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Issues over same-sex marriage and LGBT people in the PCUSA are not new: there is a 40-plus year history of arguments and tacit agreements over the issue of sexuality in the denomination, and the first openly gay minister in the PCUSA was ordained in 2011.
Judge Aquilina did what Michigan State University officials, USA Gymnastics, and the Karoyli ranch officials did not: Immediately believed the women who had been abused, validated their lives, and ended their perpetrator's access to them and other victims.
Not every conservative Christian is a dominionist, but to say a movement doesn't exist, as some pundits and journalists have, without even being able to say what it is in an op-ed is just irresponsible... The big story is that the religious right isn't dead.
Spatial racism, the erasure of black faces in a predominantly white city, is in full effect in both Crown Heights and Center City Philadelphia. This racism demands that bodies that don't conform to a mandated 'white' status quo can be redlined out of a space.
Forgiveness became a big part of the civil rights movement, juxtaposed against the violence of protesters and law enforcement. King described forgiveness in one of his early sermons as a pardon, a process of life, and the Christian weapon of social redemption.
When the good Christians of America are some of its biggest racists, one has to consider our moral responsibility to call out those who clearly are not for human flourishing, no matter what ethnicity a person is. Where are you on that scale? I know where I am.
In Pope Francis's 'Amoris Laetitia' (The Joy of Love), an apostolic exhortation on Catholic family life, he does not make earth-shattering doctrinal changes with regards to divorced Catholics, same-sex married Catholics, or the church's stance on homosexuality.
While it is important that black women begin to receive the accolades and assistance they are due from the Democratic Party, they cannot be expected to continue to save white people from the poor choices they make - based not on moral values but party affiliation.
Forgiveness is enshrined in the Lord's prayer - forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. These scriptures point to the power of forgiveness not only as a way to absolve transgressions but to ensure that the person extending forgiveness will be forgiven of theirs.
Trump's defense of white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism is gathering those who support him into a strong solidified base. Since the election of Francis, Republicans have been very wary of the Pope, attacking his liberal statements on homosexuality, global warming, and capitalism.
The text, 'Is God a White Racist', By Rev. Dr. William Jones, is still studied by theologians and academics and taught in institutes of higher learning. The book called into question the chief construction of black liberation theology: that God is on the side of the oppressed.
Pope Francis has mentioned several times in public prior to 'Amoris Laetitia''s release that lack of work was keeping young people from marriage. He has also riffed on married life and 'mothers-in-law,' but this document shows that, even more than a theologian, he is a pastor.
In the past, candidates' performances of 'Christianity' have been strong points for voters, but Trump's ascendancy with evangelicals has eviscerated that expectation. Evangelicals, like other voters, can be very pragmatic about the issues they want addressed by the leadership they support.
Black women fought for the right to vote during the suffrage movement and fought again during the civil rights movement. The rote narrative in the press of the civil rights movement is truncated with the briefest of histories of men like Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, or John Lewis.
President Barack Obama cried during his announcement of new executive actions designed to curb gun violence in the United States by restricting the access to firearms of those who present a clear danger to themselves or others and improving access to mental health services for those in need.
These 21st-century 'teavangelicals,' who represent a considerable segment of the Republican party, are vastly different from their 19th-century forebears. Nineteenth-century evangelicals were concerned with societal ills such as temperance, slavery, the rise of industrialisation and suffrage.
American Presbyterians, as a whole, have already lost a large percentage of their population since 2008, in part because of the creation of the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO) - which formed in 2012 as a response to the ordination of out gay men and lesbians within the PCUSA.
Natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey are the worst kind of crises for people like Mr. Trump and Mr. Osteen, who purvey their own versions of the prosperity gospel. This is a belief that says if you think positively and make affirmations, God will reward you with financial success and good health.
In the racialized space of capitalist gentrification, police are not only arbiters of the peace, they are the muscle of retail racism: You can only be in this space if you transcend your blackness by showing us some green dollars. Even then, there is no guarantee that green will transcend your black skin.
Historically, narratives of forgiveness were part of both the anti-slavery movement and the civil rights movement in America. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' for instance, was based loosely on the life of the Rev. Josiah Henson, who forgave his master that wanted to sell him and beat him after Henson begged him not to.
McCain courted in 2008 what I would call 'fringe' evangelicals, in part because evangelicals were skeptical of his commitment to values voters. McCain's embrace of Palin came after having to scuttle endorsements from John Hagee and Rod Parsley, charismatics who believed in Armageddon and fiercely supported Israel.
