Mon, February 8, 2010, 3:21 pm
As houses of worship throughout the Mid-Atlantic region were closed yesterday because of the nearly three feet of snow dumped on us over the weekend, about 100 people joined an unusual telephone worship service organized by an AME pastor in Washington.
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced a Maryland-based Catholic group that works for gay rights, saying it "has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and ... cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States." The group's leader said he was "astonished" at the statement, since the USCCB never contacted them.
Three top Southern Baptist leaders, including a member of President Obama's faith advisory council, sent the White House a letter asking for help in getting the 10 American missionaries released from Haiti. Meanwhile, the NYT reports that the leader of the group, which has been charged with kidnapping, has a "complicated financial history." Speaking of complicated, the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief's son is serving in the Israeli Army. They won't resassign the journalist, though, says editor-in-chief Keller.
A Muslim group filed a civil rights complaint against a California mayor who said he was "growing a Christian community," in a state-of-the-city address last week. A Korean-American missionary has been freed and returned home after 43 days in the totalitarian state.
The Church of England's synod is meeting this week and is expected to take up the complicated issue of whether and how women can become bishops. Pope Benedict XVI deplored that the Catholic Church, has, at times, violated the rights of minors. China said it is resolutely opposed to Obama meeting with the Dalai Lama.
British officials have started an investigation after Cherie Blair, the former PM's wife and a part-time judge, said she gave a lenient sentence to a man because he is a religious person. Hindus in Singapore are piercing their body for a diety (image at top left). A Nigerian Christian group says 20 of its members were killed in last month's violent clashes with Muslims.
Fri, February 5, 2010, 8:13 pm
President Obama has kept Bush-era protections for religious charities that receive federal funds and want to hire only their own kind -- despite his own objections to the practice --in order to woo conservatives, according to the Wall Street Journal. The article, the second this week to criticize the White House's faith-based office after the WaPo took a shot on Tuesday, reports that the president's advisory council voted to allow religous charities that receive government money to display religious symbols in rooms where clients receive aid.
Church-state separationist Rev. Barry Lynn argues in an op-ed that allowing groups like Catholic Charities and World Vision, which both have members on the advisory council and receive millions of dollars in government grants, to vote on recommending policies that could benefit themselves is a conflict of interest.
The lawyer for the 10 Baptist missionaries charged with child kidnapping in Haiti told a judge that they should be allowed to return to the U.S. pending the outcome of their case. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson met yesterday and talked about the internal challenges both face in trying to hold together churches fractured by disagreements over homosexuality.
In shades of the Jack Abramoff scandal that sank Ralph Reed, the Alabama Christian Coalition has received thousands of dollars from the gambling industry while holding press conferences to denounce government efforts to shut down casinos. Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor says he gave televangelist Pat Robertson a gold mining concession in 1999 and Robertson later offered to lobby the Bush administration on his behalf. A Robertson spokesman said there was no quid pro quo.
Arsonists have burned eight Texas churches since Jan. 1, putting pastors and congregations on edge. In the wake of a criminal negligence prosecution of two parents, officials in Oregon want to talk to members of the Follower of Christ church to prevent more faith-healing deaths. Mormons in California have held reconciliation services to help salve wounds caused by the Prop 8 fight. Churches of Christ are dropping their isolationism, even adding instruments to Sunday services!
British PM Gordon Brown decried the record-breaking increase in anti-Semitic incidents in England last year. A top Vatican official who is overseeing the investigation of U.S. nuns said Catholic religious orders are confronting a "crisis." Ugandan evangelicals are peeved that President Obama called their Anti-Homosexuality Law "odious." A Catholic bishop in Poland has apologized for saying Jews "invented the Holocaust."
Thu, February 4, 2010, 4:32 pm
President Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, calling for antagonists in the culture wars to be civil to each other. Or, in more theological terms: "Progress comes when we look into the eyes of another and see the face of God. That we might do so -- that we will do so all the time, not just some of the time -- is my fervent prayer for our nation and the world." He also criticized people who question his nationality and called Uganda's anti-gay bill "odious." As we reported earlier this week, the breakfast has been mired in controversy because of its sponsors ties to an anti-gay bill in Uganda.
Meanwhile, Americans United for Separation of Church and State say Obama gave the mistaken impression in his remarks this morning that the constitutional problems endemic in the White House faith-based office have been fixed. The WaPo managed to unearth a detail or two about Obama's spiritual life, and also reported that the president will meet with the Dalai Lama in February.
