LGBTQ
IN THE DECADES before the Civil War, three of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations—Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists—split over slavery, biblical interpretation, and abolition. Historians have long claimed that these denominational schisms paved the way for a national rift. Once these Protestant churches failed to hold together, breaking into regional bodies of South and North, wrote C.C. Goen in Broken Churches, Broken Nation, “a major bond of national unity” dissolved and hastened America’s warring fate.
As the churches divided over slavery then, so they are dividing over sexuality and gender now. Many of the biblical arguments and hermeneutic approaches once used to support slavery are now employed to reject the humanity, gifts, and dignity of women and LGBTQ persons. If you read 19th century sermons or tracts from Southern Presbyterians, for example, you only need to swap out a few words and you have a blog about how the Bible doesn’t allow women to preach or gay and lesbian couples to marry. Mark Twain once quipped that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. In this case, however, the similarities are so striking that history appears to plagiarize itself.
In recent years, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Presbyterians have all faced contentious splits over these issues, and now the United Methodist Church—the largest mainline Protestant denomination—is struggling with the same.
History may plagiarize, but it will not repeat. These denominations aren’t as significant as they once were, culturally or politically. The Baptists not only split over slavery but remained permanently divided in Northern and Southern branches, then divided and divided again. The Methodists reunited in the 20th century, as did the Presbyterians. But for all their remarkable contributions, neither denomination regained its former status.
Stonewall Inn vigil on behalf of the victims of the Orlando Pulse massacre. New York - MAY 13, 2016. Shutterstock.
As a woman of faith, I urge my fellow clergy members and faith leaders to join me in standing in solidarity with the transgender community. Christianity tasks us to appeal to people’s hearts and to stand up for the most marginalized in our society. And this is why we cannot afford to remain silent on the hate that permeates American society, and the lax gun laws that help make it fatal. We must remind others that hate has no place in our society.
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Entering digital spaces that are dominated by conservative Christian resources, Our Bible App is attempting to carve out a unique space. It is explicitly pro-LGBT, pro-women and pro-interfaith inclusivity in its stated mission. “I created this app because I'm tired of feeling left out of Christianity because of my complex identities,” Crystal Cheatham, the app’s founder and CEO, told Sojourners. “I wanted worship materials that talked about an inclusive kind of faith and embraced that same kind of community.”
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Supreme Court
In the days before the election, evangelist Franklin Graham told RNS that he wasn’t focused “on his potty mouth or her missing emails,” referring to Trump’s language and his Democratic rival’s trouble over an email server. Rather, Graham said, “It comes down to the Supreme Court, and who do you trust to appoint to the Supreme Court?”
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The primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion will face another tough test next week when they gather in the U.K. to grapple with the Scottish Episcopal Church’s backing of same-sex marriage, among other issues.
The bishops will meet in Canterbury two months after the first gay Anglican wedding took place in Scotland, following the SEC’s June vote to alter its canon law, which had previously defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
It is easy to slip from defending the weak to attacking those Paul describes as the "weak person,” those who are attached to rituals and rules that are unnecessary but benign. If I allow myself to be drawn into self-righteousness, I find myself casting judgment for every little disagreement. I want to stop thinking of my opponents as my siblings in Christ. I want to do exactly what Paul cautions against when he says, "let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother" (Romans 14:13.)
On Tuesday, a group of 150 Evangelical leaders representing the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood released a document called the “Nashville Statement,” which delineates their conservative theological position on human sexuality and gender. The statement not only condemns those who are bisexual, lesbian, gay, and transgender, but also anyone who supports them — claiming that agreeing to disagree on human sexuality is sinful in itself.
Though little in the document is new, the response from countless other Christians — ranging from evangelicals to progressives — has been swift and emphatic.
