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A free floating commentary on culture, politics, economics, and religion based on a passionate commitment to the truth and a desire graciously to refute that which is contrary to it….
"He must hold firm to the sure word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those who contradict it."
--Titus 1:9, Revised Standard Version
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The Enlightenment-derived worldview that gave rise to the great murder ideologies of the last century remains very much alive. Its language is softer, its intentions seem kinder, and its face is friendlier. But its underlying impulse hasn’t changed -- i.e., the dream of building a society apart from God; a world where men and women might live wholly sufficient unto themselves, satisfying their needs and desires through their own ingenuity.
This vision presumes a frankly “post-Christian” world ruled by rationality, technology and good social engineering. Religion has a place in this worldview, but only as an individual lifestyle accessory. People are free to worship and believe whatever they want, so long as they keep their beliefs to themselves and do not presume to intrude their religious idiosyncrasies on the workings of government, the economy, or culture.
Now, at first hearing, this might sound like a reasonable way to organize a modern society that includes a wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural traditions, different philosophies of life and approaches to living.
But we’re immediately struck by two unpleasant details....
Read it all.
This vision presumes a frankly “post-Christian” world ruled by rationality, technology and good social engineering. Religion has a place in this worldview, but only as an individual lifestyle accessory. People are free to worship and believe whatever they want, so long as they keep their beliefs to themselves and do not presume to intrude their religious idiosyncrasies on the workings of government, the economy, or culture.
Now, at first hearing, this might sound like a reasonable way to organize a modern society that includes a wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural traditions, different philosophies of life and approaches to living.
But we’re immediately struck by two unpleasant details....
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Philosophy • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi, who holds increasing sway in the Italian economy, upset some Italians by urging conversion to Islam during a three-day visit to the predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Col. Gadhafi held a series of private meetings on Sunday and Monday with some 800 Italian women and a small group of young men organized by a hostess agency and paid for by the Libyan government.
Read it all.
Col. Gadhafi held a series of private meetings on Sunday and Monday with some 800 Italian women and a small group of young men organized by a hostess agency and paid for by the Libyan government.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Libya • Europe • Italy • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
A Presbyterian court on Friday (Aug. 27) found a retired California pastor guilty of violating church rules and her ordination vows by performing same-sex marriages while it was briefly legal in the state in 2008.
The Rev. Jane Spahr, 68, did not deny presiding at as many as 16 ceremonies, even though her denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), prohibits ministers from stating, implying or representing same-sex unions as marriages.
The Napa, Calif.-based Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of the Redwoods found Spahr guilty by a 4-2 vote, concluding she persisted in a "pattern or practice of disobedience."
Read it all.
The Rev. Jane Spahr, 68, did not deny presiding at as many as 16 ceremonies, even though her denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), prohibits ministers from stating, implying or representing same-sex unions as marriages.
The Napa, Calif.-based Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of the Redwoods found Spahr guilty by a 4-2 vote, concluding she persisted in a "pattern or practice of disobedience."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Presbyterian • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology
Pope John Paul II was seen as the great communicating pontiff, a man who went out from the Vatican to engage with the world. The message was clear and the symbolism spot on: remember him kneeling to kiss the ground when he came to the UK during the Falklands war in 1982? The present pope, Benedict XVI, could not be more different. A scholarly man who made his way as the previous pope's enforcer in the Vatican, he is not a natural communicator.
Benedict XVI's regime has seen several PR disasters: the Regensburg address in 2006, which was widely interpreted as an attack on Muslims, then the suggestion that saving humanity from homosexuality was as important as saving the rainforest, and the decision to pardon Richard Williamson, the Holocaust-denying British bishop.
Read it all.
Benedict XVI's regime has seen several PR disasters: the Regensburg address in 2006, which was widely interpreted as an attack on Muslims, then the suggestion that saving humanity from homosexuality was as important as saving the rainforest, and the decision to pardon Richard Williamson, the Holocaust-denying British bishop.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Media • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI
The independent state MP Clover Moore has moved to shore up support for her same-sex adoption bill by giving church adoption agencies the right to refuse services to gay and lesbian couples without breaching anti-discrimination laws.
Ms Moore wrote to MPs on Friday announcing she would amend the bill and reintroduce it to Parliament on Thursday.
She told the Herald she was amending the bill "in line with requests" from church adoption agencies to help ensure its passage through Parliament.
Read it all.
Ms Moore wrote to MPs on Friday announcing she would amend the bill and reintroduce it to Parliament on Thursday.
She told the Herald she was amending the bill "in line with requests" from church adoption agencies to help ensure its passage through Parliament.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Australia • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches
It was a celebration of how people of different faiths can work together for the common good. An interfaith sunrise worship service at Trinity Episcopal Church in Pass Christian recognized the impact that many religious groups have had in hurricane recovery.
Jews, Christians. Muslims and Hare Krishnas were at the sunrise worship service. All believers were welcome.
"That we all serve an awesome God," said Alice Graham, Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force. "We come to that service of God from different faith traditions. We're unified in that we serve a God that calls us all into community."
Read it all
Jews, Christians. Muslims and Hare Krishnas were at the sunrise worship service. All believers were welcome.
"That we all serve an awesome God," said Alice Graham, Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force. "We come to that service of God from different faith traditions. We're unified in that we serve a God that calls us all into community."
Read it all
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Culture-Watch • Hurricane Katrina • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations
Mosques have commemoratively been established upon the ruins or in the shells of the sacred buildings of other religions—most notably but not exclusively in Cordoba, Jerusalem, Istanbul, and India. When sited in this fashion they are monuments to victory, and the chief objection to this one is not to its existence but that it would be near the site of atrocities—not just one—closely associated with mosques because they were planned and at times celebrated in them.
