Religion

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New book examines how U.S. churches deal with gay members bc-gaychristians(sh) | By: RAY PARKER | Source: Salt Lake Tribune | National (AN), Religion (LR) May 15, 2013 3:05 PM By RAY PARKER Journalist Jeff Chu, a gay Christian who was raised Southern Baptist, recently told a Salt Lake City audience how he came to an understanding of one of America's most notorious evangelical churches: the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. The church's website is Godhatesfags.com, and the phrase has become a sort of mantra for the congregation's 40 members, who have garnered international media attention. Chu said he wanted to understand even the extreme answers to a central question confronting many U.S. churches: How to handle gay members? Accept? Reject? Somewhere in between? So the magazine journalist went on a yearlong trek, interviewing more than 300 people across 28 states, to write his new book, "Does Jesus Really Love Me? A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America." In it, he tells the stories of the faithful -- gay, straight and otherwise -- struggling to come to terms with a religion that preaches love for all, but in some cases, locks ...
Religion: Parish, diocesan experience key to Pope Francis' messages bc-religion-faith15(sh) | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR), Editorials and Opinion (KE) May 15, 2013 1:35 PM By TERRY MATTINGLY There is nothing unusual about a Catholic leader urging priests to draw closer to their flocks, to focus on day-to-day issues that bridge the gap between pulpit and pew. Still, it caught Vatican insiders off guard when Pope Francis, a week after his installation Mass, used a somewhat pungent image when discussing this problem. "This is precisely the reason for the dissatisfaction of some, who end up sad -- sad priests -- in some sense becoming collectors of antiques or novelties, instead of being shepherds living with the smell of the sheep," he said. "This I ask you: Be shepherds, with the 'odor of the sheep,' make it real, as shepherds among your flock, fishers of men." At this point, "it's safe to say everyone in the Catholic world knows that line, if they're paying attention at all," said the Rev. Robert Barron, president of Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, near Chicago. He is also known for his work as founder of the Word on ...
To Mormons, Heavenly Mother is the ultimate, but unknown bc-mormon-mother(sh) | By: PEGGY FLETCHER STACK | Source: Salt Lake Tribune | National (AN), Religion (LR) May 10, 2013 4:30 PM By PEGGY FLETCHER STACK On Sundays, Mormon speakers may share stories of supermoms who run marathons, home-school their 10 children, help out at the homeless shelter and sing Bach cantatas -- all while leading daily prayers, scripture study and blogging about it. Few members, however, will hear about the greatest mom of all: Heavenly Mother. Though she has been acknowledged by Mormon prophets and celebrated in hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mother in Heaven is absent from missionary materials, religious manuals, youth programs, and, for the most part, scriptural texts. This is not surprising, given that the belief presents a conundrum for the Utah-based faith: While more talk of God the Mother would appeal to some potential converts yearning for more female recognition, it might become entwined in the push to ordain women or in feminist politics. It would underscore Mormonism's uniqueness, but it also could turn off those who come from traditional ...
Religion: Questions surround religious ministries, health mandates bc-religion-faith08(sh) | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR) May 8, 2013 2:35 PM By TERRY MATTINGLY When describing how his disciples should serve the needy, Jesus told a parable about a good Samaritan who rescued a traveler who had been robbed and left for dead. This businessman didn't care that his act of kindness took place in public and that the injured man didn't share his faith. This raises a haunting question for those involved in the church-state struggles surrounding the Health and Human Services mandate requiring most religious institutions to offer their employees, and often students, health-insurance plans covering sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including "morning-after pills." As Sister Mary Ann Walsh of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops noted in an online memo: "HHS has such a narrow standard as to who operates a religious ministry, Jesus himself couldn't pass muster." After all, the good Samaritan wasn't ordained and didn't work for a church or a nonprofit ministry, noted Stanley Carlson-Thies, president of the ...
Religion: Zombies are us bc-religion-faith01(sh) | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Film (EF), Television (ET), Religion (LR), Editorials and Opinion (KE) May 1, 2013 2:30 PM By TERRY MATTINGLY It seems to happen whenever Steve Beard hangs out with friends -- especially folks who don't go to church -- talking about movies, television and whatever else is on their minds. "It may take five minutes or it may take as long as 10, but sooner or later you're going to run into some kind zombie comment," said Beard, editor of Good News, a magazine for United Methodist evangelicals. He is also known for writing about faith and popular culture. "Someone will say something like, 'When the zombie apocalypse occurs, we need to make sure we're all at so-and-so's house so we can stick together.' It's all a wink-and-a-nod kind of deal, but the point is that this whole zombie thing has become a part of the language of our time." Tales of the living dead began in Western Africa and Haiti, and these movies have been around as long as Hollywood has been making B-grade flicks. However, the modern zombie era began with filmmaker George A. Romero's classic "Night of the ...
