The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has become the latest Christian denomination to spawn a breakaway church over differing interpretations of homosexuality, the Associated Press is reporting.

Leaders of Lutheran CORE, which opposed the decision of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination in August to welcome gay clergy, told reporters on Wednesday that they planned form an alternate Lutheran church body.

Lutheran CORE members believe the Bible condemns homosexuality. Other Lutherans, and Christians in other denonimations, have called for what some describe as a more inclusive reading of scripture.

Lutheran CORE leaders said they had heard from like-minded Lutherans and congregations from around the country, the AP reports. They said they didn't know how many ELCA congregations might join the new denomination, which they hope to start by August 2010.

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A federal judge has ruled that South Carolina can't issue license plates showing the image of a cross in front of a stained glass window along with the phrase "I Believe,” the Associated Press is reporting.

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled Tuesday that the license violated the First Amendment ban on establishment of religion by government.

Within hours, a private Christian group said the ruling doesn't stand in the way of its "Plan B" to get a similar plate issued using a state law that permits private groups to issue tags they design, according to the AP.

The fight over the plates started shortly after Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer helped push the legislation through in 2008, the AP reports. Groups including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee challenged the state's ability to put a religious message on a state license tag.

Read the rest of the story.

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The New York Times has an interesting story this week about the apparently growing belief in creationism across the Muslim world. Kenneth Chang writes:

For many Muslims, even evolution and the notion that life flourished without the intervening hand of Allah is largely compatible with their religion. What many find unacceptable is human evolution, the idea that humans evolved from primitive primates. The Koran states that Allah created Adam, the first man, separately out of clay.

Pervez A. Hoodbhoy, a prominent atomic physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Pakistan, said that when he gave lectures covering the sweep of cosmological history from the Big Bang to the evolution of life on Earth, the audience listened without objection to most of it. “Everything is O.K. until the apes stand up,” Dr. Hoodbhoy said.

Mentioning human evolution led to near riots, and he had to be escorted out. “That’s the one thing that will never be possible to bridge,” he said. “Your lineage is what determines your worth.”

Participants in a conference last month at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., said the rejection of evolution appears to be growing.

Chang quotes Truman State Univesity physicist Taner Edis as saying that he never encountered creationist undertones when he was growing up in Turkey in the 1970s: “I first noticed creationism when I came to America for graduate school,” he said.

Continue reading "Academics see rise of Muslim creationism" »

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We have been thinking of reading “Life After Death: The Evidence,” the new book by conservative pundit-turned-Christian apologist Dinesh D’Souza, which hit our desk last week. Now we come across Jerry Adler’s heartbreaking essay in the current issue of Newsweek, which may be summed up as: Don’t bother.

Adler opens with a scene from last spring, when he opened the front door of his Brooklyn home to find an Eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly on the steps. It was three months after the death of his son.

The butterfly, with its otherworldly beauty and silence, is, of course, a common metaphor for the soul. Its emergence from entombment as a chrysalis may have inspired ideas about human resurrection. In the newsletter of the Compassionate Friends, a support group for bereaved parents, the sudden appearance of butterflies (and birds, cloud formations, and particular songs on the radio) is sometimes cited as evidence of communication from beyond the grave. So let me be clear about where I stand: not only do I not believe it, but I can't understand why anyone would take comfort from it. I would hate to think of Max, with his fierce intelligence and tenacity, reduced to sending mute signals by way of insects.

Adler groups D’Souza’s book with mathematician David Berlinski's "The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions," physicist Frank J. Tripler's "The Physics of Christianity," and National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins' "The Language of God" as constituting an attempt by believeers to confront the new atherism of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens et al "on its own intellectual turf, without benefit of scripture or revelation."

In the case of D'Souza, at least, Adler is skeptical of the result.

The "evidence," of necessity, is indirect: D'Souza doesn't claim to have communicated with anyone who has died, and he doesn't expect to. Instead, he looks to the human heart, and finds therein a universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity that appear to run counter to the Darwinian imperative to outcompete thy neighbor. This is a time-honored argument for the existence of a God who created human beings in his image and imbued them with a moral sense, as well as the free will to follow, or ignore, it. Berlinski uses the argument in his book, and Collins credits it with turning him from atheism to evangelical Christianity. (D'Souza acknowledges that the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has offered an evolutionary explanation for human goodness, but he doesn't buy it.) In a Jesuitical display that does credit to his reputation as "an Indian William F. Buckley Jr.," D'Souza turns to his advantage one of the atheists' favorite arguments, God's apparent tolerance for human suffering. Precisely because evil so often goes unpunished in this world, he asserts, the moral code must reflect another reality, in which souls are judged, punished, or rewarded after death. "The postulate of an afterlife enables us to make sense of this life," he writes. It worked for Dante, didn't it?

Continue reading "D'Souza argues for evidence of afterlife" »

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The last time our friend Christopher J. Doucot spoke at an Episcopal church was in 2004. He had just returned from Iraq, and gave what he describes as a “somewhat forceful sermon” critical of the U.S.-led invasion there.

A graduate of Yale Divinity School, a founding member of the Hartford Catholic Worker, and an instructor in sociology at Central Connecticut State University, Chris was told to keep it upbeat on Sunday -- All Saints' Day -- when he is scheduled to speak at St. James Episcopal Church in West Hartford, Conn.

When I was a kid, my understanding of the saints was that they were something like the cartoon superheroes I watched on Saturday mornings. They could fly, endure great suffering, go years without eating and heal people by praying over them. They were not real people.

As I got older, I began to see various athletes from Boston's professional sports teams as saintly – if not saints in the making. Carl Yaztremski of the Red Sox was the patron of the lost cause who never gave up. Terry O'Reilly of the Boston Bruins was the defender of the meek. He spent hours in the penalty box for busting the noses of any player from the opposing team who got in Wayne Cashman's way. Unfortunately, O'Reilly didn't confine his bellicosity to the ice. Once, in 1979, he climbed into the stands of Madison Square Garden to beat a New York Ragners fan with his own shoe.

Continue reading "Guest post: The vision of the saints" »

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We noted yesterday that the Council on American-Islamic Relations was condemning a shooting at an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Los Angeles. Now the most vocal of the Muslim advocacy groups is demanding that HBO apologize for an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which the main character inadvertently splatters urine on a painting of Jesus.

That puts CAIR in the unusual position of seconding Bill Donohue’s Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which condemned the episode earlier in the week. Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, but do not believe, as Christians do, that he was the incarnation of God.

“It is beyond tasteless to insult the religious sensibilities of billions of people in America and around the world with such a cheap and vulgar publicity stunt,” CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad wrote in a letter to HBO CEO Bill Nelson. “Jesus, peace be upon him, is loved and revered by both Christians and Muslims. Muslims view him as one of God's greatest messengers to mankind.

“The Quran, Islam’s revealed text, states: ‘Behold! The angels said: ‘O Mary! God gives you glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and in (the company of) those nearest to God.’’ (The Holy Quran, 3:45)

“The Prophet Muhammad said: ‘Both in this world and in the hereafter, I am the nearest of all people to Jesus, the son of Mary. The prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different, but their religion is one.’

Continue reading "CAIR now siding with Catholic League" »

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Over at Religion News Service, Greg Warner has an interesting story on the rare but real problem of clergy suicide.