Author Jen Hatmaker. Photo by Amy Melsa Photography
Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life will be released on Aug. 8. Hatmaker spoke with RNS about both mess and moxie, banned books and maintaining a healthy outlook on life. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sixteen years ago as a college student at Wake Forest University, Justin Lee created a website for LGBT Christians with the goal of creating a small online community. Now, the Gay Christian Network is a cornerstone organization in the LGBT Christian community. Its annual conference is credited as the largest gathering of LGBT Christians, many of whom have found a home within the community the organization has fostered. On July 20, the organization and Lee parted ways, saying in a joint statement that they “have come to realize they have differing perspectives on the operational needs of the ministry."
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The opposition Nationalist Party backed the introduction of same-sex marriage, despite fierce criticism from some conservatives, who said it marked a damaging departure from the party's Christian-Democratic principles.
Liberty and freedom aren’t fancy words or individual guarantees. They’re a process that requires everyone’s participation. We can’t have liberty and justice for all until we’re willing to see the injustice and the lack of liberty all around us, and commit ourselves to doing something about it.
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On June 30, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriages do not have a right to spousal benefits, reports the Austin American-Statesman.
The decision of the Texas Supreme Court, which consists entirely of Republican members, affects the legal status of same-sex marriages in Texas, and potentially defies the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 affirmation of same-sex marriages.
A man sells rainbow flags near The Stonewall Inn, on the eve of the LGBT Pride March, in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, June 24. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
White evangelical Christians were the most opposed to same-sex marriage, with 35 percent approving it, but the support more than doubled from 14 percent a decade ago. Younger evangelicals were far more supportive, with 47 percent of those born since 1964 approving gay marriages, compared with 26 percent of their older counterparts.
Visitors sign a wall outside Pulse Nightclub on the one year anniversary of the shooting in Orlando, Fla. Image via Reuters/Scott Audette.
Rosado was one of the first people to be called the morning of June 12. The body count from the Pulse nightclub shooting was still unconfirmed, but as names started to be released, it was clear that most of the victims were Latinx, particularly of Puerto Rican descent. Many of their families only spoke rudimentary English, a secondary tongue not suitable to communicate the nuance of such tragic news. Rosado remembers how most of the hospital staff did not speak Spanish, and consistently mispronounced the Hispanic names of the victims.
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“I just wish we could have had more conversation before funds got dropped from 20-plus backing churches and organizations,” Hale told Sojourners. “Rather than the conversation, we went straight to protocol. And that’s a sad reality of the way big business and denomination operates.”
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The United Methodist Church will hold a special session of its General Conference to settle questions of LGBTQ inclusion that have vexed the global denomination for years.
The announcement came on April 25, the same day the denomination’s highest court held a hearing on whether an openly gay pastor can serve as bishop.
The General Conference, the United Methodist Church’s top legislative body, typically meets every four years. At last year’s meeting in Portland, Ore., it voted to defer all decisions about human sexuality to a specially appointed commission and left the door open for a special session.
In the last year, dozens of organizations — from Google, Apple, and Microsoft to the NBA, Bruce Springsteen, and Nick Jonas — have pulled their money from the state in protest of the bill. Word of the new deal reportedly came hours before the NCAA was set to pull any future championship basketball games from the state for the foreseeable future.
“It is not my practice to censor the invitations to campus from any of our theological centers or student organizations,” Barnes said in a letter addressed to the seminary community. “Yet many regard awarding the Kuyper Prize as an affirmation of Reverend Keller’s belief that woman and LGBTQ+ persons should not be ordained… In order to communicate that the invitation to speak at the upcoming conference does not imply an endorsement of the Presbyterian Church in America’s views about ordination, we have agreed not to award the Kuyper Prize this year.”
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As the seminary said in announcing the award, Keller “is widely known as an innovative theologian and church leader, well-published author, and catalyst for urban mission in major cities around the world.”
But Keller is also a leader in the Presbyterian Church in America, or PCA, which is the more conservative wing of U.S. Presbyterianism and does not permit the ordination of women or LGBTQ people.