Reaction continues to pour in after the Anti-Defamation League, one of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations, came out against the proposed mosque near ground zero in NYC.
Religion scholar Stephen Prothero says the ADL has lost the moral high ground; Peter Beinart says the group has betrayed its founding principles. Scholar Mark Silk plays the hyprocrisy card, arguing that the ADL would likely not oppose building a Jewish community center near the site of violence perpetrated by Jews in Israel.
German officials say a small but growing number of young Muslims, inspired by online videos, are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakinstan to join al-Qaida. Nine influential American Muslim scholars made their own YouTube video to repudiate militants’ messages.
As almost everyone notes, a Reform rabbi and United Methodist minister married Chelsea Clinton and Mark Mezvinksy on Saturday in New York. The Forward has a personal reflection on the rabbi behind “the most high-profile inter-faith ceremony in American history”; the Reading (Pa.) Eagle profiles the Methodist minister (and Reading native) who co-officiated.
The AP catches up with some Lutherans leaving the ELCA, 15 Anglican bishops say some of them are defecting to join the Roman Catholic Church, and a growing number of health experts say clergy should take more vacations. Focus on the Family is laying off more employees, no details yet on how many.
A few weeks after Native Americans were barred from traveling to an international lacrosse tournament, the AP has a really interesting piece on the Iroquois Confederacy — why they do not use American passports, and how lacrosse is a sacred game to them.
Four people were killed and about 30 wounded in continuing clashes between government troops and Muslims protesting Indian rule of Kashmir. A bus carrying Hindu pilgrims en route to the Ganges River to gather sacred water plunged off a cliff, killing at least 20 people.
A Louisiana school district may “take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation,” by teaching Creationism in public schools. Maryland officials say a Jewish group should prove that their Torahs were saved from the Holocaust before selling them as such.
The United Church of Christ has launched a campaign to attract vampire novelist Anne Rice, who announced that she was fed up with Christianity last week. The New York Times catches up with the lesser-known Hitchens brother, an ardent Christian.
The Malaysian American-idol-type search for a hip Muslim leader has found its man. Poland wants to boost tourism by celebrating murderous 14th-century Christian knights. Israel wants the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to pay its water bills. Rastafarians in LA want to dispense pot in their temple.