According to Warner, the September death of the Rev. David Treadway, pastor of Sandy Ridge Baptist Church in Hickory, N.C., was at least the fourth suicide among clergy in the Carolinas in the last four years. He writes:

Those who counsel pastors say Christian culture, especially Southern evangelicalism, creates the perfect environment for depression. Pastors suffer in silence, unwilling or unable to seek help or even talk about it. Sometimes they leave the ministry. Occasionally the result is the unthinkable. ...

Being a pastor—a high-profile, high-stress job with nearly impossible expectations for success—can send one down the road to depression, according to pastoral counselors.

“We set the bar so high that most pastors can’t achieve that,” said H.B. London, vice president for pastoral ministries at Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, Colo. “And because most pastors are people-pleasers, they get frustrated and feel they can’t live up to that.”

When pastors fail to live up to demands imposed by themselves or others they often “turn their frustration back on themselves,” leading to self-doubt and to feelings of failure and hopelessness, said Fred Smoot, executive director of Emory Clergy Care in Duluth, Ga., which provides pastoral care to 1,200 United Methodist ministers in Georgia.

Warner quotes Matthew Stanford, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, as saying it's likely that a quarter of all pastors are depressed.

Read the rest of the story at religionnews.com.

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Over at Read Street, the Baltimore Sun books blog, they're giving away a copy of The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb.

The jacket copy describes the anatomically comprehensive work by the underground comic artist as "THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE GRAPHICALLY DEPICTED! NOTHING LEFT OUT!" And there's a warning on the cover: "ADULT SUPERVISION RECOMMENDED FOR MINORS."

Sun colleague Nancy Johnston says: "It's gorgeous, graphic and much more seriously handled than you might expect from the irreverent Crumb." Details on how to win are at Read Street.

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Categories: Christianity, Culture, Interfaith, Islam, Judaism, People
        

A multi-year study hosted by the University of Maryland and including several area groups concludes that faith-based organizations can better weather an economic downturn by building stronger ties with the ministries the congregations that support them.

From a release issued on Thursday:

Particularly during an economic downturn, faith-based organizations tied only to one or two congregations, especially if those were not thriving congregations, had the most trouble raising resources and some shut down. While single-congregation support of a program might be considered more authentic, faith-based organizations supported by a wider umbrella or an interfaith base fared better.

“We compared everything from small food pantries directly connected to a congregation to national hospital systems and their local affiliated hospitals,” said Maryland Associate Professor Jo Anne Schneider, who led the project. “Congregation-focused models work well for mainline Protestants, Quakers and African American churches, but only if several congregations provide support or the sponsoring congregation is sufficiently active with enough resources to support the nonprofit. Jewish and Catholic systems rely on their communities as a whole with the Jewish Federation, Archdiocese, or Order providing centralized support. Some thriving evangelical organizations rely on networks with no formal connections to congregations.”

Other key findings of the report, entitled “Faith and Organization Project: Maintaining Vital Between Faith Communities and their Organizations:”

* A new breed of evangelical organizations has emerged with a different understanding about how to develop an organization to do a specific mission that is firmly based in a particular set of beliefs but that focuses on personal relationships to provide services rather than sharing their faith as a means to improve the lives of those served.

Continue reading "UMD study stresses ties for faith-based ministries" »

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Which religious denomination has the best slogan? According to a vote of nonprofit professionals, it's the United Methodist Church.

The United Methodists took home the 2009 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award in the category of Religion & Spiritual Development with an eight-year-old slogan: "Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors."

From the award citation:

The work of religious organizations often operates on several planes at once — a challenge for any organization and its messaging. Here, The United Methodist Church delivers a tagline trinity that supports its applied faith mission and is warm, enthusiastic and embracing.

“Our tagline embodies who we are as United Methodists,” the Rev. Larry Hollon, chief executive of the communications agency responsible for overseeing the advertising ministry for the 11.5 million-member denomination, said in a statement. “The characteristics it celebrates are perceived positively by the people we are trying to reach.”

Among the other winners were "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste®," the 38-year-old slogan of the United Negro College Fund, and "Nothing Stops A Bullet Like A Job," the tagline for Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries.

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Pope Benedict XVI has created a new church structure for Anglicans who want to join the Catholic Church, responding to the disillusionment of some Anglicans over the ordination of women and the election of openly gay bishops, the Associated Press is reporting.

The new provision will allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while maintaining their Anglican identity and many of their liturgical traditions, Cardinal William Levada, the Vatican's chief doctrinal official, told a news conference in Vatican City.

The move comes weeks after 10 of 12 Episcopalian nuns and their chaplain at a Catonsville convent left their church en masse to become Roman Catholic, citing the stability of church teaching and the unananimity of its leaders on social issues as factors.

From the Associated Press:

The new church structure, called Personal Ordinariates, will be units of faithful within the local Catholic Church headed by former Anglican prelates who will provide spiritual care for Anglicans who wish to become Catholic.

"Those Anglicans who have approached the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church," Levada said. "At the same time, they have told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality and worship for their faith journey."

Levada said the new canonical structure is a response to the many requests that have come to the Vatican over the years from Anglicans who have become increasingly disillusioned with the ordination of women, the election of openly gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions in the 77-million strong Anglican Communion. He declined to give figures on the number of requests that have come to the Vatican, or on the anticipated number of Anglicans who might take advantage of the new structure.

Continue reading "Catholic church makes it easier for Anglicans to join" »

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We wrote several weeks ago about plans by a Korean-American congregation in Silver Spring to build a large new church straddling the Frederick and Montgomery county line, as a way of discussing the opposition that seems always to rise up against such projects.

The Frederick County Planning Commisison now has rejected the proposal by the Global Mission Church, a 30-year-old Baptist congregation. From the Associated Press:

Panel members denied the project on a 6-1 vote Wednesday after questioning whether a planned well and septic system were enough for the nearly 1,200-seat Global Mission Church, its 60 meeting rooms and 500-seat dining hall.

An attorney for the Silver Spring-based church is calling the decision unreasonable. The church could appeal to the county's zoning appeals board.

Attorney David Severn also says he's concerned about commission chairwoman Catherine Forrence's comment that the county should consider limiting the size and scope of places of worship on agricultural land.

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President Barack Obama and his family attended a worship service Sunday at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, their third visit to the historic congregation across Lafayette Square from the White House.

According to the Associated Press, Obama, first lady Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia listened to a sermon about how Christianity has consequences.

During the sermon, seminarian Mike Angell told the parishioners that the consequences vary, whether it's making a hard decision at work or deciding to give more time to God. But he added that they don't face these consequences alone. "We are given each other as a source of boldness," he said.

Obama also worshipped at the church on Inauguration Day and Easter. St. John's has been a popular choice among presidents, including George W. Bush, because it is close to the White House and familiar to the Secret Service.

Washington churches have competed for Obama's attention since his election. He quit his last church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, during the presidential campaign last year after the circulation of controversial sermons by its former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Photo by Getty Images

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The National Association of Evangelicals is urging Congress to approve reforms to immigration laws, the Associated Press is reporting.

The NAE, seen as representing younger and more politically moderate faith leaders, ignited a controversy within the Evangelical community a couple of years back when its chief lobbyist said it would endorse a statement calling for action on climate change.

Now the group, which represents 40 Christian denominations, passed a resolution Thursday recommending changes to the law that would help undocumented immigrants eventually gain legal status.