Religion: Inside the soul of Jackie Robinson bc-religion-faith24(sh) | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR), Editorials and Opinion (KE) Apr 24, 2013 5:27 PM Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey knew that the first black player in major league baseball was going to go through hell. That's why the cigar-chomping, Bible-thumping Rickey set out to find a man who would keep believing -- when facing bitter, scathing racial hatred -- that the powers of heaven were on his side. As baseball writers have often noted, Rickey needed someone who could turn the other cheek, as well as turn a double play. In writer-director Brian Helgeland's new movie, "42," Jackie Robinson states the challenge in blunt terms. "You want a man," Robinson asks, "who doesn't have the guts to fight back?" Rickey replies: "I want a man who has the guts NOT to fight back." The fit was perfect. In Helgeland's script, Rickey offers this churchy equation: "Robinson's a Methodist. I'm a Methodist. God's a Methodist. We can't go wrong." That's the stuff of movies, all right, but this kind of faith reference remains somewhat unusual in a Hollywood blockbuster, ...
Religion: The life and Times of John McCandlish Phillips bc-religion-faith17(sh) | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR), Editorials and Opinion (KE) Apr 17, 2013 11:35 AM The word on the Brooklyn streets in 1959 was that a crazy preacher from Pennsylvania was helping addicts find the power to kick heroin and gang members to trade their weapons for Bibles. Reporter John McCandlish Phillips heard the talk in local churches and took the tip to his metro editors at The New York Times. This was more than a religion story, he argued. This was something truly new in urban ministry in a rough corner of the city. The editors just didn't get it. "The New York Times could not see ... validity of this approach to any issue as serious as addiction. Editors said, 'You can't put a few religious ideas up against something as real as addiction and expect any results,' " said Phillips, in a 2000 interview in Riverside Park. The young preacher was David Wilkerson, whose story would eventually be told in the best seller "The Cross and the Switchblade." Phillips kept bringing editors detailed reports about Teen Challenge's work, which would eventually expand ...
Religion: After 25 years, familiar religion-beat questions bc-religion-faith10(sh) | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR), Editorials and Opinion (KE) Apr 10, 2013 12:05 PM By TERRY MATTINGLY Every year or so, editors are asked to sit patiently while market researchers dissect thick reports about what consumers say they want to see in their newspapers. That was already true back when Harry Moskos was editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel. But he immediately noticed something strange, when handed the executive summary of one late-1980s survey. Two words near the top of the subjects valued by readers caught his attention -- "religion" and "family." Yet the professionals interpreting the data offered zero suggestions for improving coverage of those subjects. "I remember saying, 'Look at that.' ... Those words just jumped out at me, primarily because I knew people in Knoxville tend to see those subjects as connected," said Moskos, 76, in a telephone interview. He recently ended his 60-year journalism career, with most of that work in Albuquerque, N.M., and Knoxville, Tenn. Of course, he admitted, the fact that he noticed the words "religion" and "...
Presbyterian Church schism over gay ordination splits congregations bc-presby-schism(sh) | By: STEPHEN MAGAGNINI | Source: Sacramento Bee | National (AN), Religion (LR) Apr 3, 2013 3:54 PM By STEPHEN MAGAGNINI More than 200 Presbyterian congregations nationwide have been torn asunder over the Presbyterian Church USA's new rules and the ordination of its first gay minister. The rift has resulted in lawsuits, sold churches, broken friendships and scattered congregations. The Presbyterian Church, with roughly 3 million congregants across the country, has attracted independent thinkers dating back to 16th-century followers of John Calvin, a leader of the Protestant Reformation, Wilkins said. Five Presbyterians signed the Declaration of Independence. But the church split during the Civil War over how the Bible was interpreted. Many Southerners felt the Bible provided justifications for slavery, and Northerners said there was no justification. That battle was laid to rest in 1983 with the unification of the two churches. Last year, a new schism began when the Presbyterian USA church instituted new rules permitting gay clergy. More conservative congregations split from ...
Religion: Surviving Easter 2013 bc-religion-faith03(sh) | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR), Editorials and Opinion (KE) Apr 3, 2013 2:09 PM bc-religion-faith03(sh) There must a law, deep in the cosmic base code, that if parents dress their nine children in Easter white -- especially when New England snow is melting -- at least one will fall into the mud. "It was tough," said Simcha Fisher, describing this Easter's obstacle course, "but we survived all that and made it to Mass." This was not an ordinary Mass, of course. The Fishers -- with children ranging from 15 months to nearly 15 years -- were trying to get into the 11:15 a.m. rites on the day when their New Hampshire parish would be jammed with those known, in commentaries on modern church life, as "Christmas and Easter Only Catholics" (CEOs), "Poinsettia and Lily Catholics" or even "Two-Timers." In a kind of Easter miracle, the Fishers found adequate real estate in a pew. "The church was, of course, packed," noted Fisher, in a telephone interview. "The family in front of us was dressed to the nines and they seemed to be trying to break the world record for the ...
