Next comes DeAne Lagerquist’s account of how Pastor Inqvist and the rest of the ELCA crowd managed to open their doors to partnered gay pastors with a minimum of fuss and muss. By contrast, the Vatican’s outreach to Anglicans went less smoothly, as William Portier shows in “Angling for Anglicans.” Meanwhile, over in the None zone, Thea Button explores the current mano-a-mano among unbelievers in “The Fighting Atheists.”

Remember the Swiss anti-minaret referendum? Home-grown religion scholar Jean-Francois Mayer explains how it happened. For the back story on President Obama’s recent dance with the Dalai Lama, Alexander Salvato describes “China’s Lama Obsession.” Finally, while you may have read Laurie Goodstein’s recent NYT article on defections from the Church of L. Ron, Christine McMorris puts it in context in “Scientology’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year.” Knock yourself out.