The resolution was passed unanimously by the group's board of directors, which called on lawmakers to place a high priority on reuniting families. Association president Leith Anderson said the process for legal immigration to the U.S. is antiquated, bureaucratic and needs to change.

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I've been away the last couple of days, and will be back to posting full-time on Thursday. In the meantime, we did have a couple of stories in the newspaper on Sunday that you might have missed.

In the first, a Muslim scholar told a Baltimore conference on Saturday that the use of Islam to justify killing is "an innovation" in the religion, and added: "Most innovations lead to hellfire."

"The Satan always has people that he will be able to deceive," Dr. Waleed Basyouni told hundreds at Ilm Fest 2009, an Islamic education conference making its first appearance in Baltimore. "The good news," he said during a presentation he called "Reclaiming Islam from the Jihadists," is that "the nature of the Muslim community is to fight terrorism. The nature of the Muslim community is to reject extremism."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

In the second, we reviewed preparations for H1N1 among different faith congregations. We were interested in the comments of the Rev. John Kingsbury, pastor of St. Mary's in Annapolis. He had taken precautions against the spread of the virus during Mass, but worried that the spiritual impact of the pandemic "has yet to be faced,"

"There will be less, probably, Communions to hospitals," he said. "I'm guessing the hospitals will begin to become stricter with people visiting if things become more serious.

"People dealing with mass suffering -- by which I mean, a lot of people sick -- are going to want spiritual comfort at the very time that it's going to be the most difficult to give it."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Adherents of the world's major religions are urging political leaders, businessmen and individuals to renounce short-term gains and greed, telling a U.N. climate conference in Bangkok that reversing global warming is a moral duty, the Associated Press reports.

"Stewardship and reverence for creation are central tenants of all faiths on Earth," said the Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change, endorsed by prominent adherents of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism and handed to U.N.Climate Chief Yvo de Boer on Wednesday.

The declaration came as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned that global waming could cut food production in poor countries by 21 per cent by 2050, and the Asian Development Bank said it could lead to a surge of migration into the region's already crowded cities.

"The food and energy security of every Asian is threatened by climate change, but it's the poor - and especially poor women - who are most vulnerable and most likely to migrate as a consequence," Asian Developlment Bank Vice Pesident Ursula Schaefer Preuss said in a statement.

Negotiators from around the world at the two-week conference are working on a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. They are working on an agreement for a major climate forum in Copenhagen in December.

Religious leaders chastised governments for placing national advantage ahead of preserving the human species and negotiators for lacking a sense of urgency.

Continue reading "Faith leaders urge U.N. action on climate change" »

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Robert Barnes has a story on the cover of Tuesday's Washington Post about a World War I memorial cross on federal land in California's Mojave National Preserve that will give the Superme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. its first major opportunity to interpret the constitutional separation of church and state.

The piece begins:

It would be easy to miss among the yucca and Joshua trees of this vast place -- a small plywood box, set back from a gentle curve in a lonesome desert road. It looks like nothing so much as a miniature billboard without a message.

But inside the box is a 6 1/2 -foot white cross, built to honor the war dead of World War I. And because its perch on a prominent outcropping of rock is on federal land, it has been judged to be an unconstitutional display of government favoritism of one religion over another.

Barnes goes on to describe what's at stake:

If the court reaches the constitutional issues at hand, all sides agree it could provide clarity to the court's blurry rules on church-and-state separations. It could also carry important implications for the fate of war memorials around the country that feature religious imagery -- the Argonne Cross in Arlington National Cemetery, for instance, or the Memorial Peace Cross in Bladensburg.

Defenders of the cross include veterans groups and the federal government. In an effort to protect it, Congress has designated the site as the country's only official memorial to the nation's World War I dead, which, as Barnes points out, elevates it to an exclusive group of national treasures that inlcudes the Washington Monument and Mount Rushmore.

Critics include Jewish and Muslim veterans and the American Civil Liberties Union, which says the congressional action "necessarily will reflect continued government association with the preeminent symbol of Christianity."

Read the story at washingtonpost.com.

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The Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies has announced what look to be several strong programs in October, including a local appearance by the renowned scholar of early Christianity Dr. Paula Fredrikson.

Fredrikson, the author most recently of “Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism,” will deliver the 2009 Bernard Manekin Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 15 at Chizuk Amuno Congregation, 8100 Stevenson Road, Baltimore. Her topic: “God Was Not Odd To Choose the Jews: Augustine on the Jewishness of Jesus.” The event is free and open to the public; those interested in attending are asked to call 410-494-7161 to reserve seats.

Beth El Congregation Senior Rabbi Steven Schwartz and Dr. Christopher Leighton, executive director of the Institute of Christian & Jewish Studies, will present “Finding God as Jews and Christians” at 8 p.m. Oct. 8 at Beth El Congregation, 8101 Park Heights Ave., Baltimore. Again, free and open to the public; RSVP to 410-484-0411.

A succession of Jewish, Christian and Muslim clergy will present “Children of Abraham in the 21st Century” at 7 p.m. Wednesdays in October at St. James Episcopal Church, 1020 W. Lafayette Ave., Baltimore. According to the Institute’s Web site, Schwartz, Dr. Rosann M. Catalano and Imam Sulayman Nyang will discuss “what makes us more similar than different.”

Dinner, at a cost of $5, is served at 6 p.m.; lectures begin at 7 p.m. RSVP with the St. James Episcopal Church office at 410-523-4588.

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The Dalai Lama says his visit to the site where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated was sad but also inspirational, the Associated Press is reporting.

In Memphis on Wednesday to receive the International Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum, the Tibet spiritual leader toured the site with the Rev. Samuel Kyles, who was with King when he was gunned down, and Museum Board Chairman Benjamin L. Hooks.

The Dalai Lama draped a white shawl over a wreath that hangs over the balcony that marks the spot where King was standing when he was shot in 1968.

 Associated Press photos

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the presidential poll at a Washington gathering of largely Christian conservatives over the weekend, far outpacing former Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and other potential aspirants to the White House in 2012.

Huckabee took more than 28 percent of the vote in the Value Voters Summit Straw Poll, according to results released by the sponsoring Family Research Council. The next four contenders, each with about 12 percent of the vote, were Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Palin and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. Finishing in single digits were former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. All are Republicans.

“[Huckabee] is well-oiled,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told The Hill. “He came back with a strong message and I don’t think he missed a beat from the presidential campaign last year.”

Also at the event, the Family Research Council said announced a hit list of 16 congressional Democrats it plans to target in 2010, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Rep. John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania.

Continue reading "They heart Huckabee" »

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 In 1966, Time religion editor John T. Elson posed the question that gave the magazine its bestselling issue since World War II, and still reverberates through popular debate more than 40 years later:

Is God Dead?

The Canadian journalist, whom former Time managing editor Jim Kelly described to The New York Times as “catholic with a capital C and a small c in his interests,” has himself died. He was 78.

Elson’s story, in the words of Times obituary writer William Grimes, “remains a signpost of the 1960s, testimony to the wrenching social changes transforming the United States.”

Entitled “Toward a Hidden God,” the story – which was the result, Grimes writes, of a yearlong effort involving 30 correspondents and 300 interviews – begins with the question.

Is God dead? It is a question that tantalizes both believers, who perhaps secretly fear that he is, and atheists, who possibly suspect that the answer is no.

