Cult leader Tony Alamo should get a new trial because sex with minors was “incidental” to his purpose for traveling across state lines, his lawyer argues in Alamo’s most recent appellate brief. The lawyer’s brief also argues Alamo deserves to be resentenced by a different judge because of statements U.S.
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Lawyer says cult leader Tony Alamo should get new trial
Absence of women The Australian This world would be a much better place if all religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism allowed women to rule equally with men. …
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Absence of women – The Australian
Today’s New York Jewish Week reports that the American Jewish Congress , an advocacy group known for its expertise on church-state issues, has suspended operations due to financial problems. AJCongress lost $21 million of its $24 million endowment in the 2008 Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme. (See prior posting .) The AJCongress demise is also blamed on changes made in the 1990′s by Jack Rosen, a successful businessman who served as president of the group.
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AJCongress, Leading Church-State Advocate, Suspends Operations After Financial Losses
In Nigeria earlier this month, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP) forwarded to the Attorney General for possible prosecution its findings that Ahmed Sani Yerima, former governor of Zamfara state and a member of the Nigerian Senate, violated the Nigerian Child Rights Act of 2003 when he married a 13-year old Egyptian girl after paying a very large dowry. ( Next 7/21). Now, according to AFP and ThisDay , the Registered Trustees of Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria has filed suit in the Federal High Court seeking a declaration that Yerima’s right to privacy and his right to practice his religion have been violated by NAPTIP’s investigation and planned investigations by the National Human Rights Commission and parliament
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Nigerian Lawsuit Claims Ban on Child Marriage Restricts Muslims’ Religious Freedom
Today’s first Mass reading, taken from the beginning of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, is one that I love. The passage begins with God telling Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” Jeremiah doesn’t exactly greet this news with glee.
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To Whomever I Send You, You Shall Go
Vampires are in fashion across the United States, encouraged by the hit TV series “True Blood,” now in its third season, the ” Twilight ” movies and “Vampire Diaries.” Stories about feeding on blood are greedily consumed and eagerly published. For a pastime with dark, anti-religious overtones vampire fashion is itself becoming oddly like an organized religion
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Vampires get their teeth into US public
Studying a passage effectively involves a variety of skills. Yesterday we mentioned matters of contextual awareness, scholarly awareness and original language study. Today I want to share a few more. Not a definitive list or blueprint for the exegetical process, but a series of prompts that may or may not be helpful reminders. Purposeful Study and Preaching – Too often, preachers study a passage to find meaning, then preach meaning and tack on purpose at the end. Purpose (i.e.
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Varied Skills in Passage Study – II
Paul Harvey Apparently this is religion in early/colonial America week here at the blog! Recently I had occasion to re-survey some of the literature about the California missions, especially one of my favorite recent works of scholarship, Steven Hackel’s Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850 , for my money the most thorough scholarly study of the subject, full of painstakingly constructed data sets from mission records — the book is reviewed at length, and quite thoughtfully, here. Religious studies scholar Quincy Newell’s new book on native life and religious practice at a California mission is now out, and it came to my attention via the Choice review reprinted below. Her work brings ethnographic and religious studies methods to bear on the subject, and zeroes in on one mission in particular.
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Constructing Lives at Mission San Francisco
A Utah judge has set a date for an extradition hearing for imprisoned polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs , who is facing multiple felony charges in Texas. The cult leader refused to sign extradition papers delivered to him last month at the Utah State Prison by Texas authorities.
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Extradition hearing set for polygamist sect leader
A councillor is facing a disciplinary hearing after calling the Church of Scientology “stupid” in a post on the Twitter website. Wales’ public standards watchdog said John Dixon is likely to have breached the code of conduct for local authority members with his short message last year. Religion News Blog, whose publishers consider Scientology to be a destructive cult, often files news about the organization under the header ‘hate group’ — in light of the cult’s lengthy history of hate- and harassment activities.
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Councillor faces inquiry over ‘stupid’ Scientologists tweet
Today’s Chronicle of Higher Education reports on efforts launched in Germany to integrate its large, mostly-Turkish, Muslim population. A key part of the plan is to create a generation of German-trained imams. The German Council of Science and Humanities is creating a group of academic institutes at state-financed colleges to critically examine Islamic theology and teach it in a German university setting to future imams, male and female religious teachers, public intellectuals, scholars and faith-based social workers.
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Germany Plans University Level Programs To Train Muslim Religious Leaders
The Tyee this week is running a 5-part series excerpted from Marci McDonald’s The Armegeddon Factor on how the Christian right is building political power in Canada.
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Paper Carries Series On Conservative Christian Moves On Education In British Columbia
A RLUIPA lawsuit was filed last week against the Borough of Pemberton, New Jersey by the Apostolic Church of Deliverance that applied for a zoning variance over six months ago. According to a press release yesterday from Mauck & Baker, the law firm which filed the suit, Borough officials have clearly indicated that they will deny the application from the largely African-American church.
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RLUIPA Lawsuit Challenges Delay In Formal Zoning Variance Denial
I just finished reading the most recent book of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World’s Religions Can Come Together . The Dalai Lama is someone for whom I have tremendous respect and admiration. I continue as a Christian to benefit from his writings, as I benefitted as a Buddhist listening to his oral teachings during the time I lived in Nepal and India.
