Free Republic

The Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, lesbian cleric and then president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School, delivers 2009 'abortion is a blessing' address (National Organization for Women/Flickr) Via the Episcopal News Service, a press release revealing that the ultramegaliberal Episcopal Divinity School is winding things down: Episcopal Divinity School will cease to grant degrees at the end of the upcoming academic year, the seminary’s board of trustees decided July 21 on a 11-4 vote. During the next year, the board will explore options for EDS’s future, some of which were suggested by a specially convened Futures Task Force to...

Young protesters from the Baltimore uprising share their experience and hope to the Diocese of Maryland convention. Delegates began the work of what reparations for the sin of racism and slavery to determine what that might look like. At its recent convention, the Diocese of Maryland took the first of what could be many small steps to engage the issue of reparations and set aside money to help heal the centuries-old wounds of slavery. Though the resolution that anchored the conversation, known as “Reparations Investment,” was referred to Diocesan Council for further review, its appearance marked a beginning for the...

Abortion advocates across the nation are trying to send the U.S. Supreme Court a message: Women need abortions to be successful. This insulting notion has been the underlying theme of dozens of stories pro-abortion women have submitted to the high court ahead of its hearing on a Texas pro-life law, which has been credited with saving more than 10,000 babies’ lives. The law is responsible for closing abortion clinics that could not guarantee they could protect the health of Texas women. The latest pro-abortion story to be highlighted in the mainstream media is that of the Rev. Anne Fowler, an...

In Ohio, Reverend Laura Young says she believes pro-life protesters in front of Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities have “misguided faith.”...In Ohio, Reverend Laura Young says she believes pro-life protesters in front of Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities have “misguided faith.”...Young also says religious groups are fueling the so-called war on women. She explained, “Women are being attacked at a moral level by the radical Religious Right. They’ve hijacked the political discussion. This event is an opportunity for progressive religious leaders to stop the silence. We need to be in the conversation.”...The abortion reverend heads up a group...

<p>SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Episcopalians voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow religious weddings for same-sex couples, solidifying the church’s embrace of gay rights that began more than a decade ago with the pioneering election of the first openly gay bishop.</p>

Episcopalians voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow religious weddings for same-sex couples, solidifying the church's embrace of gay rights that began more than a decade ago with the pioneering election of the first openly gay bishop.

A recent Gallup poll, "Moral Acceptability: Changes Over Time," shows Americans made a startling move to the left over the past 15 years. A blanket blaming of the church is the easy answer, but today, where black and white has faded into varying shades of gray, we are better served going back to where it began because we didn't get where we are today overnight. America's moral decline began with Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt [FDR]. Their arrogant defiance and blatant hostility toward the U.S. Constitution inspired them to lead an insurrection from the Oval Office, effectively convincing...

For years, I thought I was called to be an Anglican priest. My wife and I wanted to plant an Anglican church in Minneapolis. To that end, I attended a beautiful Anglican seminary couched in the forests of Wisconsin. There, surrounded by men and women much holier than myself, I was challenged to grow up in Christ. During the course of my studies and discernment, I came to believe that Christ intended his Church to be apostolic—and also that Rome had greatly exaggerated Peter’s role in the apostolic college. I had many opinions about the papacy, most of them...

ST. LOUIS • Tom Schweich, Missouri's Republican state auditor and a leading contender for the governor's office in next year's election, has died, according to his office. Earlier in the day, a police source said Schweich had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The police source said Schweich's wife was in another room of their house when she heard her husband making phone calls, followed by a single gunshot. He was 54. His death was confirmed by his office early Thursday afternoon, just hours after Schweich had requested an interview with reporters for the Post-Dispatch and the Associated Press at his...

TUBA CITY, Ariz. (RNS) As I pass through the Navajo Nation on my 4,000-mile drive across America, I catch a disturbing glimpse of a white-power insurgency happening in all regions. White settlement of the Southwest meant dislodging the native population at gunpoint. U.S. Army troops slaughtered the Navajo at will. Whites broke one treaty after another, then forced the Navajo in 1864 onto a “Long Walk” of 300 miles away from their tribal lands. When a pregnant Navajo woman came to childbirth, an impatient Army soldier simply shot her. The Navajo were allowed to return four years later to a...

