Like me, everybody loves their summers and vacations. We all wish we were lying on the beaches of Charleston or Greece in the summer, enjoying a beautiful sunset in the Carolina Mountains, or even relaxing for a week doing nothing except drinking a cold one on the porch.
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Rest doesn't mean a flight from God
Police had presented the case as a possible hate crime, but prosecutors file felony vandalism charges over damage to the monument at St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church. A 23-year-old man who allegedly used a sledgehammer to smash a religious monument outside St
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Man pleads not guilty in sledgehammer attack on Glendale church monument
Truth be told, I had already decided to take a second look at the faith ghosts in the coverage of the death of screen legend Patricia Neal before I read the following from Deacon John M. Bresnahan, a conservative Catholic who is a regular in our comments pages.
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Patricia Neal and her angels (Take 2)
GetReligion reader Duane Shank, a Mennonite who grew up in Lancaster County, Pa., passed along a link to a front-page Philadelphia Inquirer story on the Mennonite tradition of service. Tied to the massacre of 10 medical aid workers — including Glen Lapp, a Mennonite — in Afghanistan last week, the piece drew praise from Shank. He nominated writers Amy Worden and David O’Reilly as journalists who “get religion”: This piece is one of the first I’ve seen in a mainstream paper that understands the nuances of Mennonites
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Hands and feet of Jesus?
In Lumen Gentium , promugated in 1962, Pope Paul VI spoke about martyrdom, suggesting that while few of us will be called upon to lay down our life in imitation of Christ, we who call ourselves Chritians must always “be prepared to confess Christ before men.” One of the risks of holding up Christ’s supreme self-sacrifice as a model is that we think we have to do really big things to live up to that model. Then, finding ourselves unable to perform big deeds, we are discouraged. In a homily he gave on May 15, 1977, Oscar Romero talked about the need to possess a “spirit of martyrdom” – a willingness to give up our lives for God – and about what it means to do so
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Spirit of Martyrdom
For Muslims such as Omar Younis, observance of the holy month of Ramadan is one of the few religious rituals they still follow. They’re likened to Christmas Christians. As men and women in makeshift togas danced and jumped to booming house music, Omar Younis made out with a woman he had met just a few hours earlier at her 25th-birthday dinner
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When piety cuts into the partying
Christians in China now number just over 23 million, according to the results of the Communist countrys first official faith survey.
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Official Survey Reports 23 Million Christians in China
Christians in China now number just over 23 million according to the results of the communist countrys first official faith survey
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Over 23 million Christians in China official survey shows
It’s always interesting to see what stories reporters jump on and which are ignored. This has actually been a good year for coverage of changes in religious affiliation , thanks to some major studies on the matter. Here’s a CNN piece headlined “Study: Young Americans less religious than their parents,” for instance
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What does religious loyalty look like?
President Obama yesterday issued a statement ( full text ) extending best wishes to Muslims in the United States and around the world on the occasion of the start of Ramadan. He said that Ramadan rituals “remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings. Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality.
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White House Issues Greetings On Start of Ramadan