The Muslim imam behind the “ground zero mosque,” said it’s neither a mosque, nor at ground zero.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told Reuters, “We are trying to establish something that follows the YMCA concept but is not a church or a synagogue or, in this case, a mosque. We are taking that concept and adapting it to our time and the fact that we’re Muslims. It’s basically a Muslim Y.”
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Elsewhere in New York, the board of trustees of a Roman Catholic Church on Staten Island, whose members include NY Archbishop Timothy Dolan, rejected a proposal to sell a vacant convent to a Muslim organization that planned to use it as a mosque.
WaPo profiles the 20-year-old Virginian charged last week with trying to fly to Somalia and join an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group and finds that, like a lot of young men Adam Chesser tried out a variety of identities (including breakdancer and Marilyn Manson wannabe) as he searched for his true self.
Israelis set fire to a field, tried to tear down an unfinished house and attacked West Bank Palestinians on Monday, the AP reports, in apparent retaliation for authorities demolishing illegal settler buildings. <!–[if !mso]>
st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } <![endif]–> Iran’s Islamic authorities appear to be stepping up repression of Baha’is, long-maligned religious minority, advocates for the group say.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday welcomed to its clergy roster seven openly gay pastors from the San Francisco area, the first of several planned services since the denomination voted at its convention last summer to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships.
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Reuters says the Catholic Church’s failure to derail a gay marriage law in Argentina shows that the church’s influence is waning in Latin America. Chile’s president rejected a proposal by the Catholic Church to pardon elderly and sick prisoners convicted of human rights violations during the Pinochet dictatorship.
Pope Benedict XVI has granted broad powers to the archbishop selected to overhaul the scandal-scarred Legionaries of Christ. CNS has a short article on how the pope spends his summer vacation (hint: lots of reading and praying). Bus ads advocating for women’s ordination will greet the pontiff when he travels to England this September.
Speaking of Merry Ol’, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, in England for a top-level Anglican meeting, continued her charm offensive through the English-speaking provinces, preaching in London and Wales that human weakness causes us “to insist that some are not worthy of respect, that dignity doesn’t apply to the poor, or to immigrants, or to women, or Muslims, or gay and lesbian people.” No word, oddly, on whether she wore her bishop’s miter, a subject of some controversy earlier this summer.
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A popular Saudi cleric said Europe’s burqa bans are stupid, but it is permissible for Muslim women to reveal their faces in countries where the Islamic veil is banned. Malaysian Islamic authorities saysoccer uniforms with devils, crosses or skulls promote the “wrong value,” but that Manchester United jerseys should not be banned. Two Muslim women were ordered out of a swimming pool in the southern France for wearing burkinis (see a burkini pictured at top left).
Turkey has offered citizenship to Orthodox Christian archbishops from abroad to help the next election of the ecumenical patriarch, the spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox faithful, Reuters reports.
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st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } <![endif]–>Russian prosecutors have opened a criminal prosecution against the Church of Scientology on the grounds that it is promoting extremism. The D.C. Circuit Court held that appellants had not demonstrated that printing the national motto “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency is unconstitutional.
The United Methodist Church’s top judicial body will hear several appeals related to homosexuality this fall, including a pastor who would not allow an openly gay man to join his Virginia church, and New York ministers who want to marry same-sex couples.
Evolution continues to be a tricky topic among Tennessee evanglicals. French nuns won a contest to record an album for a label whose artists include Lady Gaga and the Rolling Stones.
