Monthly Archives: August 2011
Why are American churches losing the less educated?
By Tracy Gordon — August 25, 2011
CLEVELAND (RNS) Hundreds of United Methodists are meeting in Huron, Ohio, this week in an uphill bid to make their 12 million-member denomination more gay-friendly. Activists are gearing up for next year’s General Conference meeting in Tampa, Fla., where they plan to fight once again to change the church’s official position that homosexual activity is […]
Jonah, Hah!
By Mark Silk — August 25, 2011
Jonah has long been my favorite book of the Bible, so it is some (not unmixed) pleasure to discover that it is also the favorite of Harold Bloom, Yale’s preeminent literary critic. Bloom’s thoughts on the book, from his new literary appreciation of the King James Bible, appear over at the New York Review blog, […]
Quake-damaged National Cathedral faces millions in repairs
By Tracy Gordon — August 24, 2011
WASHINGTON (RNS) The iconic Washington National Cathedral, already struggling with financial problems, faces millions of dollars in repair costs from the damage inflicted by Tuesday’s (Sept. 23) East Coast earthquake. And nothing is covered by insurance, according to a church official. Clergy and a team of architects and engineers spent the day after the magnitude […]
`King Arthur’ fights the law, and the law wins
By Tracy Gordon — August 24, 2011
LONDON (RNS) A self-styled druid who likens himself to a king in ancient Britain has lost his bid to rebury a set of prehistoric human remains at a sacred pagan burial site. John Timothy Rothwell — who changed his name to King Arthur Pendragon in court documents — lost his court battle to win custody […]
WednesdayâÂ?Â?s Religion News Roundup
By David Gibson — August 24, 2011
Aftershocks in the wake of Tuesday’s East Coast temblor (a word Atlantic seaboard scribes would never miss a chance to use) tend toward the biblical rather than the geological: Ricky Twyman, founder of the Pray Without Ceasing Political Party, plans an “emergency vigil of hope” outside the White House on Wednesday at the very time […]
9/11 gives birth to new generation of assertive Muslims
By Tracy Gordon — August 24, 2011
(RNS) Under a cloud of suspicion and distrust after the 9/11 attacks, there were stories of men named Muhammad who started going by “Mo,” mosque leaders telling their flocks to lie low and women leaving their headscarves at home. And then there was Asma Mangrio. “My husband was nervous with me driving alone with my […]
After 9/11, curiosity over Islam leads to conversion
By Tracy Gordon — August 24, 2011
BOSTON (RNS) Like a lot of other people in the haze and confusion of the 9/11 attacks, Johannah Segarich asked herself: “What kind of religion is this that could inspire people to do this?” She had studied other religions, but never Islam. So she bought a copy of the Quran, wondering if her notions of […]
10 years later, Muslims divided on improving negative image
By Tracy Gordon — August 24, 2011
(RNS) After all the books, speeches, seminars, Facebook posts and mosque open houses to teach Americans about Islam in the wake of 9/11, Americans say they now know more about Islam than they did 10 years ago. The problem, pollsters say, is that Americans don’t seem to like what they’re learning. Indeed, the percentage of […]
National Cathedral suffers `significant damage’ in quake
By Tracy Gordon — August 24, 2011
(RNS) The earthquake that rumbled up the East Coast from Virginia on Tuesday (Aug. 23) “significantly damaged” the central tower of Washington National Cathedral, shaking carved stone finials from atop the iconic church. The quake also left cracks in the flying buttresses that support the cathedral, an Episcopal church that serves as a religious focal […]
On 9/11, preachers find no easy words
By Tracy Gordon — August 23, 2011
(RNS) Standing in the pulpit on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, what do you say? For clergy called upon to preach that day, which falls on a Sunday, the challenge can be connecting with a congregation that might have already moved beyond the tragedy. But in many congregations other realities will dominate: people in the […]
Vatican summons traditionalists to Rome
By Tracy Gordon — August 23, 2011
(RNS) The Vatican has summoned the head of a traditionalist group to Rome to assess the results of a two-year doctrinal dialogue between the schismatic group and the Holy See. Monsignor Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), will meet on Sept. 8 with top officials who are trying to […]
Tuesday’s Religion News Roundup
By Lauren Markoe — August 23, 2011
Ramadan helps Libyan and Syrian rebels, by encouraging the sort of thoughtful mindset it takes to carry out regime change, and providing the social gatherings rebels need to organize their government-toppling efforts, according to CNN. Sri Lanka is conducting its first census of wild elephants, and may tame some of them to work in Buddhist […]
9/11 marked crucial turn in Vatican-Muslim relations
By Tracy Gordon — August 23, 2011
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A few weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pope John Paul II invited Muslim leaders to an interfaith prayer summit in Assisi, Italy, the site of a dramatic interreligious peace gathering he had hosted 15 years earlier. In the shadow of 9/11, John Paul said, the world needed to hear from Muslims […]
COMMENTARY: Change or die: evolution is a fact of life.
By Tom Ehrich — August 23, 2011
(RNS) Institutions might think themselves eternal, but evolution is their life — and failure to evolve their death. Don’t believe in evolution? Look at churches. Better yet, look at personal computing. It took one generation — 34 years — to go from the first mass market PC to what is now called “the end of […]
Catholic Charities and the best interests of the foster child
By Mark Silk — August 23, 2011
Judge John Schmidt didn’t have to ponder very hard to decide that the state of Illinois is within its rights to terminate its orphan and foster care contracts with Catholic Charities in Southern Illinois. As he wrote, “The fact that [Catholic Charities] have contracted with the state to provide foster care and adoption services for […]
