Is There an LGBT “Community”?

Today’s most important acronym expands and contracts like an accordion with seemingly no rhyme or reason. From LGBT, the inclusive train of letters has now swelled to LGBTTQQIAAP2S. The two Ts stand for transgender and transsexual and the double Qs represent both “queer” and “questioning”. . . . . Continue Reading »

Marquette's Gender Regime

W orking in my Marquette office one afternoon in the spring of 2010, I heard unusual sounds coming from the normally quiet lawns outside my window. I was surprised to see a modest assembly of students and professors preparing to march in protest. Against what? Minutes later, an email arrived . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

africaJohn Azumah, author of “Through African Eyes” (October), has been my colleague and friend at Columbia Theological Seminary since he arrived here in 2011. We have agreed on some matters, disagreed on others, and maintained a clear and sincere sense of collegiality regardless of our . . . . Continue Reading »

Rites and Rights, in Two Churches

When directly asked by Mormon friends and family members (yep, I’ve got LDS folks in my family), I have been privately critical of the LDS church’s support of the Utah legislature’s “compromise” on “discrimination” and religious freedom last spring. I think the church, from a position . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

Faith, Fiction and Force in Medieval Baptismal Debates by marcia colish cua, 384 pages, $69.95 B aptism seems so simple: water and the formula “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” But like so many religious practices, it can be celebrated in different ways, with . . . . Continue Reading »

False Freedom

The majority opinion in Obergefell, written by Justice Kennedy, opens with a grand claim about the nature of freedom: “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their . . . . Continue Reading »

Pope Francis at Independence Hall

Despite Francis’s universally warm reception, there was a cold war waged on the steps of Independence Hall between two Philadelphia dignitaries offering introductory speeches before the Pope’s address.