Evangelical women are also large consumers of evangelical media and ministries, and their support of these organizations is crucial. Should they shun both Trump and the predominately male evangelical leadership, it may have a ripple effect in these organizations' fundraising abilities and their ministerial efforts.
Charles Finney, the great 19th-century revivalist and evangelical, would have had a hard time preaching a revival in America today. Finney's brand of evangelical fervour, called the 'new measures,' emphasised saving souls and reviving worship by incorporating elements of personal testimony and music into church services.
Evangelicalism's moral values are now articulated by reality stars like the Duggar family, who Mike Huckabee embraced, and 'Duck Dynasty,' whose patriarch, Phil Robertson, endorsed Cruz. Palin herself, an evangelical darling in 2008, has had two reality TV shows: 'Sarah Palin's Alaska' and 'Sarah Palin's Amazing America.'
Graham functioned as a megaphone for conservative biblical ideas that dovetailed with conservative politics, including family, sexual morality, and adherence to laws. He was not only an evangelist, he was also an enforcer: enforcing conservative white Christian social beliefs and evangelical ethical claims as 'America's Pastor.'
The University of Pennsylvania and my wonderful colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies have been routinely sent hate emails about me. Calls to fire me are numerous. Some have even come from within the university. The Penn Switchboard is flooded with calls, and the more conservative alums threaten to stop contributing.
In many cases, in order to protect organizations, administrators often move abusers around, discount victim statements, stonewall victims in administrative processes, and/or offer legal settlements with non-disclosure agreements to victims with the express intent of protecting the institution and ridding themselves of the victim.
In evangelical and Pentecostal churches, most people have a home church they identify with, but you have a favourite pastor or evangelist that you listen to occasionally. Studying scripture means you don't just read the Bible: you read devotional books and books designed to help your spiritual walk or the church broadly construed.
The shooter's choice of Emanuel AME was most likely deliberate, given the church's storied history. It was the first African Methodist Episcopal church in the South, founded in 1818 by a group of men including Morris Brown, a prominent pastor, and Denmark Vesey, who would go on to lead a large, yet failed, slave revolt in Charleston.
As one of a handful of religion professors in the U.S. who study, write, and teach about conservative Christianity and politics, I am all too aware of the real meaning of the list and of its purpose. Promoted by Turning Point USA, the list is not simply designed to expose professors who discriminate; it is designed to silence and smear.
Graham promoted a white evangelical respectability that wanted to 'put the brakes' on the civil rights movement, and never really accepted women as equal to men. He may have been the country's greatest evangelist, but he was also an apologist for the racist and sexist beliefs pervasive among white evangelical men in 20th-century America.
There is not one particular moment that can account for the shift from the social issue concerns of 19th-century evangelicals into the state of American evangelicalism today. Some historical moments are telling. The rise of biblical criticism in the 19th century forced evangelicals to make choices about what they believed about the gospel.
What's sometimes called the 'browning' of the American Catholic church is very much on the minds of many U.S. bishops - and the pope. Unlike evangelicals who have stayed strong in their support of President Trump, the USCCB knows that it cannot afford to lose their Hispanic and African American population because of a weak stance on racism.
Trump's blatant racism and demonization of Muslims, Mexicans, and immigrants also serves as a foil for white evangelicals. By othering these groups, Trump allows evangelicals to persist in their belief that white Anglo-saxon Protestantism is the default for true American Christianity and is best suited to lead America as a 'Christian Nation.'
Mr. Trump's and Mr. Osteen's brands are rooted in success, not Scripture. Believers in prosperity like winners. Hurricanes and catastrophic floods do not provide the winning narratives crucial to keep adherents chained to prosperity gospel thinking. That is why it is easy for both men to issue platitudes devoid of empathy during natural disasters.
Protestants attacked Catholics during the 1844 Nativist riots in Philadelphia. Guess what that was about? Anti-immigrant sentiment. Back then, it was the influx of Irish Catholics into the city. Now, it's Donald Trump clinging to a bygone notion of Protestant ascendancy and nativist sentiments, when mainline Protestantism is on the wane in the U.S.
Gun rights advocates - many whom also believe that the US constitution is divinely inspired and that the rights it enumerates are God-given - face a conundrum. Their very insistence that the government not restrict guns in public spaces or limit their sales in any way also obviously inhibit other Americans' rights as covered by the US constitution.
As a historian of American and African-American religion, I know that the Trayvon Martin moment is just one moment in a history of racism in America that, in large part, has its underpinnings in Christianity and its history. Those of us who teach American Religion have a responsibility to tell all of the story, not just the nice touchy-feely parts.