Marriage

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United Methodist divorce nears, while denomination's left wing Zooms to the left

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United Methodist divorce nears, while denomination's left wing Zooms to the left

As one of the founders of the United Methodist Centrist Movement, the Rev. Doug Damron spend years hiding his rejection of his church's rule that the "practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching."

Centrists used a "perfectly delicious" theological platform defined by words such as "unity," "peace" and "moderate," he said, during a recent guest sermon at the historic Broad Church United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ohio. After decades of fighting about sex, many hoped "traditionalists" and "progressives" could keep "United" attached to "Methodist."

The goal was "compromise," he said, a "sweet word" that hid a "status quo of oppression." But there was "an institution to protect" and many clergy feared being honest. Thus, they didn't openly attack the denomination's Book of Discipline.

"By nature, I am a rule follower," he said. "I knew that such defiance may have cost me my clergy credentials."

Now it's time for candor and courage, said Damron. When United Methodists finally split, conservatives will build a church defined "by who they will exclude today and who they will exclude tomorrow." The question is whether progressives will act on their convictions.

"It is time to speak into existence, following the Spirit's leading, a church which fully welcomes, includes, affirms not only God's beloved gay and lesbian ones, but a host of other folks who have found the door of the church closed," he said. This would include embracing and ordaining "trans folks, bi folks, kink folks, poly folk, gender-fluid folk and others."

The United Methodist clock kept ticking this summer, even as COVID-19 realities delayed -- again -- votes on the "Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation" negotiated by activists on the left and right. The General Conference will not meet until August 2022, since the UMC establishment has declined to take actions in virtual forums.

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Life and death challenges have tested the faith of Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams

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Life and death challenges have tested the faith of Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams

A reporter tossed a standard question at coach Monty Williams after the Phoenix Suns won the Western Conference finals, asking how he managed to be a tough NBA coach and a sympathetic mentor.

"I tell every new player … that the essence of my coaching is to serve," said Williams, the National Basketball Coaches Association's 2021 coach of the year. "As a believer in Christ, that's what I'm here for. … I tell them all the time, if I get on you, I'm not calling you out -- I'm calling you up."

That message meshes well with what superstar Chris Paul writes on his sneakers game after game: "Can't Give Up Now." That's a popular Gospel song with this chorus: "I just can't give up now. I've come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me the road would be easy and I don't believe He's brought me this far to leave me."

Williams and Paul have known each other for a decade, with professional and personal ties strengthened by pain and frustration. While Paul's on-court struggles are well documented, it's impossible to understand their bond without knowing the details of his coach's life as a Christian, husband and father of five children.

"The real reason to watch" the playoffs this year, said former ESPN commentator Jason Whitlock, in his "Fearless" podcast, is "that God has placed a messenger inside the NBA's secular madness. Monty Williams might be the most important man in sports. The 49-year-old former Notre Dame and NBA player is the leader and example that America needs right now."

The coach's story, he added, "belongs in a new Bible. Five years ago, a 52-year-old White woman high on meth drove her car headfirst into the car driven by Williams' wife Ingrid. Three of Williams' children were also in the car. The White woman died at the scene. … Ingrid Williams died a day later. Williams' children survived."

Williams was a promising Notre Dame freshman when Ingrid -- before their marriage -- stood by him after doctors said he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Long before experts cleared him to play, Ingrid kept praying and offered this message: "Jesus can heal your heart."

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Flowers and the First Amendment: Once again, the Supreme Court elects to punt

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Flowers and the First Amendment: Once again, the Supreme Court elects to punt

Florist Barronelle Stutzman and Robert Ingersoll have shared many details from the 2013 conversation that changed their lives and, perhaps, trends in First Amendment law.

For nine years, Ingersoll was a loyal customer at Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Wash., and that included special work Stutzman did for Valentine's Day and anniversaries with his partner Curt Freed. Then, a year after the state legalized same-sex marriages, Ingersoll asked her to design the flower arrangements for his wedding.

Stutzman took his hand, Ingersoll recalled, and said: "You know I love you dearly. I think you are a wonderful person, but my religion doesn't allow me to do this."

