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   Making Good Islam There's something to be said for being forthright. The Opinion Journal, The Wall Street Journal's conservative op-ed pages, has long approached the "Muslim problem" by implying a distinction between "good" and "bad" Islam. Today's contributing commentator, Abdurrahman Wahid, the former... [ Continue reading: ] Christian Economics Better marriages, better savings, better tithing to build God's kingdom. Oh, yeah, and less debt too. The News Leader, in Virginia, reports on the growing field of Christian debt-management, and obtains a few vague quotes about biblical mentions of money... [ Continue reading: ] Gullah Gospel The LA Times reports on yet another folk Bible translation, somewhat in the vein of "hip hop Bibles," but this time dated back, rather than updated to appeal to "modern youth." The "Gullah Gospel," or officially, "De Nyew Testament," was... [ Continue reading: ]  "2 starships passing on opposite ends of the universe " Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, vs. Mikey Weinstein, the Air Force Academy alumn and father who's taken the lead in the fight against evangelical proselytizing at the academy. An uncensored correspondence... [ Continue reading: ] You Say Jesus, I Say Geezus! Sharlet: One of my colleagues here at The Revealer saw more virtue in Sylvia Topp's Village Voice rant about Bush's religion than I did. The awkward part is that I'd already responded to a friend at the Voice to the effect that the best I could say about the essay was nothing. But since The Revealer has now endorsed it, I'll balance the scales with a rant of my own, the note I sent my Voice friend... [ Continue reading: ] Limbo'ed Ian Fisher of The New York Times News Service, undertakes a thoughtful investigation of the Vatican's plans to remove the theory of limbo from Catholic doctrine -- a question that was discussed at this month's meeting of 30 Catholic theologians... [ Continue reading: ] Two Courts From Malaysia comes a case of conflict between civilian and Shariah courts, which tangled this week over a Hindu widow's wishes to bury her husband according to her -- and, she claimed, her late husband's -- Hindu traditions. The widow,... [ Continue reading: ] Condom Virgin The Catholics get all the good outrage. After the Piss Christ and the supermodels' Last Supper, comes artist Steve Rosenthal's condom-wrapped Virgin Mary statuette, with the cup at the end of Mary's "delicate veil of latex" arranged to replace the... [ Continue reading: ] Married White Female Concerned Women for America's top Christian Right women of 2005. [ Continue reading: ] The Post's Create-A-Crisis In response to an inflammatory report published Monday by The New York Post, which alleged that the U.S. embassy in Cairo was under investigation by the State Department for discriminating against thousands of Coptic Christian Egyptians who applied for visas,... [ Continue reading: ]  Ad Nauseum Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI; Terri Schiavo and faith-based helping after Katrina; the exploding number of church schisms over homosexuality; Intelligent Design, the Ten Commandments, Harriet Miers, the Vatican's gay ban, and Billy Graham's visit to heathen New... [ Continue reading: ] Focus at the Movies The New York Times' John Leland moves beyond the neverending Narnia/Passion stories to find another trend among conservative Christian moviegoers: they're reviewing films they once would have protested or mentioned only to condemn, such as Brokeback Mountain, with one eye... [ Continue reading: ] Bush's Jesus "So, as I read on and on about Jesus demanding that his disciples forgo any thoughts of family or wealth, plus endless examples of behavior which surely must seem wimpy to Bush if he took them literally, I realized that... [ Continue reading: ] The Zeal of the Re-Convert There's an elephant-sized religion story behind this short news item from The Times of India, which reports the re-conversion of 16 Christians in the Indian state of Orissa, who returned to their original Hinduism -- by far the predominant religion... [ Continue reading: ]  King James in Odessa The Ector County Independent School Board of Odessa, Texas, has approved the teaching of the King James version of the Bible as an elective course for high school students, picking the KJV over another curriculum option, The Bible and its... [ Continue reading: ] Christian Right Celebrates Year of Fear Concerned Women for America, a conservative outfit often represented in the media, by, uh, a man (named Robert Knight, no less), has emailed its supporters a list of 2005 accomplishments... [ Continue reading: ] Islamageddon Bartholomew's Notes on Religion uncovers the next big thing in apoco-tainment: Robert Ferrigno's Prayers for the Assassin, a new doomsday fiction for the