Clergy

Melissa Rogers 4-01-2012

The Supreme Court decision on the ministerial exception deserves a "hosanna" — and prayerful consideration.

Melissa Rogers 2-14-2012
"Stop the Intersection of Church and State." Image via http://bit.ly/yAHnfE

"Stop the Intersection of Church and State." Image via Wylio, http://bit.ly/yAHnfE

With its unanimous ruling in Hosanna-Tabor Church & School v. EEOC last month, the United States Supreme Court handed down one of its most important church-state decisions in decades. The First Amendment bars ministers from suing the religious communities they serve regarding the terms and conditions of their employment, it said.

The Court affirmed what lower courts had held for decades: Religious bodies, not the government, must have the power to decide which individuals will minister to the faithful. This doctrine is known as the “ministerial exception.” The Court also held that the former teacher in this case, Cheryl Perich, was a minister and thus her lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) could not proceed.

An important aspect of the Hosanna-Tabor ruling is the Court’s recognition that there is simply is no good way for the state to police these matters – it inevitably ends up intruding on core religious decisions like who should speak to and for the church. When a minister is fired, the religious employer cites a religious reason for doing so, such as sermons that are inconsistent with Biblical teachings and a failure to challenge congregants to follow Jesus Christ. If the minister then sues the church for discrimination, he or she claims the religious reason wasn’t the “real” reason for the church’s actions; it was just a pretext for discrimination.

Philip & June Weeks have been married for 58 years. RNS photo/The Weekses

Philip and June Weeks have been married for 58 years. RNS photo courtesy Philip and June Weeks.

Philip Weeks fondly remembers the days when his wife of 56 years, June, was a nurse and an artist whose paintings were compared to Rembrandt's.

Her paintings still hang in their home in Lynchburg, Va., but almost everything else has changed for the couple after she was diagnosed with possible Alzheimer's and then an abrupt form of dementia.

In one moment, the retired Charismatic Episcopal bishop said, she would lean over to kiss him. "An hour later, she looked at me and said, 'Who are you?'" he recalled.

When the person you married goes through a dramatic change, what's a spouse to do? As Valentine's Day approaches, clergy, ethicists and brain injury experts agree: There are no easy answers.

Nadia Bolz-Weber 2-06-2012
Swearing. Photo via Getty Images.

Swearing. Photo via Getty Images.

An Open Invitation to Unfriend Me on Facebook, Stop Following Me on Twitter and Discontinue Reading My Blog if You Need To:

If you are a Christian who takes offense at swear words or believes for some reason that clergy should never be cranky or irritated, then I am not the person for you to follow.  It’s ok.  You don’t actually need me. The entire publishing arm of the Christian Industrial Complex (I believe my friend Shane Claiborne coined that term) has a great deal of material that is just for you!

Stephen Boykewich 11-11-2011
Coconut vessels. Images via Wylio.

Coconut vessels. Images via Wylio.

It's a clear sign something's wrong when talks on "free trade" turn an island paradise into an armed camp.

Hawaii is on lockdown this week while the U.S. tries to hammer out a regional trade agreement that's being called "NAFTA for the Pacific." While some mean this as a compliment, Hawaii's faith and labor leaders are lifting their voices against an agreement they believe will put profits for banks and corporations above workers' rights, indigenous culture, and local communities. Those leaders are drawing on the Pacific region's indigenous "Coconut Theology" to provide an alternative vision of the common good.

"Coconut Theology came out of our contextual understanding of the Gospel in the Pacific," said Rev. Piula Alailima, pastor of Wesley Methodist Church in Honolulu and a core leader in the community organizing group Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE). "When we break the body of the coconut and partake of the juice, it's a symbol of the body and blood of Christ, of sacrifice, of community and the common good."

the Web Editors 10-26-2011

We Are All Occupiers Now: The Mainstreaming of OWS; 10 Cities With The Lowest Poverty Rates: U.S. Census; Senators Push For Syria's Assad To Be Charged With Crimes Against Humanity; Surprise! The Rich Are Still Getting Richer; Paul Ryan To Slam Obama For 'Politics Of Division'; Does Pope Benedict Support Occupy Wall Street?; Clergy Petition Village Voice To Drop Ads Linked To Sex Trafficking.

Anne Marie Roderich 10-17-2011

Churches play the unique role of seeing the big picture. We can call out the values and virtues of the issues. Let's not just worry about the poor in our own communities, but the poor everywhere, the people everywhere who are struggling. We can't be private anymore. We must be living water for all people.

multi faith service 1People everywhere are leaving their private spaces and gathering together -- that's already church. This is a Holy Spirit moment.

Sojourners Associate Editor Rose Marie Berger addresses hundreds gathered near Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. last week, to protest the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Anne Marie Roderich 10-11-2011

As Christians we have a decision to make. In times of hopelessness and long periods of waiting for things to get better, will we let ourselves be cast into the all-consuming fires of idolatry?

Or, will we stand up against the false gods and catch the flame of the Spirit in our hearts and minds?

Our nation may very well be on the threshold of a crucial change. Who will you be standing with?

As we waste time fanning capitalism's raging inferno, the best parts of ourselves remain frozen.

As the federal debt ceiling standoff threatens to cause an economic catastrophe for our nation, more than 4,000 pastors across the country are opposing proposed immoral budget cuts that harm the most vulnerable people in their congregations and communities. An open letter to Congress and the president ran today as a full page ad in Politico. (You can view the ad and full list of signers here.) We were amazed by the huge response this letter generated. We hoped to find 1,000 pastors willing to speak out with us, and in just 2 weeks more than 4,000 clergy joined our campaign.

Justin Fung 12-15-2010
This past week I was afforded a sneak peek at the forthcoming PBS documentary The Calling, a two-night event abou
Jim Wallis 5-06-2010
After Glenn Beck said "social justice is a perversion of the gospel" and a "code" for Marxism, communism, and Nazism, I invited him to a public dialogue to discuss the true meaning of social justic
Brian McLaren 5-06-2010
I'm in Kenya with a group of about 150 emerging leaders from across East and South Africa.
Jim Wallis 4-29-2010
We are all familiar with the famous pop culture image of a street evangelist holding up a sign reading, "Repent, for the end is near!" But repentance is actually a fundamental religious theme, and
Steve Holt 4-23-2010
"To believe is human, to doubt divine."

John Gehring 4-23-2010
These are dark days for Catholics and our church. The clergy sexual abuse scandals are a source of profound pain and raw anger.
Wendy Murray 3-30-2010
The sex abuse scandals plaguing the Catholic Church simply will not go away. Even the Pope himself is not immune.
Shane Claiborne 2-08-2010

At about midnight we heard the shots ring out. My friend ran to the door and I heard him yell, "Shane, a kid has been shot, come down." As we looked down the street we could see a young man staggering as he walked down our block. Then his knees gave out and he fell to the ground. We called for an ambulance and ran outside to be with the boy.

Logan Isaac 2-02-2010

Before I went to Iraq with my friend and fellow God's Politics contributor Shane Claiborne, I was trying to figure out how to take the lessons I would learn there back home. I felt certain (and now know) that the experience could be a small but powerful step toward improving our understanding of how to prevent any future indiscriminate uses of force similar to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.