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The Dalai Lama on Kinship (Not Identity) of Faiths and Peaceful Coexistence
When we take a biblical passage and study it in order to understand it, and then to be able to preach it, we need a variety of skills. This post (and tomorrow’s) isn’t an attempt to exhaustively define the exegetical process, but rather a selection of elements that may prompt your self-awareness in this process – perhaps you’re weaker in one area than another, perhaps you need a reminder to include something. Feel free to add thoughts too, this is brief and non-exhaustive! Whole Bible Awareness – We don’t rip out the page we are studying, but read in light of the context. We need to think consciously about how the passage fits in the progress of revelation, what the “informing theology” is that feed into the passage, as well as how the big narrative of Scripture develops after the passage. Scholarly Awareness – We aren’t the definitive measure of truth, but do well to engage with others in informed conversation as we study a passage. So we utilise commentaries and reference tools of various kinds, but we can’t rely on them (or just reproduce them – God has called you to preach to these people this Sunday, not FF Bruce, CH Spurgeon or John Calvin.) Original Language Study – Whenever possible, to the extent of our ability, we should do the serious work of passage study in reference to the original language. This doesn’t guarantee a better message. In fact, one of the most important things about original language study is that we must know our limitations. Sometimes there’s nothing worse for a sermon than someone with a year or two of serious study behind them, or even just a copy of Vine’s next to them at their desk, offering original language insights in a sermon. If you are able, or if not, then utilising the skill of others, allow original language study to inform your English sermon . . .
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Varied Skills in Passage Study
Syria’s education minister has issued a decree banning women on university campuses from wearing veils that cover their faces. The minister’s decree follows a decision last month to dismiss 1200 Syrian school teachers who wear the face veil in class. Education officials, at the time, stressed that Syria was a “secular society,” and that extremism is “unacceptable.”
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Syrian Education Minister Bans Full Face Veils in Universities
Editor’s Note: A previous reference and post on the Pilgrims provoked a flurry of emails from scholars and others quite passionate on the subject.
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Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners
Gerald Otahal arrived at death row early on a recent Thursday morning, ready for his regular visit to counsel and pray with condemned inmate Gregory Wilson. What happened next left Otahal puzzled – guards turned him away at the door with instructions to go home as the Kentucky Department of Corrections cracks down on pastoral visits at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.
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Kentucky prison restricts pastoral visits to inmates
Suspected Muslim militants shot and killed two Christian men who were due to appear in court on charges of blasphemy against Islam in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Brothers Sajid Emmanuel, 30, and Rashid Emmanuel, 32, were assassinated by masked gun men Monday, July 19, inside a district court building in the city of Faisalabad.
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Pakistan Christians Shot Dead By Pakistan Militants
ndonesia’s top Islamic body says it may forbid followers from drinking the world’s most expensive coffee — extracted from the dung of a civet cat — over concerns it is unclean. Indonesian Muslim groups have been criticized for issuing a raft of fatwa covering the spectrum of human behavior though they have no legal standing and are often ignored by most.
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Indonesia Muslim group may ban Kopi Luwak, world’s most expensive coffee
The New York Times reported last week that the impending end of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is creating a new group of putative conscientious objectors. The Center on Conscience & War, which counsels GI’s seeking to become conscientious objectors, has begun to receive calls from members of the military who say they consider homosexuality an abomination and want to become a conscientious objector because they cannot serve alongside gay soldiers
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GI’s Who Oppose Homosexuality Beginning To Look At CO Status As DADT To End
Yesterday’s Tulsa World reports that Oklahoma’s Nov. 2 ballot will include State Question 755 which would amend the state constitution to prohibit state courts from considering or using international law or Sharia law. ( Ballot language .) Titled by the legislature the “Save Our State Amendment” ( full text of HJR 1056), the proposed amendment reads: The courts provided for in subsection A of this section, when exercising their judicial authority, shall uphold and adhere to the law as provided in the United States Constitution, the Oklahoma Constitution, the United States Code, federal regulations promulgated pursuant thereto, established common law, the Oklahoma Statutes and rules promulgated pursuant thereto, and if necessary the law of another state of the United States provided the law of the other state does not include Sharia law, in making judicial decisions
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Oklahoma’s November Ballot Will Include Constituitonal Amendment To Bar Courts’ Use of Sharia Law
Yesterday’s Washington Times reports that a new education law enacted in Sweden last month will limit both home schooling and religious practices in “Confessional schools.” The aim of the new law is to make schools across Sweden more uniform in offering a comprehensive and objective education. Home schooling will be banned other than in exceptional circumstances such as health reasons of distance from a school
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Sweden’s New Education Law Restricts Confessional Schools and Home Schooling
Today’s first Mass reading is from the Book of the Prophet Micah. Not a book most of us know exceedingly well, but most of us are familiar with the line that ends today’s reading, God’s explanation to the people, through the prophet Micah, of what is required of them. What is clear from God’s words is that the easy things don’t cut it.
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You Have Been Told What is Good
Applying the rule that “a parent’s religious beliefs and practices may not be considered by the trial court as a basis to deprive [a] parent of custody unless there is a showing of actual harm to the health or welfare of the child,” a Kansas appellate court, in a 2-1 decision, has rejected a Muslim father’s objections to granting of residential custody to his son’s mother because of her practices as a Jehovah’s Witness.
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Court Says Mother’s Religious Practices Inadmissible In Custody Dispute
Today’s Las Vegas Sun describes the strong religious element in the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Sharron Angle, who is seeking to unseat Senate majority leader Harry Reid. Angle has described her efforts as a calling from God.
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Nevada Senate Candidate Sees Her Run As Religious Mission
Today’s Gospel reading from St. Luke is the well-known passage where Jesus visits the home of Martha and Mary. While Martha is running around doing chores, Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, listening to him speak. When Mary complains to Jesus, asking him to instruct Mary to help her, Jesus replies, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” Now, doubtless some of Martha’s tasks were quite important and I do not think Jesus meant to imply by his words that we completely lay aside all of our obligations – taking care of our children, putting effort into our jobs, etc. – and sit around all day
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Stop, Sit, Listen