The defense in the faith-healing trial in the June 2008 death of 16-year-old Neil Beagley began its case Monday with a medical expert witness who said the teen’s symptoms weren’t necessarily so bad that a reasonable person would think he could have died.
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Faith-healing defense introduces ‘silent killer’ concept
If the word “psychedelic” conjures up images of San Francisco or Woodstock, there’s much more to learn from journalist Don Lattin’s mind-blowing guided tour of the colorful people who gave birth to America’s psychedelic era in an unlikely place: Harvard University. Says Religion News Service: In his new book, ” The Harvard Psychedelic Club ,” which has received enthusiastic reviews and generated interest in Hollywood, Lattin expertly shows how Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil crossed paths at Harvard in the fall of 1960 before going their own separate ways. Lattin, a veteran religion reporter who walked on the wild side more than a few times himself, traces how the four men forever changed the way people — both straight and stoned — think about spirituality
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Book traces the long strange trip of drug-induced spirituality
In Britain yesterday, the House of Lords defeated a a government attempt in the pending Equality Bill to narrow the employment discrimination exemptions currently available to religious institutions under the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 . Under that law, religious organizations can discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in order to comply with religious doctrine or to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a substantial number of the religion’s followers. (Sec.
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House of Lords Votes To Keep Broader Discrimination Exemptions For Religious Organizations
Christians at Christian institutions love to pontificate over how Christian the Christian institution should remain. That appears to be the case over at Northwestern College in Minnesota where a debate over its identity persists. I tend to agree with Alex Chediak that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ’s article over its identity crisis was pretty fair
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Identity crisis in the midwest
Motivational speaker James Arthur Ray who led a sweat lodge ceremony in Arizona that turned deadly said he feels horrible about what happened but declined to comment on whether he was responsible for the deaths. He refers instead to letters drafted by his attorneys that state he was not criminally negligent.
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Leader of fatal Arizona sweat lodge speaks out
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — John Travolta has flown a jetliner carrying relief supplies into the Haitian capital, along with doctors and ministers from the Church of Scientology. The 55-year-old actor piloted his own Boeing 707 from Florida with six tons of ready-to-eat military rations and medical supplies for survivors of Haiti’s devastating Jan
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Travolta flies jetload of relief supplies to Haiti
JERUSALEM — Prominent ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbis are targeting a new foe in the decidedly impious world of the Internet: They’ve demanded a boycott of their community’s own Web sites, accusing them of disseminating “gossip, slander … filth and abominations.”
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Ultra-Orthodox seek boycott of their own Web sites
A long awaited report from a French parliamentary committee released today recommends a ban on women wearing the Muslim full-face veil in hospitals, schools, government office and on public transport.
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French Parliamentary Report Urges Ban of Full Face Veil In Public Buildings and Transport
So far, nothing I have seen coming out of Haiti has changed my mind about how journalists should approach the basic “theodicy” story. I’ve said it several times already ( click here and then here ), I am really not that interested in what American religious broadcasters or even articulate American academics have to say about the role that God or the spirits did or didn’t play in causing the hellish earthquake that rocked Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area. What matters to me are the voices of people in various faith groups — in Haiti.
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Haitian voices: God and the quake
JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister has called on the international community to band together against enemies calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments were clearly directed at Iran. He spoke Monday at a ceremony held at Israel’s national Holocaust memorial where the blueprints of the notorious Auschwitz death camp were unveiled
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Netanyahu says world must learn from Holocaust