conservative end-days crowd, that posits a divided America of 2040, cut down the middle between the Islamic... [ Continue reading: ] Stockade Life, Aceh A Sharia judge in the Indonesian province of Aceh has ordered the punishment of women who are caught not wearing headscarves, reasoning that, since the "'Koran says that if women are good, then a country is good,'" that the tsunami... [ Continue reading: ]  Another Kind of Hunger Strike Navy Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt, an evangelical Episcopal chaplain who claims that he "may be fired next month" for refusing to comply with new sensitivity guidelines about praying to Jesus during official military ceremonies, has begun a hunger strike outside the... [ Continue reading: ] Six Catholics, or Half a Dozen Communists? ACLU publishes a PDF of a recent FBI report on a Catholic Worker group in California. It reads like an old '60s Jesus freak satire: One arrestee reveals that Catholics "advocate peace and love thru [sic] prayer." The author of... [ Continue reading: ] Follow the Money The incomparable Joe Feuerherd of the National Catholic Reporter follows the money and proves that medical billing is a religion story.... [ Continue reading: ] The Theology of Domestic Spying The ongoing revelations of the Bush administration's domestic spying don't make for a religion story, but the disclosures do echo theological concerns... [ Continue reading: ]  Intelligent Design Ruling U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III has just ruled that teaching Intelligent Design in biology classes, as an alternative to evolution, is unconstitutional, violating the ban on teaching religion in public schools. In a 139-page opinion, Jones declared that... [ Continue reading: ] Back at the Camp Meanwhile, Pat Robertson is still stuck on last year's contradictory argument: deriding the beliefs of scientists as "religious" -- or "cultishly religious," in Robertson's words -- and therefore not things to be taken seriously, while simultaneously demanding respect for the... [ Continue reading: ] Nostalgia Without End "'It is kind of heartening, I think, for Christians to see this, all this outrage, all this fear at Christmastime.'" Conservative MSNBC host Tucker Carlson lauds the ability of Christianity to "'still give people the creeps'" -- his words --... [ Continue reading: ] Dorothy Day, Terrorist Turns out progressive Catholicism is alive and well. Evidence of liberal theology's efficacy comes from, of all places, the FBI, which as part of its duties in the WOT, reports The NYT, has been monitoring the Catholic Worker movement made... [ Continue reading: ]  How Far is Heaven? Barbara Walters doesn't want her afterlife special, "Heaven: Where Is It? How Do We Get There?" which airs tomorrow night, to come across like "Comp. Religion 101," but all the same, she's covered all her spiritualism-beat bases: Catholic Cardinals and... [ Continue reading: ] Tsunami Water Metaphors The Telegraph (UK) assesses the sea changes in Nam Khem, the Thai town hit hardest by last December's tsunami, almost a full year after the fact. In that time, the number of churches in the immediate area has risen from... [ Continue reading: ] Power/Puff Rings Raegan Johnson: Perhaps the style section of The New York Times is not the place to discuss the politicized aspects of sex abstinence teaching. However, Stephanie Rosenbloom’s article, "A Ring That Says No, Not Yet" about the growing use of chastity rings, points to a larger trend in American news media about covering these issues. Her piece centers on the young Christian youth that wear the thin silver rings as "placeholders" with hardly any discussion of the political religious right. [ Continue reading: ] More Deaths The Washington Post reports on a possible Republican-sponsored bill, which passed the House on Friday, which would criminalize giving assistance to illegal immigrants. If the bill becomes law, it would affect a number of non-profit and religious organizations such as... [ Continue reading: ]  Woo-Woo Christmas House passes resolution in favor of Moms and puppies. Puppy-hating Jews dissent.... [ Continue reading: ] Megachurch Liberty Megachurch pastors are apparently hurt over the mocking they've been taking in the media after coverage of the fact that many of the largest churches will be closing for Sunday, Christmas day, to allow parishioners and church volunteers to spend... [ Continue reading: ]  Vatican Open Letter Approximately 80 Italian gay clergy members have issued an open letter (translated text here) to the Vatican, protesting that their orientation has not precluded their being good priests, but rather served as their "'wealth, because it helps [them] to share... [ Continue reading: ] In the Beginning, There Were These Books "I think that Christians who see the Bible as authoritative have to