It hit me the other day: With my mother’s death, I am now the senior woman in my family. In Native cultures, that is a massive deal. Aunties are all-powerful, they are the wise women, the matriarchs who carry traditions forward.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, three members of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, were arrested for their part in a maskless Psalm Sing. The service, organized by church leaders, was held outside, downtown and video of the arrests later went viral on social media.

The Edina Community Lutheran Church in Minneapolis created a stir recently by posting part of a Pride Month service that featured a radically modernized take on the faith passed down through the ages — the Sparkle Creed.

In the week following the vandalism, Heywood describes an outpouring of community support, including from activists, nonprofits, and other religious institutions. An anonymous donor replaced the stolen flags, and folks from all over donated funds to a campaign to help the church purchase security cameras. But, something was missing: the support and official condemnation of the act from officials at the City of Spokane Valley. 

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Much ink and many pixels were devoted to the SBC’s debates on women in ministry, but people looked the other way as women preached at other Baptist gatherings. If women preaching at Baptist meetings isn’t newsworthy, then neither is a debate about them.