The activities of the Christian community should be no less vigorous as we enter the mid-month point in January 2016 and the energy of the Christmas season has passed. In fact, it is on this second Sunday after Epiphany (the Christian feast day and season known as “manifestation”) that an honest evaluation of our situation locally, regionally, and abroad should be made.
Less than 10 weeks after Houston voters — many persuaded by local Christian pastors — repealed a city ordinance that would have protected Houstonians from discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity (as well as race, religion, and other traits), 1,450 people gathered in the city for the Gay Christian Network conference, the world’s largest annual event for LGBT Christians and their allies.
Various factions within the Anglican Communion are jockeying for position as bishops of the world’s third-largest Christian tradition gather in Canterbury for the start of a six-day meeting to discuss the future of their communion.
But averting a split may not be possible.
A new book-length interview with Pope Francis gives fresh insight into his view of gay parishioners, marriage annulments, and other hot topics being debated by Catholics globally.
On Jan. 11, the first day of spring semester classes at Wheaton College, some students are protesting the termination of the professor who said that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Student concerns are ongoing surrounding the circumstances of Professor Hawkins' review and termination process. Some have taken to Twitter in protest using the hashtag #ReinstateDocHawk:
No … Obama’s not taking your guns.
2. Sandra Bland’s Family: Trooper Perjury Charge a ‘Slap on the Wrist’
"Where is the indictment for the assault, the battery, the false arrest?"
3. Open Letter to the Leadership of #Urbana15 and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
Add your voice to the growing list of people of faith saying “thank you!” to InterVarsity for supporting Black Lives Matter.
Pope Francis’ visit to Mexico next month is supposed to be more of a pilgrimage than a spring break, but a viral video of the pontiff joking about tequila with a Mexican man in St. Peter’s Square captures the voluble enthusiasm that is likely to greet the first Latin American pontiff.
In the video, Francis can be seen walking around St. Peter’s Square, flanked by his security detail as he greets the faithful, when a man shouts from the crowd, catching the pontiff’s attention.
“Pope! We’ll be waiting for you in Mexico! Mexico, Pope!” the man yells above the din.
“Welcome to Mexico in February!”
“With tequila?” responds the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
Semaj Clark is a determined young man. The Los Angeles teenager’s steadfastness helped him emerge from a childhood punctuated by a string of foster homes and arrests to become an ambassador to troubled youth. Now he’s determined to learn how to get around in his new wheelchair. And he’s resolute that his anti-violence campaign can take root anew in Savannah, Ga., where he’d taken that message of hope and transformation in October — only to find himself with a bullet in his spine.
The meeting comes as nations around the world fight a sometimes losing battle against the highly-skilled online outreach of the Islamic State, which has done a remarkable job of using social media to create recruitment and public relations materials to promote its efforts. Apple, Facebook, and Twitter said Thursday they will have representatives at the meeting.
What do we lose when we trade our humanity for social stereotypes rationalized by religious dogma?
That question is at the heart of an ongoing discussion my son, a junior at Kenyon College, and I are having around the recent suspension of a tenured Wheaton College professor, Larycia Hawkins, for wearing a hijab during Advent and stating publicly (via her personal Facebook page) that Muslims and Christians worship the same god.