This wasn’t what Bishop John Shelby Spong expected. Meeting in a posh ballroom of the glitzy, glass Marriott Hotel on Times Square, his audience was overwhelmingly white-skinned, white-haired, well-educated, and well-heeled. Nothing unusual there. But the questions? “All evidence suggests that pre-modern forms of Christianity are in better health than the small strands within Christianity … Read more
This wasn’t what Bishop John Shelby Spong expected. Meeting in a posh ballroom of the glitzy, glass Marriott Hotel on Times Square, his audience was overwhelmingly white-skinned, white-haired, well-educated, and well-heeled. Nothing unusual there. But the questions? “All evidence suggests that pre-modern forms of Christianity are in better health than the small strands within Christianity … Read more
If you believe the rhetoric of Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State since 1992, America in 2001 is like Iran in 1979,when the mullahs prepared to launch their reign of Islamic fundamentalist terror. Lynn and Americans United would have us believe that religious conservatives represent the greatest danger … Read more
Next to evangelical Protestants, Catholics are the biggest concern on Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s agenda. This is not surprising, given that much of Americans United’s historical purposes was to combat what was feared to be growing Catholic influence in public life during the post-World War II period and the 1950s. Here … Read more
In the office of Al Gore, a mammoth photograph of Planet Earth hangs resplendently as a reminder of the vice president’s global consciousness. After visiting his office last year, National Council of Churches chief Joan Brown Campbell hailed the photo as a “religious icon for our time that God intended for God’s people.” She said … Read more
Two relatively new religious coalitions are combating the burgeoning influence of Christian conservatives. The Interfaith Alliance, created in 1994, is largely a mishmash of fading, old-line Religious Left fixtures whose predictable denunciations of Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson have failed to attract sustained attention or new allies. But the Call to Renewal, which Sojourners publisher … Read more