Is God dead? The three words represent a summons to reflect on the meaning of existence. No longer is the question the taunting jest of skeptics for whom unbelief is the test of wisdom and for whom Nietzsche is the prophet who gave the right answer a century ago. Even within Christianity, now confidently renewing itself in spirit as well as form, a small band of radical theologians has seriously argued that the churches must accept the fact of God's death, and get along without him. How does the issue differ from the age-old assertion that God does not and never did exist? Nietzsche's thesis was that striving, self-centered man had killed God, and that settled that. The current death-of-God group* believes that God is indeed absolutely dead, but proposes to carry on and write a theology without theos, without God. Less radical Christian thinkers hold that at the very least God in the image of man, God sitting in heaven, is dead, and—in the central task of religion today—they seek to imagine and define a God who can touch men's emotions and engage men's minds.

Continue reading "Is God Dead? writer dead" »

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Days after the shooting death of anti-abortion activist James Pouillon, some abortion opponents are asking why abortion rights supporters haven’t condemned the slaying.

Harlan Drake has been charged in the deaths of Pouillon, a 63-year-old retired autoworker who was known locally for wielding signs depicting aborted fetuses, and another man Friday in Owosso, Mich. Police say Drake, 33, intended also to kill a third man.

According to the Associated Press, prosecutors say Drake had been irritated by Pouillon’s protests, but police have said little about what might have led Drake to kill, other than that he had a grudge against the men.

President Barack Obama condemned the killing on Sunday. But over at Politics Daily, Jeffrey Weiss finds Obama’s comment to be too little, too late, and wonders about the silence of other supporters of abortion rights.

He compares the relative quiet to the reaction that followed the killing in May of Dr. George Tiller, the Wichita physician long targeted for performing abortions, allegedly by an anti-abortion activist.

The day that Dr. Tiller was killed, I was easily able to cull a series of condemnations from my e-box from individuals and organizations opposed to abortion …

Those who made statements included Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; the president and board of directors of Catholics for Choice; Interfaith Alliance Board Chair the Rev. Dr. Galen Guengerich; and Operation Rescue.

The suspect in Dr. Tiller's murder has been linked to some more extreme anti-abortion organizations, but not to any of the groups I just cited. Nonetheless, they felt some moral imperative to condemn the killing. And even if you think the statements were pro forma, the statements were quickly made.

Continue reading "Why the silence on Pouillon killing?" »

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A week after Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress, faith leaders will gather in Washington on Tuesday to pray for an “end to hateful rhetoric that creates a toxic environment for immigrant families.”

Participating in the vigil outside the Capitol will be Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, who chairs the Committee on Immigration of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Bishop Prince Singh of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, N.Y.; Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and Dale Schwartz of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

They are to be joined by Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

From the release:

On September 15th and 16th, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) – a designated Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – will be in Washington for their annual lobby day and “radio row,” where an estimated 47 extremist radio talk show hosts will broadcast live from DC. In response to the divisive rhetoric and extreme anti-immigrant agenda of FAIR, leading faith leaders will gather in prayer to recall the humanity and dignity of immigrants, and the need for policies that will uphold our nation’s best values, not its worst instincts.

While we’re on the subject: With his outburst, Wilson was challenging Obama’s assertion that “the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” Was Wilson correct? According to the nonpartisan fact-checking operation Politifact, no.

Continue reading "After 'You lie!' Prayers to end 'hateful rhetoric'" »

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So concludes Newsweek’s Lisa Miller, after reviewing recent polling data. She’s not referring to immigration or conversion, but ways about thinking of religion:

The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: "Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names." A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me."

Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life"—including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves "spiritual, not religious," according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same," he says. "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."

Read more at newsweek.com.

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Categories: Christianity, Culture, Hinduism, Interfaith
        

More than 3 percent of women who attend religious services at least once a month have been the victims of clergy sexual misconduct since turning 18, according to a study produced by Baylor University.

Baylor’s School of Social Work announced the findings from its forthcoming nationwide study of the prevalence of clergy sexual misconduct, which it said had been accepted for publication later this year in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

The numbers suggest that in the average U.S. congregation of 400 adult members, seven women, on average, have been victimized at some point in their adult lives. That number is greater than has been widely known.

"Because many people are familiar with some of the high-profile cases of sexual misconduct, most people assume that it is just a matter of a few charismatic leaders preying on vulnerable followers," Diana Garland, dean of the School of Social Work and lead researcher in the study, said in a statement. "What this research tells us, however, is that Clergy Sexual Misconduct with adults is a widespread problem in congregations of all sizes and occurs across denominations. Now that we have a better understanding of the problem, we can start looking at prevention strategies."

Garland expressed hope that the findings would “prompt congregations to consider adopting policies and procedures designed to protect their members from leaders who abuse their power. Many people -- including the victims themselves -- often label incidences of Clergy Sexual Misconduct with adults as 'affairs'. In reality, they are an abuse of spiritual power by the religious leader."

Continue reading "Study: 1 in 33 churchgoing women victimized" »

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It isn’t Beatle Day here at In Good Faith – It only seems that way, now that we’ve received word that the great pop group owe their success to a deal that a 20-year-old John Lennon made with the devil.

The truth is revealed in the forthcoming “The Lennon Prophecy,” in which author Joseph Niezgoda describes a pact similar to those made by bluesman Robert Johnson, Pope Sylvester and Dr. Johann Faust.

(We will admit here that we had been under the impression that Faust was a fictional character. But we've checked Wikipedia, and there he is.)

Niezgoda says the release of the Bealtes catalog on remastered compact disc and The Beatles: Rock Band on 09/09/09 is no mere marketing gimmick, but only the latest clue in a 40-year chain of evidence proving the sinister explanation for the group's achievements. Because if you turn your computer monitor upside down, you'll see that the date becomes 666, sort of, which any horror movie or heavy metal fan knows is the mark of the beast.

Rather than paraphrase further, we’re going to pass along the entire press release, after the jump, pausing only to observe that it doesn’t seem to have been much of a deal for Lennon, given that he was murdered by an addled fan shortly after he turned 40. Of course, it wouldn’t have been the first time that a struggling artist agreed to terms that would be viewed in retrospect as unfavorable.

Continue reading "The secret of their success" »

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Wednesday is a big day for the Beatles and their fans. The greatest and most influential artists of the rock era are rereleasing their entire catalog in newly remastered mono and stereo compact discs. They’re also making a foray into an entirely new medium with The Beatles: Rock Band, which The New York Times said a few days ago “may be the most important video game yet made.”

It is neither of these marketing events, however, but a trip to see a Beatles tribute band that inspires Eric Miller to reflect in Christianity Today on the interplay between modern Western religious practice (spirituality) and the allure of the pagan celebration of the body (materiality).

Miller dismisses the Beatles themselves as “the creepy guys with stringy hair and granny glasses,” and this admirer was irritated at what he takes to be a willful misreading of the John Lennon lyric “Imagine there’s no heaven.” But Miller seems to have enjoyed himself well enough at the tribute show, and concludes that paganism has an important role to play, as a kind of balance to spirituality.

“The calling of Christians is to live at the point of tension between these poles,” he writes, “at the difficult but satisfying place that reveals the pathway to human flourishing and leads others to it.”

Read the rest of the piece at christianitytoday.com.

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On an extended stay in Guatemala some while back -- I spent several months studying Spanish in preparation for an assignment in Latin America -- I remember being amused by a billboard campaign with messages supposedly from God. One that has stuck in my head translated as: "Those are commandments, not suggestions."

