Thursday Religion News Roundup: Boycotting the elections. Eid-al-Adha. Halloween hell house

Faith ahead of politics? Partisanship above piety? The elections are less than two weeks away. Friday marks Eid-al-Adha. The theology of rape.

Can you tell the elections are less than two weeks away?

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia urges Catholics to put their faith ahead of politics when they vote. “Abortion,” he said, “requires absolute adherence on the part of Catholics.”

The Rev. Jim Ball says the presidential debates presented a “profound failure of moral leadership” because neither candidate was willing to talk about overcoming global warming. Ball is an environmental activist.


And our own David Gibson finds there are lots of Christians on both sides of the aisle who plan to boycott the elections. The cast includes both evangelicals and Catholics.

Speaking of evangelicals, some are accusing Billy Graham of putting partisanship above piety and risking Christian souls to help Romney, a Mormon, win the White House.

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A gunman entered Creflo Dollar’s World Changers Church International and began firing, killing one, police said. The shooter then fled the Atlanta megachurch in an SUV.

The Hajj pilgrimage concludes tomorrow with Eid-al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice. On this holiday, lots of meat will be donated to hungry people.

CNN examines the theology behind Republican U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s comments that pregnancies from rape are “something that God intended to happen.”

Pregnancy from rape is not “God’s will” says Susan Brooks Thistlewaite.

“Rape is rape,” says President Obama on Jay Leno last night.

Mormon missionary applications explode after the church lowered age limits for men and women.

Monks from Louisiana's  St. Joseph Abbey may sell their hand-crafted caskets, a federal appeals court rules.

In Queens, a century-old synagogue, thought to be the borough’s oldest, is meticulously restored by the Bukharan Jewish immigrants who now use it.


The interfaith roundtable launched eight years ago between Christians and Jews was in trouble well before Protestant church leaders wrote a letter to Congress calling for an investigation into Israel’s use of American military aid.

And finally, you know Halloween is around the corner when “Hell House” kits, complete with theatrical scenes of teen suicides and gay marriages gone wrong, go on sale for $299.

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