links_to_our_friends.html

Links to Our Friends

Mathewson Street Church has a growing list of websites that we can recommend to our parishoners and friends ...

Beliefnet
(http://www.beliefnet.com/): Beliefnet is a sprawling site, filled with all sorts of information, entertainment, and discussion focused around religion and spirituality. Its stated purpose is to help people explore and meet their spiritual and religious needs "in an interesting, captivating, and engaging way." Although the site covers Christianity, it also delves into myriad other religions and philosophies--everything from Buddhism, to Falun Gong, to Scientology, to Judaism, to Secular Philosophy. Beliefnet is a huge "mega-site," and it can be slightly overwhelming. But if one takes some time to explore the site, the process can be very thought-provoking and fun.

Bible Study Charts.com
(http://www.biblestudycharts.com/A_Daily_Hymn_Subscribe.html) Bible Study Charts is a lovely place to visit. Twice a week they send a message with a hymn and its history. It also presents thoughtful views of the Bible. One of our parishoners reports that she "enjoys the quiet time of listening to a familiar or a new hymn when it arrives." One needs to sign up in order the get a twice-weekly newsletter.

The Christian Century
(http://www.christiancentury.org/): This is the Web site of "The Christian Century", an ecumenical magazine devoted to "linking Christian faith and contemporary life."

Church within a Church
(http://www.cwac.us/): A progressive Methodist movement dedicated to being the inclusive church, including reaching out to people of every race, nationality, and sexual orientation.

National Council of Churches
(http://www.ncccusa.org/): a ecumenical site that deals with national and international issues of faith and justice.

The Progressive Christian
(http://www.tpcmagazine.org/): The Progressive Christian is a bi-monthly magazine for people of faith seeking the common good through reflection, dialogue, and action.

Sojourners
(http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm): This Web site focuses on "faith, politics, [and] culture" from an ecumenical perspective. Sojourners Christian ministry seeks to "proclaim and practice the biblical call to integrate spiritual renewal and social justice." Because the ministry is ecumenical in nature, definitions of what constitutes "social justice" sometimes vary among those people involved in the movement. I find that Sojourners always makes a good-faith effort to grapple with very complex, troublesome religious debates and/or disagreements. (For example--a recent issue of the print magazine contained a debate over whether church denominations should split over same-sex marriage, with both sides of the debate represented.)

Soulforce
(http://www.soulforce.org/): Soulforce is an "interfaith movement committed to ending spiritual violence perpetuated by religious policies and teachings against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people." As its Web site proclaims, Soulforce consists of a network of people devoted to "learning nonviolence from Ghandi and King, [and] seeking justice for God's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Children."

Whosoever
(http://www.whosoever.org/index.shtml): Whosoever is an online magazine dedicated to the spiritual growth of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christians (and their allies, of course). The magazine's mission page states that "[t]hrough biblical scholarship, personal testimonies and prayerful commentary on timely topics, Whosoever strives to show God constantly at work in the daily lives of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people." (Warning to any anti-GLBT conservatives out there: this is a site with a definite pro-GLBT viewpoint. As the site's mission page says, "'Whosoever' is determined to break the bonds of extremist tyranny and rescue the Bible from fundamentalists who use the scripture to exclude and injure any of God's children." See their letter to critics here: http://www.whosoever.org/critics.html).