Episode 015 Creating more worship spaces for LGBTQ African Americans and why that even needs to happen This week we visit with Verdell, a doctoral ministry student in Washington D.C.  We discuss his journey, why he had to leave the United Methodist Church to pursue ordination in a more inclusive denomination.  Wendy weeps for the United Methodist Church of her youth and the scores of men and women who will not serve in the UMC because of a systematic policy of discrimination. Verdell introduces us to the real need that LGBTQ African Americans have to be able to worship in a space where they can be their whole, authentic selves.  He suggests that the church at large needs to provide affirmation and space for Black Christians to have conversations.  He emphasizes the need for traditional religious and political power to be set aside in those discussions so that people can be real and open.  And he calls for the church and others to create a broader safety net for individuals who are speaking up from a less-powerful position within the context of society and church...to make it safe to speak and to be heard about what matters to them.  Whether you identify as LGBTQ or not...whether you identify as Christian or not...whether or not you are black or a person of color...you will find yourself somewhere in this discussion of justice, compassion, and awareness.  Happy listening and see you in church! For more official information on "A Black Church Movement for Gay and Transgender Justice," visit  ManyVoices.org

This Book Deals with the the role of Muslim women in the struggle for the freedom of India. 

This chapter focuses on Matilda Ward, a missionary at the Presbyterian mission of Mapoon, north Queensland, and the first paid woman missionary to work on an Aboriginal mission. It examines the factors that led to Ward’s employment on the mission, the role that she played in the life of the mission and the consequences of her actions for Indigenous mission residents. While Matilda Ward was unusual for her time, her experience points to broader shifts in missionary practice and attitudes to gender within the Australian churches, particularly through the development of women’s missionary societies.<br /><br />

05-08-2010 RVCC Womens Breakfast

Joshua and Wendy discuss the recent judicial ruling of the United Methodist Church against openly lesbian bishop Karen Oliveto.

Maria Bergius och Clara Nystrand samtalar inför Tacksägelsedagen.

This is Real Hate, and This Must Be Our Response

c  Islamic system and rule about human interaction, married, divorce, and other

Chronicles reminds me a little of East Sydney: men as far as the eye can see. Men in couples, men in night-clubs and bars, men finely muscled and flabby, moustached and clean-shaven, tall serious men in long black jeans and boots, men cruising other men up and down Oxford Street, men sleeping together in all manner of formations and places. And if East Sydney was one of the first gay ghettoes in the city; Chronicles is one of the first men-only utopias. Now, a cursory glance through ChroniCles, with its endless genealogies and details of temple construction and ritual, will hardly give the impression of a utopia, and so I will need initially to track over the territory I have covered before, teasing out the features that make this a utopian text. However, as with the earlier gay ghettoes and their overwhelming presence of men - you could go for weeks and not see a woman - a feminist criticism is that this male-only world relies on the silencing of women. In fact, such a ho(m)mosexual world, to borrow a term from Luce Irigaray, is but a microcosm of the reality of the world at large. Men do in fact dominate and control at every level, and the systemic exclusion of women from the gay ghetto of Chronicles shows in stark relief the unwanted truth of patriarchal domination.