Usually Weblog uses this space to comment on the day's top stories. Not today. It seems like every publication around the world is running a religion story of some sort, so Weblog spent all morning just finding the links below. Don't get lost—there's some very interesting and important stories in here. Comments and coverage roundups will return Monday.
September 11:
Four lives: Their faith and fears | By day, they have been leaders and heroes. By night, they have fought anxiety and an incalculable sense of loss. This is the story of how a widow, a general, a key Bush adviser and Pakistan's president braved the fires of September 11 (Newsweek)
9/11 lessons not easily taught in classrooms | As educators struggle to find just the right tone and perspective to discuss one of the most traumatic events on American soil, some fret about the rancorous tenor of the debate over what to teach (The Hartford Courant)
Life in the new normal | Lee Jenkins preached you could be rich in life and rich in the kingdom of God at the same time. But 9/11 changed that, as it has changed so much (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
The unbelievers | The Swiss. The CIA. Israelis. Big Oil. The Antichrist, even. With Sept. 11, the politically paranoid hit the jackpot. But many of their conspiracy theories are chilling, even dangerous, and they're catching on fast (The Ottawa Citizen, Toronto)
A day of sacred places | New York will mourn with bells, prayers, candles, chants and "interfaith" services (Elizabeth Crowley, The Wall Street Journal)
One year later: A more serious USA | What's changed since Sept. 11, besides the infamous meaning we now hear in that number? (Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune)
Church leaders
speak against 'wicked' war | Britain's two most senior churchmen
have launched separate impassioned initiatives aimed at preventing war against
Iraq. (The Times, London)
A Puritan on the warpath | The biblical zeal with which the US President is waging a moral crusade against Saddam Hussein owes much to the dissenting protestantism of America's original settlers (Tristram Hunt, The Observer, London)
Church of Scotland warns against Iraq war | The Moderator of the Church of Scotland's general assembly has urged Tony Blair to try and prevent war against Iraq (BBC)
Can U.S. neo-imperialist march be stopped? | To broaden their base in American opinion, the pro-Israeli activists have gained valuable allies in the fundamentalist Christian evangelical movement, which has swept America in recent years, and which is inherently favorable to Israel and hostile to Islam (Patrick Seale, The Daily Star, Lebanon)
War is not inevitable, says archbishop | Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Wales, expressed hope that the West's confrontation with Iraq could be solved without war. (The Times, London)
Congressional chaplains | Michael Newdow says it is unconstitutional for taxpayer-funded chaplains to pray in Congress and minister to lawmakers (All Things Considered, NPR, audio)
"In God We Trust" greets students at schools | The law — passed by the General Assembly earlier this year, signed in May by Gov. Mark R. Warner and in effect since July 1 — commands public school divisions to ``prominently post'' the motto "in a conspicuous place in each of their schools for all students to read." (The Virginian-Pilot)
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Church free to maintain crosses | Newport City Hall has backed off its demand that Trinity Baptist Church take down three crosses that the congregation erected last Easter season (The Cincinnati Post)
Earlier: Bush's Defining Moment | The President, facing a grief-stricken nation under attack, finds his voice and his mission (Christianity Today, Nov. 12, 2001)
Democrats reject Bush pick in battle over court balance | Republicans complained that Justice Priscilla Owen's opponents had greatly distorted her record and that she had been victimized by zealous abortion rights advocates (The New York Times)
Also: Texas judge rejected for the federal bench | Democrats also accused Justice Owen of being a judicial activist who crafted laws from the bench dealing with parental notification laws for abortion (The Washington Times)
Settlement lowered in lawsuit on agency | Vickie Allen-Curry was awarded $500,000 after she said she was forced to take part in prayers during staff meetings (The Huntsville [Tex.] Item)
Keeping the faith, forcefully | Georgian Orthodox worshippers are accused of violent attacks on members of other religious groups that have emerged since the collapse of the Soviet system (The Baltimore Sun)
Troy declares himself competent | Despite findings of defense doctors to the contrary, man claims he can stand trial for allegedly shooting and killing a priest and a parishioner in a Lynbrook church in March. (Newsday)
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'I feel no hatred' - priest | An Anglican priest testified on Thursday that he harbored no feelings of hatred or revenge towards the two men who murdered his son during a robbery. (News 24, South Africa)
Priest to be sentenced in insurance fraud | He pleaded guilty Thursday over his role in an international insurance scam orchestrated by disgraced financier Martin Frankel. (Associated Press)
Also: Pair accused of targeting blacks in investment fraud | A civil lawsuit filed Thursday by federal securities regulators accuses two people of defrauding at least 1,000 investors out of more than $1.3 million with a supposed plan to buy stock in black-run companies before they went public. (Associated Press)
Churchman decapitated | Official has been decapitated in the Solomon Islands in a week of worsening violence in the troubled South Pacific state that has left five dead and 11 injured. (The Australian)
Woman and child beaten after prayer meeting | The pair were in a critical condition in hospital after suffering serious head injuries after woman's partner beat them. (The New Zealand Herald)
Prison rape — it's no joke | It has terrible consequences, not just for the inmates who are brutalized, but for our communities as well (Pat Nolan, The Washington Times)
Earlier: Prison rape is no joke | As 7-Up pulls offensive advertisement, evangelicals continue to combat prisoner rap (Christianity Today, July 9, 2002)
Clinic records fight divides Iowa town | Planned Parenthood's refusal to turn over records has stirred debate around the country and divided this farm town of about 10,000 (Associated Press)
Lottery opposition building here | Opposition to the proposed state lottery may be the issue which brings Christians out of the woodwork and marching into the public arena, say church leaders (The Daily Herald, Columbia, S.C.)