Americans have donated more than $644 for relief efforts in Haiti, but donations are slowing down, and massive problems persist. Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the actions of the ten U.S. baptists (not to be confused with American Baptists, the denomination) "unfortunate" and said they should have followed proper procedures. The missionaries are scheduled to appear before a prosecutor today. The AP says stories told by Haitian parents about giving their children to the missionaries contradict statements by the American group's leader. The Haitian pastor who gave the missionaries permission to take the children says he acted "with a good heart."
A number of groups have filed amicus curiae briefs in California's Prop 8 case, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and, on the other side, the United Church of Christ.
A Muslim chaplain was arrested and charged with trying to smuggle razor blades and scissors into a city jail, the diocese of Vermont will sell its headquarters and a children's camp to pay for settlements with victims of clergy sexual abuse. Southern Baptists are trying to get multilingual Bible CD's into 9 million Texas homes by Easter. I wonder if you can put a mark on your door if you want to be passed over?
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit from members of Tony Alamo's sect alleging their religious freedom was trampled when Arkansas officials took their children.
Egyptian activists are calling on the government to give Christians equal rights. A Brazilian court has overturned a ban on displaying religious symbols during the Carnival parades. Pope Benedict XVI blamed indifference for the millions of deaths caused each year from malnutrition.
French authorities denied citizenship to a man who forced his French wife to wear a face-covering veil.
Wed, February 3, 2010, 2:26 pm
We have a guilty verdict in the case of two Oregon parents (left) who chose faith-healing over medicine as their teenage son died from a routine urinary tract infection. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 18.
As expected, the Pentagon's top brass came out in support of ending the Don't-Ask Don't-Tell policy against gays in the military, but said they'd study the issue for a year (and relax enforcement) before punting the issue over to Congress for final action. The pope's statement that he doesn't like Britain's anti-discrimination equality laws (but would still love to have tea with the queen) has set off a flurry of opposition ahead of his planned September (?) visit to the UK.
Remember that stone circle that the US Air Force Academy built for Wiccans and Druids? Someone place a large wooden cross on the site, and now everyone's crying foul. Also crying foul, WaPo talks to critics who say the White House's faith-based office is little more than window-dressing.
A group of three conservative pastors have filed a federal challenge to last year's hate-crimes law, which added sexual orientation to the list of federal classes. Just days after Scott Roeder was found guilty in the shooting death of abortionist George Tiller, a woman who shot and wounded Tiller in 1993 says the violence will continue.
California will be asked to allow the state's first Hebrew-language public charter school; Like a handful of others across the U.S., this school is raising concerns about access for non-Jews, and church-state separation.
A Pakistani woman awaiting trial in New York is either "Lady Al Qaeda or the incarnation of America's persecution of Muslims," according to the LAT. At least 20 Shiite pilgrims were killed Wednesday when a bomb went off near the holy city of Karbala. A group of U.S. missionaries in Haiti faced a judge on charges of trying to illegally ferry orphans out of the country.
Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo's headaches over multiple paternity claims
stemming from when he was a Roman Catholic bishop are apparently
clearing up.
And this, from the Dept. of Not Turning the Other Cheek: Evangelicals are embracing mixed martial arts to attract young men.
Tue, February 2, 2010, 12:40 pm
Haiti's prime minister said the 10 Baptists from American who tried to take 30 children out of the country without documentation knew what they were doing was wrong and could be prosecuted in the U.S.
Christian conservatives had a big hand in defeating Hawaii's same-sex civil union bill, according to Baptist Press. The ELCA's Northeastern Iowa Synod rescinded two measures passed by the denomination last summer that allows gay and lesbian clergy and a social statement that acknowledges difference of opinion on homosexuality.
A Pennsylvania county judge said that the former Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, which seceded from the church in 2008, must turn over control of diocesan assets to the Episcopalians who remain with the Episcopal Church.
An Illinois man is suing the state for putting up sign calling religion "a myth and superstition" as part of its holiday display (picture at top left) last December. An Oregon man said police disturbed the mystical qualities of his medicine bag while searching it for drugs.
Pope Benedict XVI, in announcing his trip to England, criticized the country's pending Equality Bill. The Catholic Church in France rejected the country's proposed ban on full-face veils in public. Two militant Islamist groups in Somalia said they are joining Al-Qaida. China warned President Obama not to meet with the Dalai Lama.
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