Lesson plan

Phoenix Declaration

The Phoenix Declaration is a document prepared by the clergy group No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice in late 2002 working towards full acceptance and inclusion of LGBT people within Christianity and the world at large. It was released in conjunction with a keynote address by Bishop John Shelby Spong in January 2003. Collecting signatures online, and in public, ecumenical gatherings, over 160 Arizona clergy signed on in solidarity. Almost immediately, an opposition group posted the counter-statement, "Courage, Clarity, and Charity: A Phoenix Declaration," aimed at defending "the integrity of God's word" and opposed to "those people and groups who are attempting to subvert the Bible's clear teaching on sexual ethics, particularly homosexuality." The Declaration continued to create controversy through 2008 in the Phoenix Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, in part because of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted's order for nine priests to remove their names from the document.

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Article summary

The Phoenix Declaration is a document prepared by the clergy group No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice in late 2002 working towards full acceptance and inclusion of LGBT people within Christianity and the world at large. It was released in conjunction with a keynote address by Bishop John Shelby Spong in January 2003. Collecting signatures online, and in public, ecumenical gatherings, over 160 Arizona clergy signed on in solidarity. Almost immediately, an opposition group posted the counter-statement, "Courage, Clarity, and Charity: A Phoenix Declaration," aimed at defending "the integrity of God's word" and opposed to "those people and groups who are attempting to subvert the Bible's clear teaching on sexual ethics, particularly homosexuality." The Declaration continued to create controversy through 2008 in the Phoenix Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, in part because of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted's order for nine priests to remove their names from the document.

Key claims

  1. release date: 2003 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the release date is "2003". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  4. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1326089970

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.