So President Obama is evidently taking a ration of right-wing blow back for comments at today's National Prayer Breakfast comparing the heinous actions of ISIS to the heinous actions of the Crusades. "Critics Pounce" read one headline. "Outrage" read another Here's what's outrageous: Christians who don't know their own history. Like the story of the Cathars -- a Christian sect deemed heretical in the 13th century and savagely butchered by Christian Crusaders in France.

A former Navy chaplain who made headlines for being court martialed for praying in Jesus’ name has been elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives. Former Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, nicknamed “Chaps,” won the seat Tuesday in Colorado House District 15 with more than 70 percent of the vote. His work will begin in January.

The Church of England is set to vote on whether women should be allowed to enter its top ranks as bishops. […] Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby told the BBC that he hopes the vote will go through, saying “the votes, I think, are there.” …

The Church of England (CofE) has called for an inquiry into assisted dying. It follows a U-turn by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, who said he would back legislation to allow the terminally ill in England and Wales get help to end their lives. The current Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby says the Assisted Dying Bill is "mistaken and dangerous". But the Church said an inquiry would include expert opinion and carefully assess the arguments. Speaking on behalf of the CofE, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev James Newcome, said a Royal Commission would allow the "important issue"...

Ann B. Davis, who played the beloved housekeeper Alice in The Brady Bunch, died over the weekend. New information is coming out about her faith and her life. The Associated Press reports: For many years after “The Brady Bunch” wound up, Davis led a quiet religious life, affiliating herself with a group led by [Episcopal Bishop William] Frey. “I was born again,” she told the AP in 1993. “It happens to Episcopalians. Sometimes it doesn’t hit you till you’re 47 years old. “It changed my whole life for the better. … I spent a lot of time giving Christian witness...

Life is hard. And it just keeps on coming, ready or not. Somewhere inside me, I guess I thought that life in “retirement” would be more peaceful, easier somehow. But I am also not naïve enough to believe it for long. Recently, my partner and husband of 25-plus years and I decided to get divorced. While the details of our situation will remain appropriately private, I am seeking to be as open and honest in the midst of this decision as I have been in other dramatic moments of my life—coming out in 1986, falling in love, and accepting the...

SAGINAW, MI — As a federal judge weighs Michigan's gay marriage ban, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan issued a statement supporting the overturn of the ban. Bishop Todd Ousley on Thursday, March 13, stated that ending the ban, which U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman may do after hearing eight days of testimony during a trial for a Hazel Park couple's case against the state, would extend “justice and equality to all of God's children.” “My own experiences with same-sex couples and the experiences in communities and congregations across our diocese have show that there is holy...

[ . . . ] . . . Christian authorities need to stop thinking and writing as though the categories of homosexual and Christian can be joined—as though the Church could tolerate or accommodate, or speak gently of, much less bless or sanctify, anything peculiar to the garment stained by the flesh that those who come to Christ throw off in their baptism. In that baptism we become penitents, and as such divided from our sins. St. Paul tells us here that no penitent is to be named by, identified by, what he has abjured. Those injured people who have...

When evangelical preachers lose their way and turn their backs on biblical Christianity, why is it they end up in the Episcopal Church? As a preacher who traveled in the opposite direction and left the Episcopal Church 22 years ago—or I should say the Episcopal Church left me—I think I have a clue. On March 18, the Huffington Post reported that Rob Bell, the one-time evangelical pastor who rejected the core of Christian faith, has endorsed homosexual marriage. Where was that endorsement made? Surprise, surprise: Grace Cathedral, the Episcopal Cathedral of the Diocese of California. Grace Cathedral is located in...

LONDON (Reuters) - The leader of the Church of England on Tuesday said a vote last month that struck down proposals to allow women to become bishops had been "deeply painful", but that Christianity was still relevant in Britain despite falling numbers of believers. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who leads the global 80-million-strong Anglican Communion, said in his Christmas day sermon that the answer to the question of whether Christianity had "had its day" was a "resounding no". The Church of England narrowly voted against allowing women bishops last month - to the dismay of Williams and Prime Minister...