Building close to Ground Zero disregards the passions, grief and preferences not only of most of the families of September 11th but, because we are all the families of September 11th, those of the American people as well, even if not the whole of the American people. If the project is to promote moderate Islam, why have its sponsors so relentlessly, without the slightest compromise, insisted upon such a sensitive and inflammatory setting? That is not moderate. It is aggressively militant.
Disregarding pleas to build it at a sufficient remove so as not to be linked to an abomination committed, widely praised, and throughout the world seldom condemned in the name of Islam, the militant proponents of the World Trade Center mosque are guilty of a poorly concealed provocation. They dare Americans to appear anti-Islamic and intolerant or just to roll over.
Read it all.
Building close to Ground Zero disregards the passions, grief and preferences not only of most of the families of September 11th but, because we are all the families of September 11th, those of the American people as well, even if not the whole of the American people. If the project is to promote moderate Islam, why have its sponsors so relentlessly, without the slightest compromise, insisted upon such a sensitive and inflammatory setting? That is not moderate. It is aggressively militant.
Disregarding pleas to build it at a sufficient remove so as not to be linked to an abomination committed, widely praised, and throughout the world seldom condemned in the name of Islam, the militant proponents of the World Trade Center mosque are guilty of a poorly concealed provocation. They dare Americans to appear anti-Islamic and intolerant or just to roll over.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • Terrorism • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
I was perilously close to becoming an agnostic—at least about certain statistics. Specifically, I really didn't know the data on Christians in China, and for a while I was not sure if anyone did. Only now, perhaps, do we have the glimmerings of an answer to one of the most pressing questions in global religion: just how many Chinese Christians are there?
This question matters enormously because of China's vast population—now over 1.3 billion—and its emerging role as a global superpower. If Christians make up even a sizable minority within that country, that could be a political fact of huge significance.
Some years ago, veteran journalist David Aikman suggested that China's Christian population was reaching critical mass and that Christianity would achieve cultural and political hegemony by 2030 or so. Writing in First Things last year, Catholic China-watcher Francesco Sisci agreed that "we are near a Constantinian moment for the Chinese Empire." If we could say confidently that China today had, say, 100 or 150 million Christian believers, that would also make the country one of the largest centers of the faith worldwide, with the potential of a still greater role in years to come.
But what can we actually say with confidence when honest and reliable authorities differ so widely on the basic numbers?
Read it all.
This question matters enormously because of China's vast population—now over 1.3 billion—and its emerging role as a global superpower. If Christians make up even a sizable minority within that country, that could be a political fact of huge significance.
Some years ago, veteran journalist David Aikman suggested that China's Christian population was reaching critical mass and that Christianity would achieve cultural and political hegemony by 2030 or so. Writing in First Things last year, Catholic China-watcher Francesco Sisci agreed that "we are near a Constantinian moment for the Chinese Empire." If we could say confidently that China today had, say, 100 or 150 million Christian believers, that would also make the country one of the largest centers of the faith worldwide, with the potential of a still greater role in years to come.
But what can we actually say with confidence when honest and reliable authorities differ so widely on the basic numbers?
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • China • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches
Nobody keeps track of how many black Orthodox Jews are in New York or across the nation, and surely it is a tiny fraction of both populations. Indeed, even the number of black Jews over all is elusive, though a 2005 book about Jewish diversity, “In Every Tongue,” cited studies suggesting that some 435,000 American Jews, or 7 percent, were black, Hispanic, Asian or American Indian.
“Everyone agrees that the numbers have grown, and they should be noticed,” said Jonathan D. Sarna of Brandeis University, a pre-eminent historian of American Jewry. “Once, there was a sense that ‘so-and-so looked Jewish.’ Today, because of conversion and intermarriage and patrilineal descent, that’s less and less true. The average synagogue looks more like America.
“Even in an Orthodox synagogue, there’s likely to be a few people who look different,” Professor Sarna said, “and everybody assumes that will grow.”
Through the Internet, younger black Orthodox Jews are coming together in ways they never could before.
Read it all.
“Everyone agrees that the numbers have grown, and they should be noticed,” said Jonathan D. Sarna of Brandeis University, a pre-eminent historian of American Jewry. “Once, there was a sense that ‘so-and-so looked Jewish.’ Today, because of conversion and intermarriage and patrilineal descent, that’s less and less true. The average synagogue looks more like America.
“Even in an Orthodox synagogue, there’s likely to be a few people who look different,” Professor Sarna said, “and everybody assumes that will grow.”
Through the Internet, younger black Orthodox Jews are coming together in ways they never could before.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Race/Race Relations • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism
Fierce fighting among some Lutherans culminated in Friday's formation of the North American Lutheran Church, the nation's newest church body. The church has strong ties to a little-known ministry in the Twin Cities and a new seminary in Brookings.
The battles have included scorching accusations of blasphemy, "devilish" behavior and the leader of a reform group declaring that last year's vote on gay clergy amounted to the biblical sign of the beast: 666.
It's not the sort of thing typically seen among Lutherans, the low-key Christians that Garrison Keillor jokes about on his radio show. They prefer to sit in back pews and project an image of grace and peace.
Read it all
The battles have included scorching accusations of blasphemy, "devilish" behavior and the leader of a reform group declaring that last year's vote on gay clergy amounted to the biblical sign of the beast: 666.
It's not the sort of thing typically seen among Lutherans, the low-key Christians that Garrison Keillor jokes about on his radio show. They prefer to sit in back pews and project an image of grace and peace.
