Category: Newsletter

  • Right-wing Christian Lawmakers are to Blame

    “Yet it is right-wing Christian lawmakers who are to blame for letting the violence continue, along with the right-wing pastors and televangelists who prop them up. Taking God’s name in vain doesn’t look like screaming “goddammit” when a child dies. It looks like Mitch McConnell, Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and their allies continually twisting the Gospel and abusing God’s name to seize power while hypocritically raking in the NRA cash and blocking new gun safety laws. Their “pro-life” hands drip with blood.” 1

  • Senator Lindsey Graham Violates Article VI of the U.S. Constitution

    Stupid Questions from Stupid Senators

    Clause 3 of Article VI – The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. 2

  • Abolish the Electoral College

    Shredder

    We signed a petition on Action Network telling Congress to Abolish the Electoral College.

    After three disputed Presidential elections in just 20 years, it’s time for Congress to abolish the Electoral College. Instead we should finally become a true Democracy and elect our President based on who receives the most votes, like every other Democracy in the world.

    Can you join me and take action? Click here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/abolish-the-electoral-college-2?source=email&

    Thanks!

    References:

  • Catholic High School Fires Teachers

    On December 22 — just three days before Christmas — Regis Jesuit High School outside Denver fired two faculty members for allowing a student to publish a pro-choice essay in the school newspaper. The teachers, Maria Lynch and Nicole Aduini, were blindsided. Only six days before their termination, the school’s principal had actually thanked them in writing for their work in publishing the issue, which the school has since retracted. Silencing students and firing teachers is neither “pro-life” nor a Christian response to disagreement. As Lynch told the National Catholic Reporter, “Our students have tough questions, need to have the freedom to express them, and deserve open and frank discussions.” 3

  • Mormon to Lutheran

    Sealed: An Unexpected Journey into the Heart of Grace

    Sealed: An Unexpected Journey into the Heart of Grace by Katie Langston
    Sealed: An Unexpected Journey into the Heart of Grace by Katie Langston – Available from Amazon.com

    Katie Langston is an unlikely convert to Christianity. She grew up in a devout, conservative Mormon family in Utah, served a proselytizing mission to Bulgaria when she was 21, married for “time and all eternity” in the Mormon temple when she was 23. From the outside, she had a typical Mormon life. Inside, she was coming apart at the seams. From childhood, she battled “The Questions”—obsessive-compulsive disorder, though she didn’t have a diagnosis for it until much later—and lived inside a complex maze of anxiety and fear. This was compounded by Mormonism’s emphasis on “worthiness,” a designation of acceptability in Mormon practice, that brought her to the edge of despair as a young mother.

    Katie Langston
    Katie Langston

    Then, almost by accident, she had an encounter with the grace of Jesus Christ—and her world changed. In candid but not sensationalized ways, Langston explores little-understood Mormon practices and teachings while grappling with universal human questions such as the nature of faith, the complexity of family, the process of healing, and what it means to truly belong. This book is intended to be a bridge-builder, a way to help non-Mormons understand Mormonism and Mormons orthodox Christianity through the power of personal narrative. Most of all, it is a testimony of Jesus Christ, in the hopes that those who read it—Mormon, Christian, or neither—will catch a glimpse of the spectacular, life-changing grace of God.

    References:

    • Religion News, Jana Riess, April 27, 2021 – From Mormon missionary to Lutheran pastor – Langston ‘tried millions of ways’ to make Mormonism work, but she eventually found peace in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and began to pursue a path toward ordination. Her parents and husband, who are still Latter-day Saints, were supportive, but ‘they were heartbroken.’
    • Grand Canyon Synod – Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – Ordination and Installation of Katie Langston at New Promise Lutheran in St. George