Cities throughout the world have been targeted by similar efforts. Now comes word of a church in Michigan that has found another spokesbeing to push its message. From the Associated Press:

A Michigan church is enlisting Satan in a bid to drum up attendance at services. Metro South Church in the Detroit suburb of Trenton is posting signs saying the non-denominational Christian congregation "sucks" and "makes me sick." The ads are signed by Satan.

The campaign even has a Web site explaining why Satan hates the church.

Youth Pastor Adam Dorband told WJBK-TV the church is trying to reach out to people and cut through the "noise."

Dorband said Jesus "wants us to be creative and he wants us to ... use whatever it takes to reach people."

South Metro Church explains itself at satanhatesmetro.com.

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Former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean sued pageant officials Monday for libel, slander and religious discrimination, accusing them of telling her to stop mentioning God even before her controversial remarks against gay marriage, the Associated Press is reporting.

Prejean, 22, was fired in June by pageant officials who said she missed several appearances. Her attorney says she was ousted because of remarks in April during the Miss USA pageant that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Those comments, made in response to a question by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, made Prejean a darling of Christian conservatives. But the ardor of some cooled after seminude photographs began circulating on the Internet and reports surfaced that she had had breast implants.

Read the rest of the AP story at baltimoresun.com.

Denis Poroy/Associated Press

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Categories: Christianity, Culture, People
        

Last month in Kentucky, an Assemblies of God congregation drew international attention with its "open carry celebration," in which the pastor invited members of to come to bring their guns to church, that they might "celebrate our rights as Americans."

“God and guns were part of the foundation of this country,” the Rev. Ken Pagano told The New York Times.

Next month in Baltimore, a Catholic church will ask parishioners to bring weapons to church -- for a very different purpose. Responding to increased gun violence in the city, organizers say, St. Gregory the Great is sponsoring its seventh "Gun Turn-In Day" on Sept. 12.

Since the parish began its effort to get guns off the streets, organizers say, more than 100 have been turned in.

“The police have verified that in the past, some of these weapons that have been turned in have been very lethal,” Monsignor Damien G. Nalepa said in a statement. “We appeal to all the citizens of our city to help stop the violence and turn in guns.”

Co-sponsored by the Catholic Review, the event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the church at 1542 N. Gilmor St. Organizers are offering $100 for each workable automatic or semi-automatic handgun or assault rifle, and $50 for any other workable gun turned in.

Continue reading "St. Gregory the Great wants weapons" »

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A few years back, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin enlivened a Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration when he said the reason the Gulf Coast had been battered by “hurricane after hurricane” was that “God is mad at America.”

On Friday, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist suggested that the Lord has no problem with the Sunshine State.

Crist said he wasn’t trying to take credit, the Associated Press is reporting, but he told a group of real estate agents on Friday that he had had prayer notes placed in Jerusalem’s Western Wall each year of his administration, and no major storms had hit Florida. He noted that just before his election in 2006, Florida had been affected by a total of eight hurricanes in 2004 and 2005.

"Do you know the last time it was we had a hurricane in Florida?” Crist asked, according to the AP. “It's been awhile. In 2007, I took my first trade mission. Do you know where I went?"

He spoke of traveling to Israel, visiting the Western Wall and inserting a note that read, "Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie."

Continue reading "Are governor's prayers protecting Florida?" »

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This just in: Reality show villainess Omarosa Manigault Stallworth, late of The Apprentice, Celebrity Apprentice and The Surreal Life, has entered the seminary in Dayton, Ohio. She plans to study for a doctorate in ministry.

On her first day this week, the Dayton Daily News reports, United Theological Seminary President Wendy Deichmann offered her the gift of a mustard seed – an allusion to the Biblical passage in which Jesus likens the tiny seed to the Kingdom of God.

"Very few people have faith in my transformation, so this is a wonderful gift," the newspaper quoted her as saying. The News reports that she is taking classes in the Old and New testaments and the History of Christianity, and will be required to minister to the sick and dying at hospitals.

A classmate, meanwhile, told the News that he supports Manigault Stallworth’s effort. "People need to know that she is as sincere and as authentic as anyone I've known who's taken this journey," said classmate F. Willis Johnson Jr.

 Photo: AP/Dayton Daily News

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Photo courtesy of apologetix.com

We weren't familiar with the work of ApologetiX, but the press release that hit our inbox this week struck us as fairly amusing.

“ApologetiX is best described as ’Weird Al’ Yankovic meets Billy Graham," says lead singer J.Jackson, who writes parody lyrics to hits from the 1950s through today. "We appeal to both the Christian and secular audiences. I think we’re the only band that’s been featured on the radio shows of both Billy Graham and Howard Stern, not to mention ‘The 700 Club’ and ‘The Dr. Demento Show.’”

The hard-touring Christian parody band is scheduled to appear Sept. 4 at the Tent in Bel Air. According to the release, the six-piece group will play 40 states this year. From the release:

ApologetiX’s repertoire covers the gamut of rock and roll from Elvis to today’s artists, with an occasional rap or country song thrown in for good measure.  Metallica’s 'Enter Sandman' becomes 'Enter Samson.' John Cougar Mellencamp’s 'Jack and Diane' becomes 'Iraq & Iran.' Green Day’s 'The Boulevard of Broken Dreams' becomes 'The Boulevard of Both Extremes.' The Eagles’ 'Life in the Fast Lane' becomes 'Life in the Last Days.' "

A look through the group's discography suggests no one is safe: The 2006 album Wordplay include parodies of "Somebody Told Me" by the Killers, which is fronted by Mormon singer Brandon Flowers, and "Vertigo," by the occasionally overtly Christian band U2.

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Has Michael Vick found God?

Over at beliefnet, Kris Rasmussen sees reason to hope in the recently released NFL star’s interview Sunday with 60 minutes.

“It seems part of Vick's character rehab plan as designated by the NFL and the [Philadelphia] Eagles is for Vick to have a long term-mentor and as an outspoken Christian [former Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony] Dungy has agreed to take on that role,” Rasmussen writes. “Dungy had met with Vick when he was still in prison and In a recent interview, Dungy has said that Vick has told him that he realizes he needs ‘to get closer to the Lord’ and that is why the former coach has committed to continue to work with Vick.”

The former Atlanta Falcon was sentenced in November 2007 to 23 months in prison for his role in an interstate dogfighting ring. He was released to home confinement in May and conditionally reinstated by the NFL in July. He signed with the Eagles last week.

“Lots of folks suddenly find God while in prison," Rasmussen writes. "Many a celebrity has found Jesus as part of a smart p.r. move. So it is absolutely fair for the general public to be skeptical and to take a ‘wait and see’ attitude with Vick. At the same time, after watching that ‘60 Minutes’ interview, I found myself thankful for Dungy's example of compassion and wisdom by stepping into a volatile situation and attempting to lead someone to redemption -- without hesitation or skepticism.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Christianity, Culture, People
        

There are many things Evangelical Christians are good at, such as bake sales and talking to me on planes. They're less adept at other things, such as comedy and fighting lions. … So when Kevin Roose, author of the excellent new book The Unlikely Disciple, told me that Rick Warren's giant Saddleback Church has its own improv group, for the first time in my life, I felt my calling. I may not be the Woody Allen or Jon Stewart of the secular world, but in the land of the unfunny Christian, the one-joked Jew is king.