In a written statement to the Christian Science Monitor, Ingersoll wrote: "While trying to remain composed, I was … flooded with emotions and disbelief of what just happened." He knew many Christians rejected gay marriage but was stunned to learn this was true for Stutzman.

As stated in recent U.S. Supreme Court documents: "Barronelle Stutzman is a Christian artist who imagines, designs and creates floral art. … She cannot take part in or create custom art that celebrates sacred ceremonies that violate her faith."

This legal drama appears to have ended with Stutzman's second trip to the high court and its July 2 refusal to review a Washington Supreme Court decision the drew a red line between a citizen's right to hold religious beliefs and the right to freely exercise these beliefs in public life. Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch backed a review, but lacked a fourth vote.

"This was shocking" to religious conservatives "because Barronelle seemed to have so many favorable facts on her side," said Andrew T. Walker, who teaches ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Stutzman is a 76-year-old grandmother and great-grandmother who faces the loss of her small business and her retirement savings. She has employed gay staffers. She helped Ingersoll find another designer for his wedding flowers. In the progressive Northwest, her Southern Baptist faith clearly makes her part of a religious minority.

"Barronelle is a heretic because she has clashed with today's version of progressivism," said Walker.

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Chris Hillman of the Byrds sings (and writes) about faith, fame and musical ties that bind

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Chris Hillman of the Byrds sings (and writes) about faith, fame and musical ties that bind

The Byrds' classic "Turn! Turn! Turn!" didn't sound like anything on the radio when it hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1965.

For starters, the lyrics came from the Book of Ecclesiastes, noting "there is a season, and a time for every purpose, under Heaven. A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to reap. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to laugh, a time to weep."

What critics failed to realize, said Byrds co-founder Chris Hillman, was that covering the late Pete Seeger's classic was a logical move for musicians steeped in American roots music. Songs about struggle, glory, sacrifice and faith were common in early '60s folk concerts.

"Where did all of our music come from? Blues and Gospel. … White church, black church, the music all came from church," said Hillman, in a recent interview. "With the Byrds, we went right to that well. We didn't think twice about it. We didn't say, 'We can't do a Christian song.' "

Hillman's musical roots became more obvious as the Byrds ventured into what many started calling "country rock," especially with the landmark "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" album in 1968. Bluegrass, country and Gospel themes played a larger role as Hillman began writing songs for the Byrds and his later bands.

While the Byrds put him in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, it was Hillman's grassroots connections that made history, according to the legend who produced his "Bidin' My Time" solo project in 2017. The late Tom Petty said: "Chris was a true innovator -- the man who invented country rock. Every time the Eagles board their private jet, Chris at least paid for the fuel."

That musical and spiritual journey is clear in Hillman's recent autobiography, "Time Between," with its mix of rock lore and personal reflections. Rather than offering a tell-all about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Hillman focuses on lessons he learned along the way and his love for the musicians who, flaws and all, helped him.

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U.S. bishops wrestle with 'Eucharistic coherence,' a topic that mixes politics and doctrine

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U.S. bishops wrestle with 'Eucharistic coherence,' a topic that mixes politics and doctrine

Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone leads the Archdiocese of San Francisco, a symbolic city in debates about modern American culture.

But what matters the most, as tensions rise among Catholic leaders, is that Cordileone is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hometown bishop. Thus, it's hard for politicos to avoid blunt passages in his new pastoral letter, "Before I Formed You in the Womb I Knew You."

Citing centuries of church doctrine, the archbishop argued that Catholics who "reject the teaching of the Church on the sanctity of human life and those who do not seek to live in accordance with that teaching should not receive the Eucharist. It is fundamentally a question of integrity: to receive the Blessed Sacrament in the Catholic liturgy is to espouse publicly the faith and moral teachings of the Catholic Church, and to desire to live accordingly."

There is, he added, "a great difference between struggling to live according to the teachings of the Church and rejecting those teachings. … In the case of public figures who profess to be Catholic and promote abortion, we are not dealing with a sin committed in human weakness or a moral lapse: this is a matter of persistent, obdurate and public rejection of Catholic teaching. This adds an even greater responsibility to the role of the Church's pastors in caring for the salvation of souls."

