender is ascending to heaven now. In March, Christianity Today published a piece titled “Our Gender on Earth as In Heaven: Will Our Gender Be Removed or Renewed in the Resurrection?” The author, Fellipe do Vale, is…
And also with the UMC: Where doctrine ends and culture begins
Not surprisingly, some actions taken by The United Methodist Church’s General Conference last week are being characterized as unbiblical by those who believe they alone hold the only correct interpretation of the Bible. We’ve heard this argument before, and it…
UMC delegates remove ban on LGBTQ clergy by consensus vote
After 40 years of wrangling and rancor, delegates to the postponed 2020 United Methodist General Conference overwhelmingly removed the ban on ordaining “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” as clergy. The vote was 692 for and 51 against to approve the consent calendar…
UMC General Conference removes much of LGBTQ restrictions in consensus vote
The 52-year battle over the exclusion of LGBTQ people from full participation in The United Methodist Church turned a major corner April 30 through a parliamentary move designed to adopt measures that have broad consensus from legislative committees. The battle…