After performing with the five-member troupe (Here is what goes through your mind during 90 minutes of Christian improv: "No, no, can't say that, nope, maybe if ... no."), Stein asks Saddleback's director of creative arts the point of hosting a comedy show, or the church’s jazz and Shakespeare festivals.

"If you look back in history, most of the arts were done for the church,” Tony Guerrero tells Stein. “All the music of Bach and Mozart was written for the church. We'd like it to be a hub for the arts again."

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Sun colleague Jill Rosen has a story Friday about a dispute between a group of cat lovers and Northside Baptist Church over some 40 feral cats roaming the church's campus in Northeast Baltimore.

The church has forced Denise Farmer to dismantle a feeding station she had set up for the cats on church property; she has been protesting during services each Sunday since then, and is trying to organize a larger rally this Sunday.

The cats know her motor's rumble.

As Denise Farmer pulls her truck down the alley behind Northside Baptist Church in Northeast Baltimore, cats materialize from the scruffy woods, first a black one with a white ruff, then another, and suddenly there are five hovering by a feeding stand, waiting for kibble that Farmer has brought them every weekend for two years.

Church officials, however, wish Farmer and the others who feed the approximately 40 feral cats in the area would stop bringing food because, they say, the animals are out of hand, leaving droppings across the religious organization's expansive, grassy grounds and unnerving parishioners.

Two weeks ago, the church forced Farmer to dismantle a feeding station on its lot. Since then, Farmer, a chemical engineer from Parkville, has picketed the church during Sunday services, parading back and forth with one sign reading "Northside Baptist Denies Food to Animals," and another saying, "Practice What You Preach: Compassion for All God's Creatures."

This Sunday, she's hoping animal advocates from across the city will join her. Cat rescue groups have been spreading the word to hundreds of their followers on Facebook and through e-mail messages.

Since the church ordered the feeding station dismantled, Farmer isn't sure what has become of the cats. There is another feeding area nearby that belongs to another colony but, she says, that colony wouldn't welcome new cats. She fears "her children" are starving.

"It's heartbreaking," says Farmer, who has six cats of her own, tearing up while talking and leaning against her kibble-strewn SUV. "It's completely unbelievable how cruel these people are."

The Rev. Reginald Turner, Northside's pastor, disputes the cruelty tag. He says he tried for two years to work with Farmer's program, which aims to trap the cats, neuter them and then return them to their territory. But now, with cats "running rampant" across church property, he has lost patience.

"I've got members who are not cat fanciers, and we're trying to be as patient as possible," the pastor says. "Yet we're the bad guys in all this."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Harry Potter, long the bane of fundamentalist Christians, has won a rave review from the Vatican.

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, has given the new film “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” four stars for promoting “friendship, altruism, loyalty and self-giving,” Catholic News Service reoprts.

The review in Tuesday’s edition marks an about-face for the newspaper, which 18 months ago called the boy wizard “the wrong model of a hero,” and charged author J.K. Rowling with transmitting “a vision of the world and the human being full of deep mistakes and dangerous suggestions, even more seductive since it is mixed with half-truths and compelling storytelling.”

Pope Benedict XVI himself, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, warned of Potter’s “subtle seductions,” which he said “deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.

But the Vatican found much to appreciate in the sixth film in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” which is due to open worldwide on Wednesday. (Translation from the Italian courtesy of the Catholic News Service)

Continue reading "Vatican gives Potter film four stars" »

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Sunday saw the first services by Bethel A.M.E. Church at Temple Oheb Shalom. Baltimore Sun colleague Stephanie Desmon had a nice story in Monday's paper:

On a typical summer Sunday, the doors of Temple Oheb Shalom are locked tight. With observances of the Jewish Sabbath taking place on Friday night and Saturday and religious school out until fall, the Park Heights Avenue building sits empty.

Not yesterday. Hundreds of congregants of a different faith poured into the sanctuary, bringing along their love of God, their upbeat music and their fervent prayer to the otherwise quiet house of worship. A fire July 1 damaged the historic Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Upton and left its flock with no place to come together. But an offer from the synagogue's leaders gave them temporary refuge as their landmark building is repaired.

"The church may have been hit by lightning," the Rev. Frank M. Reid III told church members, "but the work of the church continues in Jesus' name."

Later in his sermon, Reid continued: "We discover how our faith helps us face the fires."

If not for the symbols of Judaism - the Holy Ark storing the Torahs, the Hebrew letters on the wall - it would have been hard to tell the Bethel congregants were anywhere but home.

"It solidifies what I've always believed," said Joshua Lawton, 23, of Towson, a relatively new member of the church. "It doesn't matter what religion you are - it's all about God. Period. End of story. Everything else is just about details."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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There was a coffeehouse vibe in the basement of a Bolton Hill brownstone where 20 or so men and women gathered on a recent evening.

Mostly in their 20s and 30s, they had hugged hello as they filed into the brightly painted former architecture studio. They had poured the free-trade French roast and unpacked the cupcakes. They had broken into small groups for an icebreaker - name the three people you would take to a desert island - and laughed when it turned out that several had come up with MacGyver, the resourceful secret agent from the 1980s television show.

Finally, it was time for Joel Kurz to get to the point.

"We're asking you to join us in planting a church," the 28-year-old pastor of the Garden Community said. "We're asking you to reconcile Baltimore to God's kingdom."

One of more than a dozen such startups in the area, the Garden Community is at the vanguard of a push by the Southern Baptist Convention into Baltimore, targeted as a "strategic focus city" by its North American Mission Board. Eleven churches have begun to hold worship services here in the last two years, two others are set to open in September, and organizers see as many as half a dozen more forming by the end of the year.

The new congregations are as varied as the neighborhoods in which they've settled. New Hope Community Church, which meets in a Curtis Bay recreation center flanked by bars on all four corners, serves breakfast before Sunday services and sends worshipers home with sandwiches afterward. The Light Church in Mount Vernon boasts a coffeehouse and art gallery. The Gallery Church in Charles Village holds a Saturday discussion group in an Irish bar.

The effort comes as the nation's largest Protestant body struggles to reverse a historic decline in membership. If current trends hold, President Johnny Hunt warned members at the annual convention last month, its numbers could fall from the current 16.2 million to 8.7 million by 2050.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

Continue reading "Baptists making effort in Baltimore" »

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Members of Bethel A.M.E. Church, forced out of their landmark Baltimore building, will take temporary refuge at Temple Oheb Shalom, the spiritual leaders of the two congregations said Wednesday.

A week after lightning struck the steeple of the church on Druid Hill Avenue, the Rev. Frank M. Reid III and Rabbi Steven M. Fink announced that the Christian congregation would hold Sunday services at the Reform Jewish synagogue in Park Heights through Labor Day.

Fink called Reid after learning of the July 1 fire to offer Oheb Shalom’s 900-seat sanctuary to the church. The two congregations have long worked together, holding joint services in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., maintaining a community garden and engaging in the Black and Jewish Forum of Baltimore.

“We thought, in light of the hate crime that took place recently over in Washington at the Holocaust museum, with the ethnic violence going on in China at this time, that this partnership between the Jewish faith community and the Christian faith community, this partnership between the Jewish community and the black community, reestablishes a bridge that has existed between our two communities for hundreds of years,” Reid said.

“Our congregation and Bethel A.M.E. are family,” Fink said. “Our officers and board of directors decided immediately upon learning of this event to offer our facility to Bethel A.M.E.”