Education:
Some parents question new yoga program in classroom | Twelve classes of children, totaling 220 students in grades one through four, were scheduled to begin a children's yoga program in early September (The Aspen [Colo.] Times)
Author says he welcomed controversy | The religion professor who spent 15 years writing Approaching the Qur'án, told a UNC-Chapel Hill audience Thursday he never expected a national uproar about his book. (TheNews and Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
Cardinal in holy war over schools | Edward Cardinal Egan has charged that New York politicians are violating poor parents' "fundamental" rights by denying them the option to send their kids to parochial schools - instead forcing them into oft-failing public schools (New York Post)
Brains and backbone | Some colleges say religious attendance helps develop the whole person (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
N.Y. bishops and the Blaine truth | New York City's Catholic bishops have issued a call for vouchers in their new pastoral letter on parental choice in education, the battle is joined once more in our nation's never-ending voucher war. (Daniel Mcgroarty, NY Post)
New Mexico attorney general would fight school vouchers | Patricia Madrid said that if re-elected she would fight school vouchers because she believes they would violate several provisions of New Mexico's constitution (Albuquerque Journal)
David Benke:
Expelled Lutheran minister gets public support | The "It's OK to Pray" theme, being pushed by Mr. Benke's supporters in the 2.6 million-member conservative denomination, comes as a church review board considers his appeal that he did not commit "syncretism" or "unionism" — forms of heresy by mixing with other faiths or non-Lutherans — by his public prayer (The Washington Times)
Bad times are good times for end-timers | Perhaps as we move toward the anniversary of 9-11 we should assume the stance of the prophetic forerunners of end-time apocalyptic writing and engage our problems with the conviction that what we do or don't do can make a difference (Leo Sandon, Tallahassee [Fla.] Democrat)
Groups seek abstinence-only curbs | Twenty groups who support sex education are urging members of Congress to spend no new money on abstinence-only programs when legislative business resumes this week (The Washington Times)
Homosexuality:
Rights-repeal leader: Gays can be healed | Nathaniel Wilcox, a black minister, has moved to the forefront of the campaign to overturn the 1998 amendment to the county's human rights ordinance that prohibits job and housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (The Miami Herald)
Also: Miami facing new challenge on gay rights | Sharply divided Miami voters will face the issue of overturning the city's gay rights ordinance on Tuesday (The New York Times)
United Way alters gift policy | Donors can now exclude an agency from being helped by their gifts, in response to Big Brothers' new policy requiring local chapters to allow homosexual mentors. (The Wichita Eagle)
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Two thirds of Anglican clergy oppose ordaining homosexuals | Nearly two thirds of clergy in the Church of England oppose the ordination of practicing homosexuals to the priesthood, according to research published yesterday. (The Times, London)
'Gay marriage' register signs up 300 | Thursday marks the first anniversary of London's Partnership Register which gives formal recognition to both gay and heterosexual partnerships where one partner lives in London (BBC)
That was then: Alex and Ian | An interview with one of London's first officially recognized gay couples (BBC)
Church controversies:
Church council plan settles riff | The World Council of Churches accepted a plan to ease differences over forms of worship and inclusion of women that had threatened to split Western Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Christians (Associated Press)
Also: Episcopal priest defies ouster | The Rev. David Moyer says that the church has become too liberal on issues such as the ordination of women and recognition of same-sex unions. (Associated Press)
Earlier: Episcopal priest keeps vigil on removal; it may come today | The Rev. David Moyer spent much of yesterday in his oak-paneled Rosemont office, wondering whether his bishop would defrock him today for "abandoning the communion" of the Episcopal Church (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Also: Episcopal controversy muted in area | The action against the Rev. David Moyer — called deposition by the Episcopal church — caused a wave of dissension in Pennsylvania, but only a ripple of concern in Southwest Florida (The News-Press, Fort Myers, Fla.)