Read it all
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)
KIM LAWTON, correspondent: About 20 minutes outside New Orleans, worshippers gather at First Baptist Church in Chalmette, the largest city in St. Bernard Parish. It’s a pretty typical Southern Baptist Sunday morning service.
REV JOHN DEE JEFFRIES (Preaching at First Baptist Church, Chalmette, Louisiana): Lord, what’s going on? Lord, why?
LAWTON: But that belies the incredible journey this congregation has made since Hurricane Katrina. More than half of the churches in St. Bernard Parish still haven’t come back, and most of them probably never will. First Baptist is not only back, but reinventing itself to help a community still struggling to recover.
Read it all
REV JOHN DEE JEFFRIES (Preaching at First Baptist Church, Chalmette, Louisiana): Lord, what’s going on? Lord, why?
LAWTON: But that belies the incredible journey this congregation has made since Hurricane Katrina. More than half of the churches in St. Bernard Parish still haven’t come back, and most of them probably never will. First Baptist is not only back, but reinventing itself to help a community still struggling to recover.
Read it all
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Pastoral Care • * Culture-Watch • Hurricane Katrina • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has long worked to bridge divisions, be they fissures between interfaith husbands and wives or political chasms separating the United States and the Muslim world.
The 61-year-old clergyman is now in the midst of a polarizing political, religious and cultural debate over plans for a multistory Islamic center that will feature a mosque, health club and theater about two blocks north of ground zero. He is one of the leaders of the Park51 project, but has largely been absent from the national debate over the implications of building a Muslim house of worship so close to where terrorists killed more than 2,700 people.
Though Rauf has said the center, which could cost more than $100 million, would serve as a space for interfaith dialogue, moderate Muslim practice and peaceful prayer, critics say it will create a base for radical, anti-American Islam. Some critics have also asked where the funding for the center might originate and whether it may come from sources linked to Muslim extremists.
Read it all.
The 61-year-old clergyman is now in the midst of a polarizing political, religious and cultural debate over plans for a multistory Islamic center that will feature a mosque, health club and theater about two blocks north of ground zero. He is one of the leaders of the Park51 project, but has largely been absent from the national debate over the implications of building a Muslim house of worship so close to where terrorists killed more than 2,700 people.
Though Rauf has said the center, which could cost more than $100 million, would serve as a space for interfaith dialogue, moderate Muslim practice and peaceful prayer, critics say it will create a base for radical, anti-American Islam. Some critics have also asked where the funding for the center might originate and whether it may come from sources linked to Muslim extremists.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
It is conventionally assumed that Greene’s faith, after flaming sky-high in The End of the Affair (a novel in which God Himself figures as an adulterous third party), burned lower in later life. In the 1968 BBC interview, Greene says that he no longer communicates or takes confession.
[Michael] Brennan modifies this received view. He teases out a persistent, subtle and often contrarian engagement with Catholicism in Greene’s thinking, even before the conversion. Greene was, he argues, idiosyncratically Manichean in his early life and was later drawn to a Liberation theology which fused his theological and Marxist impulses. Hell, Greene once said, “doesn’t make sense to me” – yet he was forever looking for it in the Congo (A Burnt-Out Case), Haiti (The Comedians) and, closer to home, the English seaside (Brighton Rock).
Catholicism, Brennan argues, supplied not so much a doctrine as the “intellectual scepticism” that drives Greene and his fiction. It manifests itself as a fascination with theological paradox – for example, that without Judas, the traitor, there would be no crucifixion and no salvation. Is he not, then, the best of the disciples?
Read it all.
[Michael] Brennan modifies this received view. He teases out a persistent, subtle and often contrarian engagement with Catholicism in Greene’s thinking, even before the conversion. Greene was, he argues, idiosyncratically Manichean in his early life and was later drawn to a Liberation theology which fused his theological and Marxist impulses. Hell, Greene once said, “doesn’t make sense to me” – yet he was forever looking for it in the Congo (A Burnt-Out Case), Haiti (The Comedians) and, closer to home, the English seaside (Brighton Rock).
Catholicism, Brennan argues, supplied not so much a doctrine as the “intellectual scepticism” that drives Greene and his fiction. It manifests itself as a fascination with theological paradox – for example, that without Judas, the traitor, there would be no crucifixion and no salvation. Is he not, then, the best of the disciples?
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
Certainly Catholic theologians have not been shy about addressing the questions that evolution raises for doctrines like original sin and the immateriality of the soul. In the 1960s, Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner re-interpreted Genesis in light of evolution, arguing that the story of Adam and Eve needed to be read metaphorically.
John Haught at Georgetown writes that the new cosmology of the expanding universe and the evolution of life require a more dynamic sense of God's role in a world that is still not complete, a work in progress. Father Denis Edwards at Flinders University in Australia treats the second person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, as a more active partner in the development of the evolving cosmos.
Whether the arguments of the theologians will move a future pope to broaden the Catholic Church's acceptance of evolution remains to be seen. So far, Pope Benedict XVI has not shown the same interest in evolution as his predecessor.
But on this 60th anniversary of "Humani Generis", Pius XII deserves credit for having the foresight to openly address the science when so many other denominations were either in deep denial or not interested in the challenge evolution poses for Christianity.
Read it all.
John Haught at Georgetown writes that the new cosmology of the expanding universe and the evolution of life require a more dynamic sense of God's role in a world that is still not complete, a work in progress. Father Denis Edwards at Flinders University in Australia treats the second person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, as a more active partner in the development of the evolving cosmos.
