Nashville has long been known as a national hub for mainstream religious publishing. It may also become known for Christian writers, publishers and literary agents who challenge the status quo of their religious elders.
Thanksgiving celebrates the Pilgrims' first mythical feast. As a pastor of a church named after the Pilgrims' colony – Plymouth – Thanksgiving conjures many images. But the most vivid this year is of a visit my partner Jay and I made to see Peter Gomes at his cottage in Plymouth, Mass.
Peter died this past year, after a long and distinguished career serving as preacher at Harvard University's Memorial Chapel. Or, as he would prefer to express it, serving as the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.
''The Mouth of the Wolf'' screens at the Milwaukee LGBT Film Festival at 1 p.m. on Oct. 23. – Photo: Courtesy
"The Mouth of the Wolf," which screens at the Milwaukee LGBT Film and Video Festival at UWM at 1 p.m. on Oct. 23, is an unusual film.
More than 30,000 people packed Houston’s Reliant Stadium for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s mega prayerfest named “The Response,” a clarion call to all Christian Americans for a national day of prayer for our troubled nation.
But LGBT Americans – Christians and non-Christians – were not invited to this event.
Bishop Eddie Long. – Photo: Courtesy
Bishop Eddie Long, one of the black church's prominent pastors of "prosperity gospel" and bling-bling theology, is flashing neither his gold nor silver these days.
Photo: Stock
Just as assuredly as leaves will fall, this season brings requests for donations: United Way, Community Shares, local nonprofits and faith communities. It seems everyone makes an appeal this time of year.
On Oct. 11, our community celebrates National Coming Out Day. Whether you’ve been out since before Cher’s first facelift or came out just this year, it’s a time to reflect on our personal stories of self-discovery and transformation.
Often coming out focuses on the “big” conversation with friends and family. But for queer people of faith, it also involves one’s relationship with God.
Conservative religious pundits look back to the Bible’s creation stories to justify their homophobia. So it’s time for our community to create a queer creation story. And there’s no better source than the old-as-scripture “Symposium,” a text sacred to Western philosophy and culture that also happens to be one of the gayest dinner parties ever recorded.
“Symposium” takes place at the house of Agathon around 400 B.C.E., about the same time as the Book of Genesis was taking its current form. The men at Agathon’s meal engage in flirty banter, deciding to try to outdo each other in describing love. Much of it involves Alicibiades, a heart-throb warrior whom everyone seemed to have a crush on. (Henry Cavill, who plays Theseus in the upcoming film “Immortals,” could cover the role well).
Tina Owen. – Photo: Facebook
Every year the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee gathers in December to recognize leaders and organizations whose work demonstrates a commitment to "uphold the dignity of every person and the solidarity of the human community." This year the Interfaith Conference honorees include Tina Owen, lead teacher of the Alliance School of Milwaukee.
Gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny died on Oct. 11. – Photo: Courtesy
In a symbolic coincidence, pioneering LGBT civil rights leader Frank Kameny died on National Coming Out Day, Oct. 11.
Homophobia may be an irrational fear, but what explains the particularly irrational fears of evangelical Christians?
Sociologists Robert Putnam and David Campbell offer a new and intriguing take on this question in “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.”
Martin Luther King Jr. often invoked Unitarian minister Theodore Parker’s famous saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Barack Obama added, “But here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways puts our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice.”