Citing a famous example, Cordileone recalled when former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani received Holy Communion during a 2008 Mass led by Pope Benedict XVI. This caused scandal and, according to the late Cardinal Edward Egan, violated an agreement that Giuliani would not receive the Sacrament because of his public support for abortion rights and other clashes with doctrine.

The big issue, as U.S. bishops prepare for June discussions of "Eucharistic coherence," is not how to handle a former New York City mayor. The question is whether bishops can address their own divisions about the status of pro-abortion-rights Catholics such as Pelosi and President Joe Biden. While vice president, Biden also performed two same-sex marriage rites.

San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, firing back at Cordileone in America magazine, stressed that the "Eucharist must never be instrumentalized for a political end. … But that is precisely what is being done in the effort to exclude Catholic political leaders who oppose the church's teaching on abortion and civil law. The Eucharist is being weaponized and deployed as a tool in political warfare. This must not happen."

Meanwhile, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warned the leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that these issues could become a "source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate" and among all American Catholics.

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Orthodox Kontakion of the Departed: A hint at the complex faith history of Prince Philip

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Orthodox Kontakion of the Departed: A hint at the complex faith history of Prince Philip

The first nun the Bolsheviks threw into the abandoned mineshaft was best known as the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the sister of the Russian Empress Alexandra.

After the 1905 assassination of her Grand Duke husband, Elizabeth became an Orthodox nun, giving away her wealth to build hospitals and orphanages. She was executed, in 1918, along with others linked to her doomed brother-in-law, Tsar Nicholas II.

When the nuns didn't drown, a soldier used a grenade. He later testified that "we heard talking and a barely audible groan. I threw another grenade. And what do you think -- from beneath the ground we heard singing! … They were singing the prayer: 'Lord, save your people!' "

Finally, there was silence. The body of St. Elizabeth the New Martyr was buried in 1920 at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Her life inspired many, including her grieving niece, the Greek Princess Alice of Battenberg. Alice was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and for 73 years the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

The complicated history of the royals, past and present, loomed over the short, dignified funeral for Prince Philip in St. George's Chapel, Windsor -- with only 30 mourners due to COVID restrictions. The prince's liturgical choices shaped an Anglican rite that stressed images of service, eternal hope and the beauties of God's creation.

The man many Brits called the "grandfather of the nation," was born on the Greek island of Corfu in 1921, the fifth child and only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice. He was baptized Greek Orthodox, before his life was rocked by wars and revolutions that shattered his family.

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Did Pope Francis undercut that Vatican ruling on blessings for same-sex couples?

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Did Pope Francis undercut that Vatican ruling on blessings for same-sex couples?

After a media firestorm ignited by a Vatican condemnation of same-sex unions -- because God "cannot bless sin" -- Catholic progressives immediately looked for hope in the words of bishops, President Joe Biden and even Pope Francis.

In his Sunday Angelus address after the March 15 ruling, the pope stressed that modern seekers want to "see Jesus" in acts of love, not persecution.

Catholics must promote "a life that takes upon itself the style of God -- closeness, compassion and tenderness," said the pope. "It means sowing seeds of love, not with fleeting words but through concrete, simple and courageous examples, not with theoretical condemnations, but with gestures of love. Then the Lord, with his grace, makes us bear fruit, even when the soil is dry due to misunderstandings, difficulty or persecution, or claims of legalism or clerical moralism."

While Pope Francis gave "his assent" to this ruling, the Jesuit publication America cited anonymous Vatican sources saying the Angelus remarks suggested that he was "distancing himself" from the work of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

That document said God "does not and cannot bless sin: He blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed." As for same-sex unions, it added: "The presence in such relationships of positive elements … cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator's plan."

Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp -- who represented Belgium at the 2015 Vatican Synod on Marriage and the Family -- said those words left him "ashamed on behalf of my Church. … I want to apologize to all those for whom this 'responsum' is painful and incomprehensible: faithful and committed Catholic homosexual couples, the parents and grandparents of homosexual couples and their children, pastoral workers and counsellors of homosexual couples," he wrote on Facebook.

"I know homosexual couples who are legally married, have children, form a warm and stable family, and moreover, actively participate in parish life. A number of them are employed full-time in pastoral work or ecclesial organizations." Why, he added, deny the "similarity or analogy with heterosexual marriage here?"