Whether the arguments of the theologians will move a future pope to broaden the Catholic Church's acceptance of evolution remains to be seen. So far, Pope Benedict XVI has not shown the same interest in evolution as his predecessor.
But on this 60th anniversary of "Humani Generis", Pius XII deserves credit for having the foresight to openly address the science when so many other denominations were either in deep denial or not interested in the challenge evolution poses for Christianity.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
Across the world, the bruising struggle over an Islamic center near ground zero has elicited some unexpected reactions.
For many in Europe, where much more bitter struggles have taken place over bans on facial veils in France and minarets in Switzerland, America’s fight over Park51 seems small fry, essentially a zoning spat in a culture war.
But others, especially in countries with nothing similar to the constitutional separation of church and state, find it puzzling that there is any controversy at all. In most Muslim nations, the state not only determines where mosques are built, but what the clerics inside can say.
The one constant expressed, regardless of geography, is that even though many in the United States have framed the future of the community center as a pivotal referendum on the core issues of religion, tolerance and free speech, those outside its borders see the debate as a confirmation of their pre-existing feelings about the country, whether good or bad.
Read it all.
For many in Europe, where much more bitter struggles have taken place over bans on facial veils in France and minarets in Switzerland, America’s fight over Park51 seems small fry, essentially a zoning spat in a culture war.
But others, especially in countries with nothing similar to the constitutional separation of church and state, find it puzzling that there is any controversy at all. In most Muslim nations, the state not only determines where mosques are built, but what the clerics inside can say.
The one constant expressed, regardless of geography, is that even though many in the United States have framed the future of the community center as a pivotal referendum on the core issues of religion, tolerance and free speech, those outside its borders see the debate as a confirmation of their pre-existing feelings about the country, whether good or bad.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
When John Henry Newman died in 1890, he left instructions that he should be buried with another priest, his friend Ambrose St John, and he also made it clear that he wished his body to decay.
However, in 2008 the Catholic Church opened the grave, hoping to find bones which could be venerated. But there were no human remains. His physical being is gone for good, but his writings are still important.
Two new books have appeared in the run-up to the Pope's visit next month to Birmingham to beatify him — John Cornwell’s Newman’s Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint (Continuum, £18.99 ) and Anthony Mockler’s John Henry Newman: Fighter, Convert and Cardinal (Signal Books, £9.99).
Both the authors are Catholics, but Mockler — owner of Milton Manor, near Abingdon — is quite orthodox, whereas Cornwell is a former trainee priest who has written critical biographies of two modern popes.
Read it all.
However, in 2008 the Catholic Church opened the grave, hoping to find bones which could be venerated. But there were no human remains. His physical being is gone for good, but his writings are still important.
Two new books have appeared in the run-up to the Pope's visit next month to Birmingham to beatify him — John Cornwell’s Newman’s Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint (Continuum, £18.99 ) and Anthony Mockler’s John Henry Newman: Fighter, Convert and Cardinal (Signal Books, £9.99).
Both the authors are Catholics, but Mockler — owner of Milton Manor, near Abingdon — is quite orthodox, whereas Cornwell is a former trainee priest who has written critical biographies of two modern popes.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI
Hundreds of congregations have held votes on leaving the denomination. Others have cut off funding to the national church. Bishops in Africa have condemned the actions taken by their North American counterparts. And this week disaffected members are gathering to found a new breakaway denomination.
You would be forgiven for assuming that the denomination under discussion here is Anglican, but the battleground this time is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a denomination which — at least before its controversial August 2009 vote — counted more than 4.6 million members. But while the names are different, the crisis in the ELCA is remarkably similar to that rocking North American Anglicanism.
In August 2009, the ELCA narrowly voted to affirm couples living in same-sex relationships and further opened the ministry to non-celibate homosexual clergy. Members holding a historical interpretation of Scripture were outraged. For them, the authority of Scripture — a foundational tenet of the Lutheran Reformation — was being rejected in favour of cultural relativism.
Read it all.
You would be forgiven for assuming that the denomination under discussion here is Anglican, but the battleground this time is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a denomination which — at least before its controversial August 2009 vote — counted more than 4.6 million members. But while the names are different, the crisis in the ELCA is remarkably similar to that rocking North American Anglicanism.
In August 2009, the ELCA narrowly voted to affirm couples living in same-sex relationships and further opened the ministry to non-celibate homosexual clergy. Members holding a historical interpretation of Scripture were outraged. For them, the authority of Scripture — a foundational tenet of the Lutheran Reformation — was being rejected in favour of cultural relativism.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)
Sharia in Arabic means a "way" or a "path." Muslims agree that sharia is God's law, but there is little consensus on the particulars. To some, sharia is a set of rules that are codified and unchanging. To others, it's a collection of religious principles that shift over time.
Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain leader at Georgetown University and spokesman of the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of North America, describes Muslims as being divided into two camps: "those who see sharia mandating that we live as Muslims did 1,300 years ago, and those who say sharia doesn't have a specific format as to how you live your life, that Islam gives you paradigms."
This question of how to define sharia has become a more urgent issue for Muslims around the world in recent decades as, according to some estimates, one-third live outside Muslim-majority countries for the first time in history. Scholars debate at conferences what it means for a government or a person to be "sharia-compliant."
Read it all.
Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain leader at Georgetown University and spokesman of the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of North America, describes Muslims as being divided into two camps: "those who see sharia mandating that we live as Muslims did 1,300 years ago, and those who say sharia doesn't have a specific format as to how you live your life, that Islam gives you paradigms."