make a decision about what it is they see as authoritative. Is it the original text as it was originally written? If so, that's a problem, because we... [ Continue reading: ] Permanent Interests Orthodox scholar and anthropologist Levi Sokolic delivers a diatribe against liberal Jews and the secular left -- whom he calls the "real anti-Semites" of our time -- in The Jewish Press, no doubt in response to the recent public statements... [ Continue reading: ] Letters to God Yesterday, Israeli mailmen performed their semi-annual delivery of letters to God, which, like U.S. letters to Santa, are deemed too precious too discard, and in Israel, are instead placed unopened between the stones of the Western Wall.... [ Continue reading: ]  Sister Dorothy Stang Rayfran Sales and Clodoaldo Batista, the two Brazilian men convicted of killing American nun, Sister Dorothy Stang, under orders from a group of ranchers angry about Sister Dorothy's work advocating the rights of peasant farmers, began long prison sentences (27... [ Continue reading: ] Co-Ed Convent The Times Online reports on the one-year anniversary of a group of young Franciscan nuns and monks who are living together in a mixed convent-monastery in Rome, the Franciscan Fraternity of Bethany. The liberal community, which prays, eats, performs household... [ Continue reading: ]  Emergent S3K The news of a January conference of Emergent Christians and their Jewish counterparts at Synagogue 3000 (S3K), who intend to meet to discuss ways the two groups can work together on social justice and poverty issues, sparked a blogo-battle over... [ Continue reading: ] Classics for Christians With yesterday's hearing on the motion to dismiss a case brought by Calvary Chapel Christian Schools against the University of California, over the university's refusal to accredit several of the Christian high school's courses, Mike Weiss of The San Francisco... [ Continue reading: ] Polygamy Parade "'We're coming. We are next. There's no doubt about it.'" The Washington Times takes a page from Rick Santorum's "man-on-dog" book, and then some. In a front-page Sunday story, the paper took on the pressing national issue of the "coming... [ Continue reading: ] UW Bible Study Today, the Wisconsin legislature will meet for an informational session regarding the "Bible-studies ban" controversy at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where a resident assistant was recently forbidden from hosting Bible studies in his dorm room, in accordance with a... [ Continue reading: ]  Suburb v. Suburb The Washington Post travels to Cobb County, Georgia, the Atlanta suburb with a remarkable proclivity for passing resolutions, filing lawsuits, and getting sued in the name of religious and social culture war issues du jour. This year, no surprise, it's... [ Continue reading: ]  Secular Centennial Today marks the centennial of France's legislation separating church and state: the framework for its concept of laïcité, and the act that made France the only European country to declare itself a secular entity in its constitution. The 1905 law... [ Continue reading: ] "The Reason for the Season" Two takes on the news that at least eight major megachurches have cancelled their Sunday services for Christmas day. Laurie Goodstein, of The New York Times, has the more thorough report, both for the snicker-worthy substitutes offered for worship --... [ Continue reading: ] Muslim Renaissance The meeting of leaders from 57 Muslim countries in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference ended with what some are calling a "Muslim renaissance," with attendees declaring that terrorism amounted to a "crisis"... [ Continue reading: ] Qur'anic Oaths A North Carolina judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of North Carolina and the Greensboro Muslim Syidah Mateen which asked the judge to clarify the legality of using non-Christian texts, such as the Qur'an, for oath-taking in court... [ Continue reading: ]  Dorothy Day Day For the 25th anniversary of the death of Dorothy Day, here are two tributes. One in writing, from the editors of The New York Times, who praise Day's "pacifism and cranky independence" as traits which survive her in the loosely-organized,... [ Continue reading: ] Mirecki Resignation Disturbing news from Kansas: Paul Mirecki, the University of Kansas professor who became a topic of State Congress discussion and vehement media attacks after sending an email in which he described Intelligent Design as a myth and its proponents as... [ Continue reading: ] Faith-Based Rehab A Catholic man in Detroit who pled guilty to possession of marijuana and chose to attend a Pentecostal-run rehabilitation program rather than go to prison has become an example of the downfalls of faith-based programs partnering too closely with the... [ Continue reading: ] A Happy Holidays Kind