Mark Tooley

Latest by Mark Tooley in Chronicles

• Cultural Revolutions

  July 2015

  Out With the Old

  The 1.67 million member Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted to redefine marriage from “between a woman and a man” to “between two people, traditionally a man and a woman.”

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• View

  December 2009

  Fighting for Orthodoxy Among the Methodists

  The Episcopal Church, with two million members, drove off the cliff in 2003 by electing its first openly homosexual bishop. In 2005, the United Church of Christ (1.1 million members) officially endorsed same-sex “marriage,” though the UCC had already long been ordaining active homosexuals.

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• Vital Signs

  May 2008

  The Bishops’ Tale

  Last December, Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams was roundly criticized for publicly denying the Christmas story. “Archbishop Says Nativity a Legend,” the Daily Telegraph headline screamed, igniting a transatlantic controversy over the ostensibly Grinch-like prelate.

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• Reviews

  October 2007

  The Bombast and Glory of William Jennings Bryan

  For three decades, William Jennings Bryan streaked across the sky of American politics, his brightness never fading despite countless failures. Renowned for his zealous Christian faith, he appropriately expired immediately after his final and most glorious defeat, at the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925.

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• Reviews

  May 2007

  Mysteries of the Mockingbird

  Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird has sold over 30 million copies since its publication in 1960. Hardly a high-school student in America over the last 40 years has graduated without having read the 1930’s-era drama of a small-town Southern lawyer who defends an innocent black man accused of rape by a white woman.

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• Vital Signs

  April 2006

  Methodists and Sex

  The United Methodist Church, having declined from 11 to 8 million members in the United States, spent millions on a television and newspaper ad campaign called “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”

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• Vital Signs

  October 2005

  Episcopalians Go Interfaith

  An interfaith education conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Episcopal Church warned that evangelicals and evangelism are potential obstacles to positive relations between Christianity and other religions.

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• Vital Signs

  May 2005

  SpongeBob and a Transgendered Sock Puppet

  Cultural debate over sex roles has reached such a fever pitch that even the sexual preference of the children’s cartoon character SpongeBob Squarepants has become a topic of great concern.

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• Vital Signs

  September 2004

  Omnigendered Christianity

  By some measures, the influence of feminist theology peaked in the 1990’s. It is still around, however, acting as a supporting pillar for liberal religion’s latest preoccupation: the elimination of “gender.”

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• Vital Signs

  July 2004

  Mushy Ecclesial Thinking

  National headlines greeted the recent acquittal of a lesbian United Methodist minister by a church court in Washington state. Is America’s third-largest religious denomination going the way of the “gay”-friendly Episcopal Church, secular reporters wondered?

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• Vital Signs

  September 2002

  The End of the NCC?

  The declining National Council of Churches, once the mouthpiece of America’s mainline Protestant denominations, is struggling to find a new purpose. At its May 2002 board meeting, the NCC discussed its latest ecumenical outreach, an attempt to incorporate Roman Catholics and evangelicals.

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• Vital Signs

  November 2001

  Gods of Inclusion

  Although America remains overwhelmingly Christian in affiliation (if not necessarily in practice), the connoisseurs of multiculturalism like to pretend otherwise—often rather insistently.

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• Vital Signs

  June 2001

  Duke Chapel, Then and Now

  In December, the dean of the chapel at Duke University in North Carolina, along with the school's president, announced that same-sex "weddings" could be celebrated at Duke's imposing Gothic chapel.

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• Vital Signs

  May 2001

  Church Arsons: The Real Story?

  It was one of the biggest stories of 1996: Black churches were burning all across the South, the seeming victims of a nationwide upsurge in racial hatred. Tens of thousands of horrified Americans rushed to contribute money toward the reconstruction of black churches.

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• Vital Signs

  March 2001

  Debating the "Gentile Vice"

  At its annual "Ministers Week" lectures last year, the theological school of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas provided a revealing window into the contemporary debate within mainline church circles over homosexuality.

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• Vital Signs

  October 2000

  A Methodist Revival

  Methodism, America's third-largest religious denomination, eagerly embraced the Social Gospel nearly a hundred years ago. It supported labor unions, civil rights, and a moderate welfare state.

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• Vital Signs

  June 2000

  The Growing Irrelevance of the NCC

  The National Council of Churches (NCC) is the Hugh Hefner of the religious world: aging and not dealing well with it, trapped in the fashions of the 1960's and 1970's, financially troubled, and still offensive but no longer shocking

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• Vital Signs

  May 2000

  Out of the Closet and Into the Schools

  Relying upon federal legislation intended to allow Bible clubs equal access in high schools, a student homosexual group is demanding not only meeting space but official approval at a Salt Lake City high school.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  May 2000

  Fueling Culture Wars

  "Discrimination" is one of today's buzzwords, and laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation are fueling some of the sharpest skirmishes within America's culture wars.

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• Vital Signs

  December 1999

  A Postmodern Yahweh for Episcopalians

  I had expected to find a small gathering of eccentric Episcopalians in a basement lecture hall. Instead, the National Cathedral was overflowing with a Christmas Eve-sized crowd.

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