First, delegates chose the Rev. Patricia A. Davenport for the office of bishop in Southeastern Pennsylvania, a synod that includes Philadelphia. Then on Sunday, delegates voted for the Rev. Viviane Thomas-Breitfeld, a pastor in Beloit, Wis., to become bishop-elect for the South-Central Synod of Wisconsin.
The letter was published May 6 in the wake of a video of Patterson making objectifying comments about a teenage girl in a 2014 sermon and the surfacing of an audio recording of Patterson advising victims of domestic violence not to divorce their spouses.
As far back as the early 19th century, Catholic students and other religious groups were sometimes whipped, beaten, and worse, for not participating in prayer and Bible reading in the common schools, a predecessor to the public schools.
But since the 2016 meeting, many of its smaller U.S. jurisdictions and regional bodies, called annual conferences, have made their own decisions regarding LGBT clergy. Last year, the Mountain Sky Conference elected Karen Oliveto, a married lesbian, as the denomination’s first openly LGBT bishop.
In today’s model, sanctuary functions as a safety valve, a moral check on the state’s pursuit of its own narrow economic and political interests. An increasingly secular state is therefore a driving force behind the practice of sanctuary. Yet the Catch-22 is that a too-secular society will no longer honor the sanctity of the house of worship. Effective church sanctuary, then, rests on a knife’s edge: It requires a Goldilocks zone in which a society is just inhumane enough to ignore the suffering of vulnerable strangers, rendering sanctuary necessary, but just humane enough to refrain from violating the sanctity of its faith communities, rendering sanctuary ineffectual. Not every country in the world exists in that Goldilocks zone.
Tully is a real, funny, unflinching look at the demands of parenthood. It shows the pressures of outside judgment, and constant frustration, as well as the small moments of beauty and victory when everything works, and we’re buoyed by the kindness and care of others. It also shows what happens in the absence of that care, or our unwillingness to recognize how much we need it.
Portman’s protest touched a raw nerve not just because of who she is – a world-famous Jewish celebrity and a well-known supporter of Israel – but also because of whom she is seen to represent. Her outspoken opposition to Netanyahu has been portrayed as typical of her generation of young American Jews whose attitudes toward Israel tend to be more critical than that of their parents and grandparents.
9. These UNESCO-Protected Mansions in Istanbul Were Rotting Away. Then Syrians Refugees Moved In.
“Few of the residents in the area know that the wooden houses they live in are of immense historical importance. They are some of the last surviving Ottoman-era mansions in Istanbul, where vast construction projects and a relentless drive for modernization have transformed the city’s landscape in the last century.”
10. 10 Pieces You Need to Read About Sexual Assault and the Church
Our prayer is this: May our reading and writing lead to preaching and legislating, may our preaching and legislating heal trauma and end sexual violence. Amen.
But the answer isn't an antiquated, unfair-to-women, patriarchal dividing of the sexes. It's not in a rule has nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with male superiority complex, a devaluing of the human body, patriarchy, and oppression of women.
The answer is to lift up the men who get it, the men who love and respect women.
The saga of politicians firing the U.S. House Chaplain is a reminder of how we prefer God in small doses. We try to confine the transformative spirit of God to a few carefully chosen areas of our lives.