Meanwhile, the president of the German bishops' conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, said he was "not happy" about the Vatican document. Also, a statement from 230 Catholic theologians in Germany called the refusal to bless same-sex unions "paternalistic," "discriminating" and lacking in "theological depth."

The head of St. Peter's Cathedral in Worms went further, saying he "cannot and will not" refuse blessings to anyone. Father Tobias Schäfer told the Deutsche Welle network: "My opinion is: don't take Rome seriously and continue with pastoral care. There are more important things than such stupid papers!"

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National Cathedral invites evangelical to preach, triggering fierce storm of protest

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National Cathedral invites evangelical to preach, triggering fierce storm of protest

Halfway between Norway and the North Pole, scientists have buried a million seeds and crop samples under a mountain in the Svalbard archipelago -- in case an environmental doomsday comes to pass.

That strategy rings true during "this crazy, chaotic season" when so many are anxious about the coronavirus pandemic, global warming, lost jobs, surging debts and the bitter state of public life, said evangelical megachurch leader Max Lucado, in a recent sermon streamed online by the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

“Most of us can't hide out in a bunker, yet threats of calamity may make us try to do so," he said. "If the wrong person pushes the wrong red button -- it's enough to make a person purchase a plane ticket to Svalbard."

But there was a problem. While pre-service publicity stressed that Lucado's books have sold more than 120 million copies and Christianity Today has called him "America's pastor," this invitation alarmed legions of Episcopalians opposed to his history of orthodoxy on sex and marriage. His sermon about God offering comfort in the midst of chaos avoided hot-button topics, but his cathedral appearance triggered an online storm.

Before the event, the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith linked the Lucado invitation to the cathedral's history of hosting a variety of religious leaders. This has included evangelicals such the late Billy Graham, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and megachurch leader Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Southern California.

"When we only engage with those with whom we agree on every issue, we find ourselves in a dangerous (and lonely) place," wrote the cathedral's dean. "That means this cathedral, and this pulpit, are big enough and strong enough to welcome pastors, rabbis, imams, clergy of every faith. … It does not mean we agree with everything they might believe, but it does mean that we exhibit and inhabit a sense of open handed welcome."

However, Hollerith issued a formal apology in response to the online backlash, noting: "In my straight privilege I failed to see and fully understand the pain he has caused. I failed to appreciate the depth of injury his words have had on many in the LGBTQ community. I failed to see the pain I was continuing. I was wrong."

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Years of 'McCarrick doctrine' fights among U.S. bishops go public -- on Inauguration Day

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Years of 'McCarrick doctrine' fights among U.S. bishops go public -- on Inauguration Day

Speaking to an Italian family association in 2018, Pope Francis compared the abortion of children with genetic problems to "what the Nazis did to purify the race. Today, we do the same thing but with white gloves."

A year later, Francis bluntly asked a journalist from Mexico if it's "fair to eliminate a human life in order to solve a problem? The answer to which is, 'No.' Second question: Is it fair to pay a sniper to solve a problem? No. Abortion is not a religious problem. … It is a problem of eliminating a human life. Period."

But the pope was careful in his Inauguration Day message to America's second Catholic president, assuring Joe Biden that he would "pray that your decisions will be guided by a concern for building a society marked by authentic justice and freedom, together with unfailing respect for the rights and dignity of every person, especially the poor, the vulnerable and those who have no voice."

The pope's text was examined closely after reports that the Vatican -- on behalf of progressive American bishops -- tried to stop the circulation of a sobering statement from the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The letter from Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles addressed the challenge, and blessing, of working with "our first president in 60 years to profess the Catholic faith."

Clearly, Biden's piety had offered "solace in times of darkness and tragedy," said Gomez, leader of America's largest diocese and a crucial voice among Hispanic Catholics. He also praised Biden's "longstanding commitment to the Gospel's priority for the poor."

Nevertheless, Gomez noted that "our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender. Of deep concern is the … the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences."

Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Chicago fired back on Twitter, attacking this "ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden's inauguration" while claiming "there is seemingly no precedent" for this action by Gomez.

The Pillar, a Catholic news website, reported that the Vatican Secretariat of State intervened to "spike" the statement from the U.S. bishops after objections from Cupich, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark and some other bishops.