The dramatic social media response to the UC-Santa Barbara shooting, captured by the hashtag #YesAllWomen, underlined an important and unpleasant truth: across the United States, millions of girls and women have been abused, assaulted, or raped by men, and even more females fear that they will be subject to such an attack. As Sarah Kliff wrote in Vox: a “national […]
Over the centuries, Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre has suffered violent attacks, fires, and earthquakes. It was totally destroyed in 1009 and subsequently rebuilt, leading modern scholars to question whether it could possibly be the site identified as the burial place of Christ by a delegation sent from Rome some 17 centuries ago. Now […]
Twitter users celebrated a Christmas nativity scene featuring two gay Josephs last week. “Our neighbor’s two Joseph nativity is up & I’m beaming,” posted Cameron Esposito, host of Queery Podcast, on Friday, along with a photo showing two models of Joseph dressed in pink surrounding baby Jesus.
The find was made in the coastal city of Ashdod by a team of researchers from Tel Aviv University and Leipzig University. The ancient city of Ashdod-Yam was in the southern part of the modern city and was one of the most important areas of Israel in the Byzantine period. This is the third season […]
While teaching a course at a leading reformed seminary, I referred to African American theology. One of my students objected, “There is no such thing as ‘African American theology,’ there is only ‘theology proper.’” I asked, “Would the library of this seminary carry a book on theology from a cultural perspective?” He emphatically said, “No!” Later, […]
Militants armed with guns and explosives stormed a crowded mosque in Egypt’s restive northern Sinai on Friday, killing at least 235 people and wounding 109 others in the deadliest single attack in the country in recent memory. The scale of the assault and the choice of target — people gathered for Friday prayers at a […]
The Church of Sweden is encouraging its clergy to use the gender-neutral term “God” instead of referring to the deity as “he” or “the Lord”. The decision was made on Thursday, wrapping up an eight-day meeting of the church’s 251-member decision-making body. The decision will take effect on May 20 during Pentecost. It is the latest […]
s the pope Catholic?” For at least a century, this was the way we Anglicans joked about anything that seemed too obvious to state. Now we must ask in seriousness whether the pope is a liberal Protestant. Early this month, an American theologian resigned under pressure from his post as theological advisor to the United States Conference […]
“What do you people of faith think you bring to our society?” That’s what I was asked while on a panel at a university a few years ago. The topic of the discussion was “The Role of Faith in a Pluralistic Society,” and it was a self-identified atheist who taught at the school who raised […]
In an early draft of its next strategic plan, the Department of Health and Human Services has described its mission as “serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception” [emphasis added]. In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Richard Paulson—a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and an infertility specialist—vehemently objects to HHS’s affirmation that life […]