TV: Mormon TV moments -- the good, bad and stereotyped bc-mormonmoments-tv(sh) | By: SCOTT D. PIERCE | Source: Salt Lake Tribune | Television (ET), Religion (LR) Apr 2, 2013 1:06 PM bc-mormonmoments-tv(sh) Forget the so-called "Mormon moment" of Mitt Romney's failed presidential bid. There have been lots of Mormon moments in scripted TV through the years -- some good, some not so good. Here are instances that stand out: "The Single Guy" September 1995-- In the pilot of this series about a single guy surrounded by his married friends, Jonathan (Jonathan Silverman) says, "You married people have this bizarre need to turn everyone else into married people. You're like vampires -- or Mormons." "Frasier" January 1998 --Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) is fed up with the dirty dealings of his agent, Bebe (Harriet Sansom Harris), and replaces her with Ben (Robert Stanton), a Utah-bred Mormon who is as good a guy as there is. Heck, he even shows up in his Boy Scout uniform at one point. "Well, when there's a dirty job to be done, you can't go wrong with a Mormon," Bebe says sarcastically. "The Simpsons" This animated staple has featured multiple Mormon ...
Religion: The strange victory by liberal religion religion-faith27 | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR), Editorials and Opinion (KE) Mar 27, 2013 12:25 PM The most recent Jewish Community Study of New York held few surprises for those who have followed the sobering Jewish trends of recent decades. Yes, the 1.5 million or so Jews living in New York City and surrounding counties included a rising tide of people living in interfaith relationships and some had even begun calling themselves "partially Jewish." Participation in liberal Jewish congregations declined, again. Jews who said it was "very important" to affiliate with Jewish institutions fell to 44 percent. But one number was genuinely startling -- that 74 percent of the region's Jewish children were found in the one-third of the Jewish households that identified as Orthodox. No wonder leaders of the Reform movement and other liberal Jewish institutions have been asking sobering questions about theology, demographics and the future. "The liberal approach to observance makes it impossible to set and maintain high expectations in terms of communal participation," argued Rabbi ...
Passover and the ties that bind passover-story | By: LESLIE Y. GUTTERMAN | Source: The Providence Journal | Religion (LR) Mar 22, 2013 12:25 PM Sundown on Monday marks the beginning of Passover, the best-known and perhaps the most beloved of Jewish holidays. Certainly its story -- the story of freedom and liberation -- is the most central to Jewish history. Perhaps that is why it is the only festival for which the Bible commands Jews to retell the story. Four times Scripture enjoins us to tell our children about Passover. The whole point of the evening ceremonial dinner that inaugurates Passover is to display enough novel rituals that will motivate the younger generation to ask: "Why is this night different from all other nights?" Passover is the only Jewish holiday that has a special book, the Haggadah ("the telling"), used to read the story of how Jews became free and began the journey to Mount Sinai and the receiving of the Ten Commandments. There is something very intentional about reading a story. We do so word by word, and many of us recall that when we were children how a parent took the time to dramatize a ...
Yount: It's time to save ourselves yount-faith20 | By: DAVID YOUNT | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR) Mar 20, 2013 12:30 PM Since the Newtown, Conn., massacre three months ago public attention has focused on reducing deaths by firearms. Last year 18,361 Americans lost their lives through homicide. We need to expand our attention to include the greater number of lives lost each year through suicide -- 34,598 according to the Department of Health and Human Services. In addition, more than 395,000 persons with self-inflicted injuries are treated every year by hospital emergency rooms, representing unsuccessful attempts at killing themselves. Hospitals estimate that 100 to 200 tries are made for each suicide completed. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Americans 15 to 24 years of age. Women attempt suicide two to three times as often as men, but men are four times more likely to succeed. A majority of males opt for guns to end their lives, whereas two out of five women choose poison, including overdoes of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. In the New York Times on March 8, ...
Female Mormons will break new ground with church mormon-women | By: PEGGY FLETCHER STACK | Source: Salt Lake Tribune | National (AN), Religion (LR) Mar 20, 2013 12:00 PM For Mormons yearning to see women take on more visible roles in their religion, their prayers have been answered: The Salt Lake Tribune has learned that women are scheduled, as of now, to offer invocations or benedictions at next month's General Conference -- an apparent first in the faith's 183-year history. Scott Trotter, a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, would not confirm or deny the female prayers, saying only, "Decisions on speakers and prayers at General Conference were made many weeks ago." Trotter made a similar statement about the schedule in January after a group of Mormons launched an effort called "Let Women Pray in General Conference." The activists urged the faithful to write letters to six high-ranking LDS leaders, including apostle Jeffrey R. Holland and three women who oversee church auxiliaries. The drive generated about 1,600 letters from 300 participants, said Analisa Estrada, a Salt Lake City graphic designer and one of the ...
