Word: judaisms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Jews, three opinions. It?s an old joke, but, as a decision by Judaism?s Conservative branch Wednesday on the explosive topic of gay ordination and gay unions proved, still a valid one. Two slightly differing opinions handed down by Conservatism?s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards favored maintaining the branch?s official position forbidding homosexuality. But a third, contradictory opinion, affirmed both gay unions and ordination. And all it took was one out of three to change Conservative history: any rabbi is now free to perform such a union and any seminary to make such a rabbi...
...Conservatism is Judiasm?s third-largest branch, with some 1,600 rabbis worldwide. It is poised theologically between the liberalism of Reform Judaism and the (small-c) conservatism of Orthodoxy. On the upside, today?s decision reaffirmed Conservatism?s de facto position as America?s Jewish center, minding Jewish law but sensitive to shifts (in this case, toward greater tolerance) in the national social mainstream. On the downside, it also suggested once again that the center may not hold, and Conservatism itself may be increasingly split down the middle. As soon as the votes were taken, three members...
...Conservatism is actually in a classic American centrist bind. Since 1991 Reform Judaism has allowed gay rabbis and same-sex commitment ceremonies, a position probably slightly to the left of the Episcopal Church of the USA. Orthodoxy, on the other hand, regards homosexuality as deviant, and gay Orthodox Jews are as closeted as they are in, say, the Southern Baptist Convention. Until today Conservatism followed Orthodoxy?s legal lead, based in part on the biblical injunction that ?You shall not lie with a man as with a woman.? But many Conservative congregations have openly gay members, and pro-gay-rights...
...short, ecumenism is about finding common ground with other variants of Christianity and even Abrahamic religions such as Judaism and Islam and trying to use faith as a force of union rather than separation. Granted, this is ambitious, but then again, religious leaders are in the business of the impossible...
...Christian leaders. "He must address the Muslim majority." Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor at George Washington University and one of the 38 signatories to the October letter to Benedict, says the Pope should deliver an "earnest expression of commonality"--even if it's only the widely accepted observation that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all claim descent from the biblical figure of Abraham. Father Richard McBrien, a theologian at Notre Dame, says that "if he doesn't bring up the issue of reciprocal respect for Christian minorities, he's not doing his job," but that he should avoid an absolutist...