This question of how to define sharia has become a more urgent issue for Muslims around the world in recent decades as, according to some estimates, one-third live outside Muslim-majority countries for the first time in history. Scholars debate at conferences what it means for a government or a person to be "sharia-compliant."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
Archbishop Timothy Dolan told parishioners during Mass on Sunday that he was saddened by a spate of suspected anti-Hispanic attacks on Staten Island that has left some Latin American immigrants fearing for their safety.
Dolan made the remarks during a Spanish-language sermon at St. Mary's of The Assumption Roman Catholic Church in the borough's Port Richmond section.
The small neighborhood is home to the majority of the borough's Mexican immigrants, who have been the targets of most of the dozen attacks since April, authorities have said. A gay Hispanic couple also was attacked in one incident.
Read it all.
Dolan made the remarks during a Spanish-language sermon at St. Mary's of The Assumption Roman Catholic Church in the borough's Port Richmond section.
The small neighborhood is home to the majority of the borough's Mexican immigrants, who have been the targets of most of the dozen attacks since April, authorities have said. A gay Hispanic couple also was attacked in one incident.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Psychology • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
A lesbian minister, who officiated at more than a dozen same-sex weddings during the brief window gay marriage was legal in California, goes to trial Thursday before a Presbyterian court, charged with violating her denomination's constitution.
The case of the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr has gained national attention because "what is being tested is the definition of marriage" in the Presbyterian faith, said the Rev. Carmen Fowler, president of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative organization that opposes same-sex marriage.
Spahr's trial, which will be held in Napa, begins less than three weeks after a federal court judge ruled that California's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. And it underscores the awkward position in which changing civil law places many clergy members.
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The case of the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr has gained national attention because "what is being tested is the definition of marriage" in the Presbyterian faith, said the Rev. Carmen Fowler, president of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative organization that opposes same-sex marriage.
Spahr's trial, which will be held in Napa, begins less than three weeks after a federal court judge ruled that California's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. And it underscores the awkward position in which changing civil law places many clergy members.
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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Presbyterian • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)
Check it out to see which film(s) and book(s) were chosen.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • * Culture-Watch • Books • Movies & Television • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Presbyterian
Communion-oriented Anglicans should be hoping that press officers in both the Vatican and Lambeth Palace stumbled across an interview given by Anglican theologian — and inspiration for the “Radical Orthodoxy” school — John Milbank to Asia News, concerning Pope Benedict and Archbishop Rowan Williams. “I think it is important that the two leaders take the opportunity to show that their agreements are far more profound than their differences,” Milbank said ahead of the forthcoming papal visit to the United Kingdom. “For they espouse a similar sort of theology: rooted in the legacy of Augustine and the recovery of authentic patristic and high medieval tradition.”
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(If you have not seen the John Milbank interview to which Brian Crowe refers you may find it there)--KSH.
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(If you have not seen the John Milbank interview to which Brian Crowe refers you may find it there)--KSH.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • * Culture-Watch • Books • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • * Theology
The most sweeping changes to the Catholic Mass in 40 years will be rolled out in 2011, the U.S. bishops announced Friday (Aug. 20) after receiving formal approval from the Vatican.
The new English-language translation of the Roman Missal, the official text of prayers and responses used in the Mass, will be implemented on Nov. 27, 2011, the first Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical year.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Vatican approval was granted on June 23, with additional changes approved on July 24.
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The new English-language translation of the Roman Missal, the official text of prayers and responses used in the Mass, will be implemented on Nov. 27, 2011, the first Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical year.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Vatican approval was granted on June 23, with additional changes approved on July 24.
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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
... 33-year-old Nashville resident [Tyler Wigg-Stevenson] has assembled a surprising corps of allies and endorsers more than twice his age and known for their hawkish ways of yore, including retired U.S. senator Sam Nunn and Reagan-era secretary of State George Shultz.
Less encouraging is the shape of the initial resistance Wigg-Stevenson often encounters as he travels around the country urging Christians to join the nuclear abolition cause — a mind-set that coaxes many believers to accept, even welcome, the imminent end of the world. As signaled by the runaway success of the Left Behind books, end-time expectations hold undeniable sway in evangelical America, which makes long-term investments in a better future seem utterly beside the point.
Thankfully, Wigg-Stevenson and many new-breed evangelicals like him are refusing the kind of end-times bait that lets believers off the hook — off the hook of inspired social action that can make their faith a powerful blessing to their society and their time.
Read it all.
Less encouraging is the shape of the initial resistance Wigg-Stevenson often encounters as he travels around the country urging Christians to join the nuclear abolition cause — a mind-set that coaxes many believers to accept, even welcome, the imminent end of the world. As signaled by the runaway success of the Left Behind books, end-time expectations hold undeniable sway in evangelical America, which makes long-term investments in a better future seem utterly beside the point.
Thankfully, Wigg-Stevenson and many new-breed evangelicals like him are refusing the kind of end-times bait that lets believers off the hook — off the hook of inspired social action that can make their faith a powerful blessing to their society and their time.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Eschatology
The 10th Parallel is the line of latitude 700 miles north of the equator. It cuts across central Africa: Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, all the way to the Philippines. More than half of the world's Muslims live along the parallel, so do most of the world's Christians.
Journalist and poet Eliza Griswold spent seven years traveling in this region of the world, a place where religious conflict intersects with the growing struggle for land, resources and political power. She examines all of this in a new book called "The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line between Christianity and Islam."
Eliza Griswold joins me now from our New York bureau. Thanks for being here.
Ms. ELIZA GRISWOLD Author, "The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line between Christianity and Islam"): Thanks for having me, Rachel.