of Guy "'Bush is pulling a Clinton. I expected more from this guy.'" The Catholic League's Bill Donohue sputters over the "Happy Holidays" greeting card that the Bush family is sending out this year.... [ Continue reading: ]  Return of the "Conscience Clause" Return of the conscience clauses: an appeals court has ruled against a gay California woman suing two doctors at a fertility clinic who refused to artificially inseminate her in 1999, citing a conflict with their religious beliefs because the woman... [ Continue reading: ] Declaration of Christmas War Beyond Belief Media, under the leadership of "atheist Christian" blogger/director Brian Flemming, has announced that it will fill the much-publicized role of the anti-Christmas Grinch, dispatching guerilla "street teams" to public Christmas-themed events -- from nativity scenes to pageants --... [ Continue reading: ]  Red Crystal Red Cross, Red Crescent, Red Star of David, Red Crystal? Diplomats from 192 countries are meeting to discuss a third symbol (the Red Star of David is not officially recognized) that could be used by the International Red Cross as... [ Continue reading: ] Where's Jesus? (His n' Hers Edition) For all that religion journalism actually has improved lately, with major publications taking a genuine and intelligent interest in the role of religion in world affairs, there's still a genre of religion writing that's reliably lousy, wherein reporters approach religion... [ Continue reading: ] Kansas Chill Although University of Kansas religion professor Paul Mirecki's controversial course, "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design and Creationism," has been cancelled at the professor's own request, Republican Kansas State Representative Brenda Landwehr is unsatisfied. The course, originally named to identify... [ Continue reading: ] The Bible Game Preetom Bhattacharya: The Washington Post's Tech Gift Guide 2005 features "The Bible Game," the first major Christian videogame for the Playstation 2 and Xbox. John Gaudiosi, who wrote the review, does not judge the game for its content and acknowledges... [ Continue reading: ]  To Kill a Megachurch? An intriguing story from The Guardian about an mission-minded evangelical megachurch from Nigeria settling among the "whitest people" of Floyd, Texas -- until recently, an enclave of the Ku Klux Klan -- to build their church headquarters, complete with a... [ Continue reading: ] Return of the New York Jews Julia Duin of The Washington Times mounts the barricades in defense of the conservative Christian-conservative Jew alliance, using news of a private conference of Jewish leaders meeting in New York today to discuss the Christian right, as opportunity to highlight... [ Continue reading: ] Son of Unitarian Preacher Man A wholly religion-and-the-media story comes from The Guardian, where readers' editor Ian Mayes fends off the accusations that his paper is disparaging to and contemptuous of religion, and simultaneously, that it has lately turned from a secular paper to "the... [ Continue reading: ] O Scotia Tree Nellie Day: Charles Drummond of The Harvard Crimson reported on a unique event that encompasses an all-too-familiar controversy. The issue at hand: whether it is appropriate to rename things many traditionally associate with Christmas, such as "Christmas" parties or cards, to something more ethnically and religiously inclusive... [ Continue reading: ]  Mum’s the Word Nick Street: The Christian conservative press doesn’t have a lot to say about the recent roundup of marriage-minded gays in the United Arab Emirates. This is surprising, because the Christian conservative press usually has plenty to say about gay marriage. [ Continue reading: ] Your Black Muslim Bakery v. Booze Chip Johnson, of The San Francisco Chronicle, reports on last week's vigilante attacks on two Oakland liquor stores by a group of black, bow-tied men -- not the Nation of Islam, which condemned the attacks in a news conference --... [ Continue reading: ] Air Force Revisions Perhaps it's to be expected that Stars & Stripes, the official publication of the U.S. military, isn't eager to point out the flaws in their own official message about the controversial interim religion guidelines currently directing the prayers of Air... [ Continue reading: ]  The Buddha Boy and the Old Stone Bridge Nick Street: The American press hasn’t shown much interest in the Buddha Boy. A ring of commerce and debris has sprung up around the boy, whose mother claims he has spent the past six months in a meditative pose beneath... [ Continue reading: ] Forget Happy Holidays Sarah Price Brown: Everyone knows "happy holidays" means Merry Christmas and that the company "holiday party" is really a Christmas bash. So, why do we use these euphemisms? And why does the press go along with it, using phrases like... [ Continue reading: ] |