Continue reading "Bethel A.M.E. to worship at Oheb Shalom" »

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The world's oldest Christian Bible has been digitized and uploaded to the web, where it may be searched by scholars and the curious alike.

The Codex Sinaiticus, handwritten in Greek 1,600 years ago on 400 pages of prepared animal skin, contains a complete New Testament and portions of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, with handwritten corrections added during the ensuing centuries.

It was discovered in the mid-19th century at the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai but soon was divided among collections in Britian, Germany, Russia and Egypt.

Now the known pieces have been reunited online by the Codex Sinaiticus Project, a consortium including the British Library, Leipzig University Library in Germany, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai and the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. with funding and experitse from those countries, the United States and others. The extant text became available on the web on Monday.

"It's such an important book -- that's why it should be accessible," project manager Juan Garces told the Associated Press. "If you would have liked to see it before you would have had to travel to four countries in two continents. If you want to see the manuscript right now all you have to do is go online and experience it for yourself."

Photo by the Associated Press

Continue reading "It's all Greek to me, but ..." »

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Categories: Christianity, Culture
        

In an appearanced criticized by some of his fellow conservative Christians, megachurch Pastor Rick Warren told several thousand American Muslims over the weekend that "the two largest faiths on the planet" must work together to combat stereotypes and solve global problems, the Associated Press is reporting.

"Some problems are so big you have to team tackle them," Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, told the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America. He said Muslims and Christians should be partners in working to end what he calls "the five global giants" of war, poverty, corruption, disease and illiteracy.

The Christian Post quoted Warren, the founder of Saddelback Church in Orange County, Calif., as saying he was "not interested in interfaith dialogue.

Continue reading "Warren to Muslims: Let's work together" »

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Categories: Christianity, Evangelicalsm, Interfaith, Islam
        

Baltimore Sun colleague Stephanie Desmon has a nice story in Monday's paper on a Christian doctor who brings a sense of mission to his work in rural Garrett County. Family physician Ken Buczynski is one of just four physicians who deliver babies in the state's largest county by area, which makes for a hamster-wheel existence in the wooded mountains at the tip of the Maryland panhandle.

"I always felt called to this kind of practice," Buczynski, who attends the Faith Evangelical Free Church with his pregnant wife and their three young children, tells Desmon. "And you really need that calling because to go to a recruiting fair and say, come to rural America where everyone will know your car, your business, your house, what kind of chicken you buy at Wal-Mart, and you'll take call 168 hours at a time and there's no mall for an hour and a half. ...

"When you start talking about those things, it's a real detractor to a lot of physicians."

As Desmon describes it, medicine is Buczynski's ministry. He sees "patients as more than just a physical entity," often praying with them and for them.

"I's not a billable procedure, but I like to provide it," he says.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Ginger Kolbaba has a message for Jon and Kate Gosselin: “Please don’t do what you’re doing.”

“For too long I’ve watched Christian couples live self-centered lives, pursuing their own desires, talking about following Christ and the principles of our faith, but not actually living them out,” writes Kolbaba, who edits Today’s Christian Woman and Marriage Partnership.

“When life gets difficult — as it does for every couple — they throw in the towel, acting helpless, showing to the world that when the apostle Paul said, ‘We are more than conquerors through Christ,’ he didn’t actually mean it.

“For too long I’ve watched Christians show to those outside our faith that Christianity, in fact, doesn’t strengthen us or make us any different from people who don’t follow Jesus. Instead I hear couples say, ‘The kids will be better off to have calm. It’s not good for them to see us arguing. Everything will be just fine. We’re doing this for the kids. It’s all for the good of the kids.’

“It’s rubbish. Kate (and Jon), who’s in control of the peace and calm of the kids? You are. You have the responsibility to bring calm into your family. But the good news is that God brings the grace and power to help you do that, through his Word, through prayer, through the community of believers, and through good old-fashioned determination.”

The Gosselins, the Christian family at the center of the TLC show Jon and Kate Plus Eight, announced plans this week to divorce after 10 years of marriage. Kolbaba is one of several Evangelicals taking a personal interest in their marriage.

Continue reading "Evangelical concern for Jon and Kate" »

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Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others will gather in Washington on Wednesday for what organizers are calling the largest faith-inspired mobilization for health care reform.

Rabbi David Sapperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Sayyid Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America, the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. of Riverside Church in New York and others will speak at an “interfaith service of witness and prayer” to “express strong unified support for health care reform,” according to press materials. Organizers are predicting a turnout of nearly 2,000 people representing 40 faith organizations.

The event is scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. at Freedom Plaza, just west of the White House. It will be preceded by a health fair offering free health screenings beginning at 4 p.m.

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The Rev. Jason Poling is pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

As I prepare to celebrate my eighth Father’s Day (as an honoree) I join so many of my colleagues in realizing that I am turning into my father.

It’s the little things: eating food past the sell-by date, cutting dead limbs off of trees, hitting rest stops at the last possible moment. And energy conservation.

Fathers, I think, must have been the first conservationists. No doubt it was somebody’s dad who wondered aloud, and repeatedly, whether the cave needed the fire to be so hot.

And so I tromp about the house turning off lights and yelling at my kids about leaving doors open (Are you trying to air-condition the back yard?) and closing blinds on the east side of the house in the morning and on the west in the afternoon. I admonish my wife to load the dishwasher without rinsing the dishes first so we don’t strain the well. And let’s not get into septic system management.

Growing up I remember looking forward to my grandparents’ visits because the house would be heated above freezing and the fridge would be stocked with real milk instead of the powdered skim stuff my dad mixed up every few days in a harvest gold Tupperware pitcher. Until my dad installed an attic fan that sounded like a jet engine taking off and slammed every open door in the house we sweated the sheets every summer; the window fan in my room was supposedly set on low for respiratory health but I knew it was about the electric bill.

Continue reading "Guest post: My father, his father, Our Father ..." »

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Local Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim congregations are praying for an end to violence this weekend during a citywide Peace Sabbath.

Faith leaders agreed to the first event of its kind last month as part of three-point plant to promote peace in Baltimore this summer. The other points:

• To call on city leaders to keep parks, recreation centers, libraries and polls open during the summer months, when children are not in school and crime typically increases; and
• To encourage churches, synagogues and mosques to designate job sites for the city’s Youth Works program, and to host youth centers other programs to provide safe havens for kids.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore, one of organizations participating in the Peace Sabbath, is asking Catholics to bring a dollar to Mass this weekend to support the city’s Safe Streets initiative. The churches of St. Ann and St. Wenceslaus in East Baltimore and St. Veronica in Cherry Hill currently host Safe Streets programs.

According to the archdiocese, Cherry Hill saw a drop from 14 shootings in the eight months before the program started at St. Veronica to one shooting in the eight months after. Now funding for the program at St. Veronica is running out and additional revenue is needed to keep it going.

Local faith leaders warned last month that planned budget cuts were threatening their hope of a “summer of peace.” As Baltimore Sun colleague Peter Hermann reported, Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien called on Mayor Sheila Dixon to reverse course.

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Worshippers at a Severn church on Sunday will walk in the footsteps of the poor as part of a national charity drive intended to provide shoes for the needy.

Grace Pointe Community Church of the Nazarene, which worships in the Kerr Center for the Arts on the upper campus of Annapolis Area Christian School, is one of thousands of congregations across the country participating in “Barefoot Sunday,” according to event organizers.

