Faith: Protestant
Nearly 20 years ago this week, the Good Friday Agreement brought an end to almost three decades of violence between Catholic and Protestant factions in Northern Ireland, known as the ‘Troubles,’ that killed 3,500 people. But for many, it has … More
“We hope to celebrate this anniversary without hiding the problematic side, the dark side of Martin Luther,” says Rev Johannes Block, pastor of the Evangelical City and Parish Church of St. Mary’s in Wittenberg, Germany, where Luther himself preached hundreds and hundreds of sermons in the 16th century. “The Reformation said you are responsible for yourself,” he continued. “Everybody is responsible for his faith. It’s a step of democracy. Everybody is equal in the church.” More
“One of the attractions of this strategy is that we’re not just a relatively small Christian community in the United States taking an action,” says Rev. John Thomas, former president of the United Church of Christ. “We’re joining a much broader movement.” But Rev. John Wimberly, a Presbyterian minister, says US churches supporting the BDS movement “are empowering the most extreme voices and the harshest voices on both sides.” More
Deep in the bayous of south Louisiana, faith-based activists are trying to help vulnerable groups threatened by the consequences of climate change. More
“The lure of the political” changed Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a pastor and theologian. He prayed with the conspirators to assassinate Hitler, and he conferred blessings on the various coup attempts. Watch our interview with Charles Marsh, author of “Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” More
“I love the Lutheran tradition, the Lutheran theology, the message of grace,” says Rev. Margaret Kelly, a Lutheran pastor in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her food-truck church offers meals, prayer services, and a feeling of community to the hungry and homeless. More
“There are several prominent pulpits in which women are now coming into those jobs, and it’s an indication society is shifting in many different ways,” says the Reverend Amy Butler, first female senior pastor of the Riverside Church in Manhattan. “Women are increasingly moving into leadership roles in other parts of our society, and it’s time for that to happen in the church.” More
“We are at the point in institutional church where we don’t know what the future is going to look like. I hope at the Riverside Church we can create a community of people who allow for innovation and for exploration.” More
“The three pulpits that are historically important in mainline Protestantism have women senior pastors now is a very big deal,” observes scholar and author Diana Butler Bass. “It is hard to imagine as recently as even 20 years ago that women would have achieved that level of leadership. It signals a change in American Protestantism.” More
The pope’s pilgrimage is intended on one level to commemorate the 1964 meeting between Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras that ended a thousand years of estrangement between Eastern and Western Christianity. But there are other agendas as well: interfaith dialogue, the Middle East peace process, the diminishing Christian presence in the Holy Land, encounters with Jewish and Palestinian religious and political leaders. More
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