Religion: 'Tis the papal gift to be simple religion-faith20 | By: TERRY MATTINGLY | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR), Editorials and Opinion (KE) Mar 20, 2013 10:50 AM The rise of Pope Francis has certainly raised new questions for Vatican watchers, such as: How significant is it that he has not been wearing cuff links? In the past, this kind of detail "would be seen as frivolous," noted Rocco Palmo of Philadelphia, whose "Whispers In The Loggia" site is must reading for Catholic insiders. Now, this pope's commitment to beyond-symbolic simplicity is causing religious leaders, journalists, diplomats and Catholics at every level to wrestle with the importance of his Jesuit roots, as well as his devotion to St. Francis of Assisi. The symbolism began with his introduction, when he wore simple white vestments -- the papal equivalent of street clothes -- and declined a formal, ermine-trimmed red cape. He has been wearing his steel pectoral cross, rather than an ornate gold papal model. He has favored black walking shoes over dramatic red footwear. Greeting the masses in St. Peter's Square, he bowed and said: "Before the bishop blesses the people, I ...
Pope Francis launches ministry with focus on the poor, suffering pope-inaugural | By: ANN RODGERS | Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | National (AN), Religion (LR) Mar 19, 2013 12:55 PM Pope Francis formally launched his ministry Tuesday by urging Catholics to love and serve the poor and weak, and he practiced what he preached by getting out of his white Jeep to bless a severely handicapped man. "Let us never forget that authentic power is service, and that the pope too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the cross," he told about 200,000 people who overflowed St. Peter's Square for his outdoor inaugural Mass. The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina has been pope since his March 13 election, following the Feb. 28 abdication of Pope Benedict XVI. But at this Mass he was given the formal symbols of his office. His normally quiet, gentle voice became strong and emphatic as he continued, "He must be inspired by the lowly, concrete and faithful service which marked St. Joseph and, like him, he must open his arms to protect all of God's people and embrace with tender affection the ...
Hart: What picking the new pope says about our culture hart14 | By: BETSY HART | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Lifestyle (KO), Religion (LR), Family/Relationships (LY) Mar 14, 2013 4:05 PM And so a new pope has been chosen: Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, who will be known as Pope Francis. Best wishes to him and my Roman Catholic friends. But whatever the significance of the new pope himself, the first ever from the Western Hemisphere, what strikes me most about the big event is the elite conversation surrounding his choosing. For it serves as a window to the narcissism in our Western culture. Lisa Fullam, an associate professor of moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in California, wrote a column for The Washington Post this past Monday bemoaning everything the Catholic Church teaches on issues of sexuality. From its opposition to birth control and gay marriage to sex outside of marriage. She argues that, instead, experience, how people really live and the choices they make regarding such issues should play a big role in church teachings on these matters. She wrote: "... (I)n contrast to the traditional views of the ...
Argentines recall new pope's care for the poor pope-react | By: VICTORIA MACCHI | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR) Mar 14, 2013 3:45 PM Fr. Angel Sixto Rossi says newly selected Pope Francis is compassionate and able. "Those of us who know him (Bergoglio) know he is a man who is up to the task ," said Rossi, who heads the church and rectory in Argentina's second largest city, where future pope Jorge Bergoglio lived in the early 1990s. "He knows how to care for the most fragile," said Rossi, who found out from TV that his mentor from the Jesuit community in Buenos Aires had been elected pope. As Argentines learned that one of their own had been elected pope Wednesday, the Jesuit community in Cordoba rejoiced in the news. At the city's cathedral, Gabriela Carande, a university student, joined about 80 people who gathered to celebrate, singing and praying after a Mass given by the Archbishop of Cordoba. "It's a very proud moment," Carande said, her eyes welling with tears, "and he's representing all of us. That's why there's so much happiness." For Archbishop Carlos Jose Nanez, who greeted a packed evening Mass, ...
Yount: No room at the inn yount-faith13 | By: DAVID YOUNT | Source: Scripps Howard News Service | Religion (LR) Mar 13, 2013 4:05 PM In the world today, by some estimates, more than 15 million persons are exiled from their own countries through no fault of their own. They are called refugees. In addition, according to some tallies, 26.4 million persons are displaced within their own homelands. The Economist reports that the reluctance to accept refugees is growing. Syrians who have fled their nation's civil war are not entirely welcome in neighboring countries. They live in camps or cramped rooms and are not allowed to work for wages. Instead, they survive with only minimal health care, education and other services provided by international humanitarian agencies and the host nations. Many refugees worldwide are, in effect, people without a country. Three-quarters of those who have registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have lived in exile for five years or more. Some rich nations provide resettlement programs for refugees, but the total served is only a small portion of the world's ...
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