Church members will be asked to leave the shoes on the altar and walk out of services barefoot. The footwear will be collected by Soles4Souls Inc., which provides new and gently worn shoes to victims of disasters and those living in extreme poverty.

The Nashville-based outfit says it has distributed 4.3 million pairs of shoes in more than 125 countries including the United States.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Largely drowned out by the tabloid coverage of the Gosselin family, an interesting and thoughtful discussion is going on among Christians about the spiritual challenges facing the stars of the TLC reality show Jon and Kate Plus Eight. For those who haven’t followed the series, it focuses on the lives of a Pennsylvania family raising a set of twins and a set of sextuplets – lives that have grown more complex in recent months amid rumors of marital infidelity by both of the parents.

Members of an Assemblies of God church, the Gosselins have been embraced by Evangelicals, who have celebrated, for example, their decision to carry all of their sextuplets to term.

Lynn Roush, a blogger at Christianity Today, and Diana Butler Bass, a contributor to beliefnet, assessed the apparent state of the Gosselins’ marriage as depicted in the fifth-season premiere of the show last week and came to different conclusions.

Roush, a counselor at Evangelical Presbyterian church in Columbia, Mo., sees the answer in “the intervening grace of God’s Word and his redemptive work in our lives,” which she describes as usually found only “in relationships with other believers who have access to our hearts to help us see where God’s truth interacts with our daily lives.”

“I’m only guessing here, but it seems that Jon and Kate’s marriage is a reflection of where each is spiritually,” Roush writes. “Perhaps they have dropped church out of their busy schedules, and with that, a group of other Christians who knows them, is aware of their struggles, and helps to keep them accountable?”

But Butler Bass, an author and teacher writing for beliefnet’s Progressive Revival blog, sees the church as part of the problem.

“Evangelical gender expectations seem to be the root of their troubles: they reversed the parental roles,” she writes. “After a couple of seasons, Jon decided to stay at home and Kate went on the road to promote the show and their books. The choice made Jon increasingly sullen and Kate happier and began to wear at their relationship."

Continue reading "Jon and Kate plus the Evangelicals" »

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We noted last week that if she is confirmed by the Senate, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will become the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court. Martin E. Marty, the great historian of religion at the University of Chicago, has seized the opportunity presented by her nomination to search for evidence of a lingering anti-Catholic bias among mainline Protestants and Evangelicals – and come away mostly empty-handed.

“Mainline Protestants turned ‘ecumenical’ two-score years ago, as they and most Catholics became buddies,” Marty writes in Sightings, the regular e-mail dispatch produced by the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago. “Evangelical Protestants, who decades ago called the Pope the Antichrist foretold in the Book of Revelation, now link with his successors on selected social issues which are in contention.”

He does allow as how he’s seen some anti-Catholic invective in the comments sections that follow blog posts about Sotomayor’s nomination – but he is unimpressed.

“What strikes me is how unrepresentative the self-named angry Christians in the string of commentators are, if measured against the wider church bodies and leadership,” he writes. “Some simple, raw, old-fashioned anti-Catholicism is present, but it has to share space with Catholics who argue how Catholic someone has to be to be Catholic, and all the rest.

“At the end, such blogs give us a license to yawn when the Catholic defense people rise to complain and rage about anti-Catholicism. We have instead important things to discuss. One hopes they can be argued amid the noisy and predictable debate this season.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Faith-based groups on both sides of the abortion divide are condemning the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the Wichita physician who was gunned down on Sunday while attending a church service. As medical director of one of the few clinics nationwide that performs late-term abortions, Tiller had been the target of protests and had survived a shooting attack in 1993.

The statements from faith-based groups vary widely in content and tone; following, unedited, are several.

Operation Rescue:

"We are shocked at this morning's disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller's family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ."

Randall Terry, founder, Operation Rescue:

"George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

"Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches."

Continue reading "Killing of George Tiller: Faith-based reactions" »

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Politics
        

On Wednesday, we mentioned the "Summer of Peace" announcement by local Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders. Peter Hermann, our former Jerusalem correspondent and crime reporter extraordinaire, has a more complete report in today's Baltimore Sun:

The leaders of the city's Catholic, Jewish and Muslim faiths have a plan to turn Baltimore's summer into the "summer of peace."

But they complained Wednesday that the mayor is making their efforts difficult because of plans to close recreation centers and pools and curtail library hours.

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien mentioned the issue in passing in his remarks after meeting with city officials on preventing youth crime, but when questioned he openly leaped into the political fray and called for the city's chief executive to reverse course.

Cutting money to youth programs, said the leader of a half-million worshipers of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, "will make it very difficult for us to follow through" on initiatives to save lives and save children.

His auxiliary, Bishop Denis J. Madden, said, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that rec centers and pools are going to give kids something to do."

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Local Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders announced a three-point plan on Wednesday to promote peace in Baltimore this summer.

In what participants said was the first interfaith gathering of local religious leaders to discuss violence, the group held a 90-minute meeting at St. Mary's Seminary and University, and then emerged to greet the press.

Members resolved:

   • To call on city leaders to keep parks, recreation centers, libraries and polls open during the summer months, when children are not in school and crime typically increases;

   • To encourage churches, synagogues and mosques to designate job sites for the city’s Youth Works program, and to host youth centers other programs to provide safe havens for kids; and

   • Designate the weekend of June 19 to 21 as a “Peace Sabbath,” during which all churches, synagogues and mosques will pray for peace. At Masses that weekend, Catholic churches will collect $1 per parishioner to support peace-promoting initiatives such as the city health department’s Safe Streets program.

The meeting was hosted by Catholic Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien. Attendees included Baltimore Jewish Council Executive Director Arthur Abramson, Imam Earl El-Amin of the Muslim Community Cultural Center of Baltimore, Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Barksdale, interim City Health Commissioner Olivia Farrow, Tim Hanavan of the Central Maryland Ecumenical Council, Catholic Auxillary Bishop Denis Madden, Bishop Douglas Miles of Koinonia Baptist Church, Bishop John Raab of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and Rev. Dr. Frank Reid III of Bethel AME Church.

The group agreed to continue meeting quarterly to discuss ongoing threats to peace in the city and to work together to promote peace.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Did the Evangelical vote put Kris Allen over the top in the American Idol finale? That’s one of the theories that has emerged in the hours after the surprise ending Wednesday to the pop music competition.

The discussion is premised on the widely held expectation that Adam Lambert, adventurous in both performance and appearance, would win the final vote.

Certainly the falsetto-prone glam rocker left a deeper impression than the humble church singer from Arkansas. Even Allen, a worship leader at New Life Church in Conway, Ark., appeared taken aback by the result; when host Ryan Seacrest called his name, his first words were “Adam deserves this.”

But a legion of Christian voters is saying the right man won. Chief among them: Allen’s pastor at New Life, who has been boasting of a faith-based campaign for Allen.

“Churches go crazy with support!” the Rev. Rick Bezet told Fox News. “Thousands of churches twittering and facebooking! It’s been a blast.”

Fox News and other speculate that Allen got a boost from supporters of Danny Gokey, who was eliminated in the week before the final. Another evangelical Christian, Gokey was worship leader at Faith Builders International Ministries in Milwaukee and Beloit, Wisc., prior to qualifying for American Idol.

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