Read or listen to it all.
Journalist and poet Eliza Griswold spent seven years traveling in this region of the world, a place where religious conflict intersects with the growing struggle for land, resources and political power. She examines all of this in a new book called "The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line between Christianity and Islam."
Eliza Griswold joins me now from our New York bureau. Thanks for being here.
Ms. ELIZA GRISWOLD Author, "The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line between Christianity and Islam"): Thanks for having me, Rachel.
Read or listen to it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations
A contributing reporter for The New Yorker, Harper's and The New York Times Magazine, Griswold is deft at interweaving historical details with her narrative. Subtitled "Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam," the book ranges from bombed-out Mogadishu suburbs in Somalia to the Jakarta, Indonesia, neighborhoods where former jihadis peddle Prophet-sanctioned medicines.
In Africa, she interviews public figures: evangelist Franklin Graham on a visit to Sudan, and Somali warlords with connections to al-Qaida.
Grisworld does some of her best reporting in Indonesia and Malaysia, where her depiction of the lives of average people caught in the cross hairs of wider geopolitical conflicts is devastating. She writes movingly of indigenous Malaysians who continue to resist conversion by both world religions, in the face of an assault to their environment and livelihoods.
For Griswold, whose father was the Episcopal bishop of Chicago, religion is personal. Yet she finds her own conflicts as someone coming from a decidedly more liberal faith tradition than the ones she encounters.
Read it all.
In Africa, she interviews public figures: evangelist Franklin Graham on a visit to Sudan, and Somali warlords with connections to al-Qaida.
Grisworld does some of her best reporting in Indonesia and Malaysia, where her depiction of the lives of average people caught in the cross hairs of wider geopolitical conflicts is devastating. She writes movingly of indigenous Malaysians who continue to resist conversion by both world religions, in the face of an assault to their environment and livelihoods.
For Griswold, whose father was the Episcopal bishop of Chicago, religion is personal. Yet she finds her own conflicts as someone coming from a decidedly more liberal faith tradition than the ones she encounters.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations
The first of six large group gatherings kicked off the four-day event with a live band, drama troupe, a "parade of Bishops," and keynote speaker — The Rev'd Canon William Cliff, Rector of The Collegiate Chapel of St. John the Evangelist at Huron University College and parish priest for Huron University College and the Anglican Community at the University of Western Ontario.
"I want scripture to come alive for you," exclaimed Cliff as he laid out three ground rules for the youth to follow for his presentations during the gathering and for when reading scripture in general. The rules included: The Gospel is always astonishing; The Gospel is never fair — "because the Gospel is about grace"; and God always acts first. "We are going to find the most unfair, grace-filled, astonishing reading in which God acts first," declared Cliff.
Read it all.
"I want scripture to come alive for you," exclaimed Cliff as he laid out three ground rules for the youth to follow for his presentations during the gathering and for when reading scripture in general. The rules included: The Gospel is always astonishing; The Gospel is never fair — "because the Gospel is about grace"; and God always acts first. "We are going to find the most unfair, grace-filled, astonishing reading in which God acts first," declared Cliff.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Teens / Youth • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran
(Make sure to view the actual cover there).
You don't have to be prejudiced against Islam to believe, as many Americans do, that the area around Ground Zero is a sacred place. But sadly, in an election season, such sentiments have been stoked into a political issue. As the debate has grown more heated, Park51, as the proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero is called, has become a litmus test for everything from private-property rights to religious tolerance. But it is plain that many of Park51's opponents are motivated by deep-seated Islamophobia.
Read it all.
You don't have to be prejudiced against Islam to believe, as many Americans do, that the area around Ground Zero is a sacred place. But sadly, in an election season, such sentiments have been stoked into a political issue. As the debate has grown more heated, Park51, as the proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero is called, has become a litmus test for everything from private-property rights to religious tolerance. But it is plain that many of Park51's opponents are motivated by deep-seated Islamophobia.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
Our Constitution may or may not be more concerned with justice than sensitivity. Interestingly, there is a portion of Scripture that addresses this. In both chapters 6 and 10 of Paul's letter, First Corinthians, he instructs his fellow Christians with this admonition: "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful." In that context, if Paul is urging Christians in a pluralistic society to be sensitive to others whose views and values may be different from theirs, he is also urging those same Christians to not be overly sensitive when their sensibilities are offended. Indeed, it is a Christian ethic that admonishes both offender and offended alike.
My life has been enriched by relationships with people different from myself, religiously or otherwise -- enough, in fact, for me to conclude that the surest way to rob any of us of our humanity is to pay too much attention to how we have been labeled. The First Amendment reflects the highest and noblest vision of our great nation. And for many of us, at least, that means we are most Christian when we understand, accept and respect those who aren't.
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My life has been enriched by relationships with people different from myself, religiously or otherwise -- enough, in fact, for me to conclude that the surest way to rob any of us of our humanity is to pay too much attention to how we have been labeled. The First Amendment reflects the highest and noblest vision of our great nation. And for many of us, at least, that means we are most Christian when we understand, accept and respect those who aren't.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
Three arguments seem to characterize the dispute over plans to build an Islamic community center on Park Place in lower Manhattan, two blocks north of the World Trade Center site: the constitutional defense, the emotional appeal and the national security claim.
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Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
An American poet and experienced journalist, the author brings to her book a sharp eye for telling details and a keen sense of place. By her own admission, she also brings personal baggage. As the daughter of Frank Griswold, the former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, she grew up a preacher's kid, deeply steeped in Christian traditions and at home with evangelicals and international proselytizers such as Billy Graham's son Franklin. But she has done her homework on Islam, and as a young woman traveling alone, she appears to have encountered no obstacles in Muslim countries that she couldn't overcome.
