Within Christianity, there are a variety of views on sexual orientation and homosexuality. Even within a denomination, individuals and groups may hold different views, and not all members of a denomination necessarily support their church's views on homosexuality. The Catholic Church and Orthodox churches officially condemn homosexual activity as sin. Various Mainline Protestant denominations have taken a supportive stance towards blessing homosexual clergy and same-sex marriage while others have not.
Evangelicalism, also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "born again", in which an individual experiences personal conversion; the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity ; and spreading the Christian message. The word evangelical comes from the Greek (euangelion) word for "good news".
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.
The First Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches. In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.
James Melville "Mel" White is an American clergyman and author. White was a behind-the-scenes member of the Evangelical Protestant movement through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, writing film and television specials and ghostwriting autobiographies for televangelists such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. After years of writing for the Christian right, he came out as gay in 1994 and devoted himself full-time to minister to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people, also writing extensively on the subject of gay Christians.
Freedom of religion in Colombia is enforced by the State and well tolerated in the Colombian culture. The Republic of Colombia has an area of 439,735 square miles and its population is estimated at 46 million. Although the Government does not keep official statistics on religious affiliation, a 2001 poll commissioned by the country's leading newspaper, El Tiempo, indicated that the religious demography is as follows:
Complementarianism is a theological view in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, and religious leadership. Complementary and its cognates are currently used to denote this view. Some Christians interpret the Bible as prescribing complementarianism, and therefore adhere to gender-specific roles that preclude women from specific functions of ministry within the community. Though women may be precluded from certain roles and ministries, they are held to be equal in moral value and of equal status. The phrase used to describe this is "Ontologically equal, Functionally different".
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or see "that of God in every one". Some profess a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. There are also Nontheist Quakers, whose spiritual practice does not rely on the existence of God. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa.
Christian feminism is a school of Christian theology which seeks to advance and understand the equality of men and women morally, socially, spiritually, and in leadership from a Christian perspective. Christian feminists argue that contributions by women, and an acknowledgment of women's value, are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. Christian feminists believe that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex and race, but created all humans to exist in harmony and equality, regardless of race or gender. Christian feminists generally advocate for anti-essentialism as a part of their belief system, acknowledging that gender identities do not mandate a certain set of personality traits. Their major issues include the ordination of women, biblical equality in marriage, recognition of equal spiritual and moral abilities, abortion rights, integration of gender neutral pronouns within readings of the Bible, and the search for a feminine or gender-transcendent divine. Christian feminists often draw on the teachings of other religions and ideologies in addition to biblical evidence, and other Christian based texts throughout history that advocate for women's rights.
Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an American independent scholar, writer, and freelance editor. She has authored or coauthored nine books, the most well-known of which are All We're Meant to Be and Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? Scanzoni specializes in the intersection between religion and social issues.
Christian egalitarianism, also known as biblical equality, is egalitarianism based in Christianity. Christian egalitarians believe that the Bible mandates gender equality and equal responsibilities for the family unit and the ability for women to exercise spiritual authority as clergy. In contrast to Christian complementarianists and Christian patriarchists, proponents of Christian egalitarianism argue that Bible verses often used to justify patriarchal domination in gender roles are misinterpreted. Egalitarians believe in a form of mutual submission in which all people submit to each other in relationships and institutions as a code of conduct without a need for hierarchical authority.
The roles of women in Christianity have varied since its founding. Women have played important roles in Christianity especially in marriage and in formal ministry positions within certain Christian denominations, and parachurch organizations. In 2016, it has been estimated that the female share of the World's Christian Population is between 52 and 53 percent. The Pew Research Center studied the effects of gender on religiosity throughout the world, finding that Christian women in 53 countries are generally more religious than Christian men. While Christians of both genders in African countries are equally likely to regularly attend services. In 2020, it has been estimated that the female share of the World's Christian Population is around 51.6%.
Christianity is the most prevalent religion in the United States. Estimates from 2021 suggest that of the entire U.S. population about 63% is Christian. A plurality of Christian Americans are Protestant Christians, though there are also significant numbers of American Roman Catholics and other minority Christian denominations such as Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Christians and Oriental Orthodox Christians, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world and, more specifically, the largest Protestant population in the world, with nearly 210 million Christians and, as of 2021, over 140 million people affiliated with Protestant churches, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. The Public Religion Research Institute's "2020 Census of American Religion", carried out between 2014 and 2020, showed that 70% of Americans identified as Christian during this seven-year interval. In a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, 65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians. They were 75% in 2015, 70.6% in 2014, 78% in 2012, 81.6% in 2001, and 85% in 1990. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation.
The Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus (EEWC), also known as Christian Feminism Today (CFT), is a group of evangelical Christian feminists founded in 1974. It was originally named the Evangelical Women's Caucus (EWC) because it began as a caucus within Evangelicals for Social Action, which had issued the "Chicago Declaration". Its mission is to "support, educate, and celebrate Christian feminists from many traditions." It favored passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, encourages the ordination of women, and has called for gender-inclusive language in all communications. The word ecumenical was added to the organization's name in 1990 in order "to reflect the increasingly inclusive nature and the many traditions of [the organization's] membership".
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion and creeds and the exercise of all religious rites provided that the public order is not disturbed. The Constitution declares equality of rights and duties for all citizens without discrimination or preference but establishes a balance of power among the major religious groups. The Government generally respected these rights; however restricted the constitutional provision for apportioning political offices according to religious affiliation since the National Pact agreement. There were periodic reports of tension between religious groups, attributable to competition for political power, and citizens continued to struggle with the legacy of the civil war that was fought along sectarian lines. Despite sectarian tensions caused by the competition for political power, Lebanese continued to coexist.
The Danvers Statement is a statement of the complementarian Christian view of gender roles. It is not the product of any particular Christian denomination, but has been cited by the Southwestern Baptist Seminary, the Presbyterian Church in America, and the International Council for Gender Studies. It was first published by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) in Wheaton, Illinois in November 1988. Work on the statement began with "several evangelical leaders" at a CBMW meeting in Danvers, Massachusetts in December 1987. In 1989, a paid advertisement center-spread appeared in the January 13 issue of Christianity Today accompanied with the Danvers Statement.
Catherine Clark Kroeger was an American writer, professor, New Testament scholar, and a leading figure within the biblical egalitarian movement. She founded the worldwide organization Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE), and its papers are housed at her family home. As a speaker, Kroeger traveled the globe opposing violence and the abuse of women, while also advancing the biblical basis for the shared leadership and authority of males and females.
The Equality Act is a bill in the United States Congress, that, if passed, would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit, and jury service. The Supreme Court's June 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia protects gay and transgender people in matters of employment, but not in other respects. The Bostock ruling also covered the Altitude Express and Harris Funeral Homes cases.
Lori Gail Beaman is a Canadian academic. She is a professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies of the University of Ottawa, and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Religious Diversity and Social Change. She has published work on religious diversity, religious freedom, and the intersections of religion and law. She was made a fellow of the Academy of the Arts and Humanities of the Royal Society of Canada in 2015, received an Insight Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 2017 and received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 2018.
Alvera Mickelsen was an American academic, author, and women's equality activist. Mickelsen, an evangelical Christian, spent her professional life advocating "that being a feminist is a Christian responsibility," despite resistance from some sectors. She published numerous books and scholarly articles on the topic of women's equality within Christianity. Alvera Mickelsen joined her colleagues to co-found Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) in the late 1980s, a non-profit organization of churches and individuals which advocates for the equality of women within the church, as well as in their homes and society. Additionally, Mickelsen was a longtime professor of journalism at Bethel University in Minnesota from 1968 to 1986.