Admirably evenhanded, she recounts the excesses of fundamentalism on both sides. For readers more accustomed to hearing about Islamic inflexibility, she recalls the callous myopia of Christianity. "Dr. Richard Furman, the head of the World Medical Mission, the medical arm of [Franklin] Graham's organization, told me that in one of the Samaritan's Purse's African hospitals, the doctors will draw a plus or minus sign on a patient's chart to indicate whether he is an evangelical Christian. If not, his operation may be postponed until someone shares the Gospel with him lest he die without an opportunity for salvation."
Read it all.
Admirably evenhanded, she recounts the excesses of fundamentalism on both sides. For readers more accustomed to hearing about Islamic inflexibility, she recalls the callous myopia of Christianity. "Dr. Richard Furman, the head of the World Medical Mission, the medical arm of [Franklin] Graham's organization, told me that in one of the Samaritan's Purse's African hospitals, the doctors will draw a plus or minus sign on a patient's chart to indicate whether he is an evangelical Christian. If not, his operation may be postponed until someone shares the Gospel with him lest he die without an opportunity for salvation."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations
There has been a fine old ding-dong in the books pages of The Tablet, the Catholic weekly. Sir Michael Dummett, the retired Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford, has accused Professor John Haldane of St Andrews of a style of thought that is "old-fashioned and cramped".
In a review of Professor Haldane's book Reasonable Faith (Routledge, £21.99) Sir Michael declares that "a man's philosophy ought not to be controlled by his religious beliefs". He then says: "If the results of someone's philosophising appear to be coming into conflict with what he otherwise firmly believes, he ought to conclude that they cannot be correct, although he is unable at present to see where or how they have gone wrong."
That sounds very like religious belief controlling a man's philosophy....
Read it all.
In a review of Professor Haldane's book Reasonable Faith (Routledge, £21.99) Sir Michael declares that "a man's philosophy ought not to be controlled by his religious beliefs". He then says: "If the results of someone's philosophising appear to be coming into conflict with what he otherwise firmly believes, he ought to conclude that they cannot be correct, although he is unable at present to see where or how they have gone wrong."
That sounds very like religious belief controlling a man's philosophy....
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Philosophy • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Atheism
Without controversy or protests, Muslims kneel in prayer every day at a quiet Pentagon chapel, only steps away from where a hijacked airliner struck the building on September 11, 2001.
The tranquil atmosphere at the Pentagon is a stark contrast to the furor surrounding a planned mosque near Ground Zero in New York, with opponents arguing the proposed Islamic center is an insult to the memory of the 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks.
"I've been here almost four years and I've never heard of any complaints," US Army spokesman George Wright said of the regular Muslim services.
Read it all.
The tranquil atmosphere at the Pentagon is a stark contrast to the furor surrounding a planned mosque near Ground Zero in New York, with opponents arguing the proposed Islamic center is an insult to the memory of the 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks.
"I've been here almost four years and I've never heard of any complaints," US Army spokesman George Wright said of the regular Muslim services.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in New York, said Wednesday that he would gladly help mediate between the proponents and critics of an Islamic center and mosque planned for a site two blocks from ground zero.
The archbishop said that it was his “major prayer” that a compromise could be reached, and that while he had no strong feelings about the project, he might support finding a new location for the center.
Speaking during an impromptu news conference at Covenant House, a Catholic shelter in Manhattan for homeless youth, Archbishop Dolan invoked the example of Pope John Paul II, who in 1993 ordered Catholic nuns to move from their convent at the former Auschwitz death camp after protests from Jewish leaders.
“He’s the one who said, ‘Let’s keep the idea, and maybe move the address,’ ” the archbishop said. “It worked there; might work here.”
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The archbishop said that it was his “major prayer” that a compromise could be reached, and that while he had no strong feelings about the project, he might support finding a new location for the center.
Speaking during an impromptu news conference at Covenant House, a Catholic shelter in Manhattan for homeless youth, Archbishop Dolan invoked the example of Pope John Paul II, who in 1993 ordered Catholic nuns to move from their convent at the former Auschwitz death camp after protests from Jewish leaders.
“He’s the one who said, ‘Let’s keep the idea, and maybe move the address,’ ” the archbishop said. “It worked there; might work here.”
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Other Faiths • Islam
Now, Kenyans have voted after having heard what we, the Catholic Church in Kenya, and various people had to tell them. We respect the outcome of the referendum, where the larger numbers of Kenyans have voted to accept this new constitution. However, truth and right are not about numbers. We therefore, as the shepherds placed to give moral guidance to our people, still reiterate the need to address the flawed moral issues in this new Constitution. That voice will never be silenced.
We thank all the Christians and many Kenyans of good will who voted "no" in consideration of the issues raised by the Church. We also acknowledge many who voted "yes" while having serious misgivings on the moral issues contained in the constitution. We understand the many pressures that were at play at this time, and call upon you to revisit and play a crucial role in addressing these issues as we now seek to implement the Constitution and forge a way forward in the general reforms we now have to embark on.
The Church desires an authentic reform process, and will remain at the forefront to support a good Constitution and the legal reform process in this country....
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We thank all the Christians and many Kenyans of good will who voted "no" in consideration of the issues raised by the Church. We also acknowledge many who voted "yes" while having serious misgivings on the moral issues contained in the constitution. We understand the many pressures that were at play at this time, and call upon you to revisit and play a crucial role in addressing these issues as we now seek to implement the Constitution and forge a way forward in the general reforms we now have to embark on.
The Church desires an authentic reform process, and will remain at the forefront to support a good Constitution and the legal reform process in this country....
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Kenya • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
Lutherans world-wide are already buzzing about 2017, the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, commonly regarded as the starting point of the Reformation. But no one's quite sure about the right way to observe the occasion.
Should Lutherans celebrate the profound insights of a brilliant theologian into the gospel? Or should they lament the splintering of the Western church and the physical and spiritual intra-Christian wars that followed? Should Lutherans lord it over Catholics or should they apologize? Will Catholics ignore the anniversary and its significance altogether, or condemn it; or will they find a way to celebrate it too?
On top of all this, many believe, Christians are and remain in the grip of an "ecumenical winter." Despite the high hopes for church reconciliation and even reunion through most of the 20th century, the past 25 years have seen waning interest in ecumenism on the popular level, and scandal and schism consuming the churches' attention at the institutional level.
Read it all.
Should Lutherans celebrate the profound insights of a brilliant theologian into the gospel? Or should they lament the splintering of the Western church and the physical and spiritual intra-Christian wars that followed? Should Lutherans lord it over Catholics or should they apologize? Will Catholics ignore the anniversary and its significance altogether, or condemn it; or will they find a way to celebrate it too?
On top of all this, many believe, Christians are and remain in the grip of an "ecumenical winter." Despite the high hopes for church reconciliation and even reunion through most of the 20th century, the past 25 years have seen waning interest in ecumenism on the popular level, and scandal and schism consuming the churches' attention at the institutional level.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran • Roman Catholic
The Vatican's spokesman hopes that the Pope's visit to the U.K. will make known the positive contribution of the Christian faith to a widely "secularized" society. Touching on the delicacy of relations between Anglicans and Catholics, he also commented that meetings between the Pope and representatives of the Church of England during the trip are "very significant."
On Wednesday, the Vatican released the final schedule for Pope Benedict XVI's Sept. 16-19 visit to the U.K. Accompanying the announcement was a Vatican Radio interview with Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Holy See's spokesman.
The final program will see the Pope in Scotland on Sept. 16, when he will meet with Queen Elizabeth II and celebrate an outdoor Mass in Glasgow. Over the next two days of the trip, he will spend time meeting with religious leaders, the faithful and representatives of civil society in a series of gatherings and celebrations in London, England.
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On Wednesday, the Vatican released the final schedule for Pope Benedict XVI's Sept. 16-19 visit to the U.K. Accompanying the announcement was a Vatican Radio interview with Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Holy See's spokesman.
The final program will see the Pope in Scotland on Sept. 16, when he will meet with Queen Elizabeth II and celebrate an outdoor Mass in Glasgow. Over the next two days of the trip, he will spend time meeting with religious leaders, the faithful and representatives of civil society in a series of gatherings and celebrations in London, England.
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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
A Roman Catholic adoption charity's appeal to be allowed to discriminate against gay people wanting it to place children with them has been rejected.
Catholic Care wanted exemption from new anti-discrimination laws so it could limit services provided to homosexual couples on religious grounds.
The Charity Commission said gay people were suitable parents and religious views did not justify discrimination.
The Leeds-based charity said it was "very disappointed".
Read it all.
Catholic Care wanted exemption from new anti-discrimination laws so it could limit services provided to homosexual couples on religious grounds.
The Charity Commission said gay people were suitable parents and religious views did not justify discrimination.
The Leeds-based charity said it was "very disappointed".
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Children • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
After two Mexican cardinals were criticized for speaking out against the legalization of same-sex "marriage," the rest of the bishops in that country rose to the defense of free speech.
Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, archbishop of Mexico City, and Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, archbishop of Guadalajara, were accused of "intolerance" for having spoken out against same-sex "marriage" and adoptions by homosexual couples.
In response, the Conference of the Mexican Episcopate published a communiqué Tuesday, stating, "We lament that on expressing these concepts in public opinion, there are those who recriminate and threaten, warning of intolerance, when tolerance is the possibility that we all express our opinion and positions."
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Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, archbishop of Mexico City, and Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, archbishop of Guadalajara, were accused of "intolerance" for having spoken out against same-sex "marriage" and adoptions by homosexual couples.
In response, the Conference of the Mexican Episcopate published a communiqué Tuesday, stating, "We lament that on expressing these concepts in public opinion, there are those who recriminate and threaten, warning of intolerance, when tolerance is the possibility that we all express our opinion and positions."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Mexico • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic
The Baha’i International Community said the harsh prison sentences meted out against seven Iranian Baha’i leaders are an unjust punishment against innocent people and an entire religious community.
The five men and two women imprisoned were arrested in May 2008 and later charged with “spying for foreigners,” as well as “spreading corruption on Earth” and “cooperating with Israel.”
Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose Defenders of Human Rights Center represented the Baha’i defendants, said she was “stunned” by the seven- to 20-year jail terms.
“I have read their case file page-by-page, and did not find anything proving the accusations, nor did I find any document that could prove the claims of the prosecutor,” Ebadi said in an interview with the BBC.
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The five men and two women imprisoned were arrested in May 2008 and later charged with “spying for foreigners,” as well as “spreading corruption on Earth” and “cooperating with Israel.”
Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose Defenders of Human Rights Center represented the Baha’i defendants, said she was “stunned” by the seven- to 20-year jail terms.
“I have read their case file page-by-page, and did not find anything proving the accusations, nor did I find any document that could prove the claims of the prosecutor,” Ebadi said in an interview with the BBC.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Iran • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths
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