An unorthodox tangle | The election of Irineos as Greek Orthodox Patriarch was welcomed last year by all except the Israeli government, which withheld its approval. Now, his Arab supporters have deserted him over an alleged land deal with Israel (Ha'aretz, Israel)
Women take a stand at Baptist gathering | A circle of black clergywomen is protesting the widespread resistance by the male-dominated National Baptist Convention USA pastorate to allowing women as peers in the pulpit (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Church life:
A radical rebirth | Restoring Baltimore's Basilica of the Assumption to its architect's original vision means eliminating significant parts of its history — and re-creating others (The Baltimore Sun)
Arrest for church graffiti | A Queens man has been charged with spray-painting anti-Catholic slurs on a Bayside church, police said yesterday. (NY Daily News)
To worship, not cower | One hopes that no place of worship will need assistance from law enforcement (Editorial, The Palm Beach [Fla.] Post)
Missions and ministry:
Saddling up for the Lord | Cyclists cross continent for church charity (The Record, Stockton, Calif.)
Pastor not a door-to-door salesman | Every Tuesday and Saturday night Terri Howard and his family shuffle out into the streets of Oxford on a mission—to share the love of God with anyone who will open their front door (The Oxford [Penn.] Tribune)
Earlier: Bird Searches for Ark | World's highest-resolution commercial imaging satellite will investigate the "Ararat Anomaly." (Christianity Today, Dec. 10, 2001)
Researchers find church in Jordan | "A big mosaic floor, an altar and pillars … built between 400 and 600 A.D. have recently been unearthed," says archaeologist Hamad Qatameen (Associated Press)
What a soccer team can teach the church about faith | Why is it that a football club can produce an extraordinary response to institutional meltdown but a church cannot? (Chris McGillion, The Sydney Morning Herald)
Australian soccer star: don't call me God | "It is quite inappropriate to refer to me, a mere man, as God. It is also disrespectful and dishonoring to God," says Gary Ablett, who now works at a Christian radio station (News.com.au, Australia)
The faith factor | In Christian music, sales are up—and so is the confusion. Whose music is it anyway? (Chicago Tribune)
Heaven can wait | Success won't turn the Blind Boys of Alabama from their chosen gospel path (The Times, London)
Drummer beat his way back from hell | Kevin Hicks experienced healing after visiting Church of the Holy Sepculchre (Adrian Chamberlain, Times Colonist, Victoria, Canada)
Friendship shapes Jars of Clay | From their first single, the mid-'90s crossover hit "Flood," to their recent self-produced release The Eleventh Hour, the band has never seemed content fitting into preconceived notions of what a contemporary Christian rock band should do or be (The Orlando Sentinel)
Books:
A don devoted to God | C.S. Lewis bio "The Magic Never Ends" is first-rate (Kay Gardella, New York Daily News)
Also: 'Sopranos' about family values, really | The author of The Gospel According to the Simpsons on The Gospel According to Tony Soprano (The Baltimore Sun)
Earlier: Jedi Order lures 53,000 disciples in New Zealand | Unofficially, the country has more Jedi Knights than Buddhist, Baptists, Mormons, Hindu and Ratana Christians (The New Zealand Herald)
Scanned 'txt msg' Bible, saw that it was not good | But reading the "txt msg" version is like ordering a chocolate mousse and being handed a capsule that contains all the ingredients distilled and compressed down to the size of a marble (David Hinckley, New York Daily News)
Ky. prison suspends satanic services | The state Department of Corrections suspended formal satanic services by inmates at one Kentucky prison yesterday until officials can research and develop a statewide policy (Lexington [Ky.] Herald-Leader)
Also: Student fights to wear Wiccan necklace | School officials let her come back Wednesday only after she agreed to hide the pentacle, a five-pointed star inside a circle. (The Houston Chronicle)
Also: Wiccan fighting dress code | Waxahachie officials say teen's pentacle necklace could be disruptive (The Dallas Morning News)
Western and Islamic worlds closer than you think | New study finds common ground in public opinion on attitudes to democracy, political and religious leadership, and gender and sexuality (Rami Khouri, The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
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Deceived by the ugly face of Islam | For obvious reasons, the international spotlight is trained on Islam, and much of what we see is ugly. (Lucy Clark, The Daily Telegraph, Australia)
No, Not That Billy Graham | The Islam expert selected to head Harvard Divinity School (Brendan Miniter, The Wall Street Journal)
Putting a leash on dogma | When it comes to contemporary political debate we must avoid asserting moral beliefs as moral truths (Catharine Lumby, The Bulletin, Australia)
It's the right thing to do | While we might disagree with someone's religious views, we should not oppose them (Phil Dodson, The Macon [Ga.] Telegraph)
Religion isn't nice | It kills. So that's that: no secular thinkers on Thought for the Day. Another bowlful of mental custard, anyone? (Polly Toynbee,The Guardian, London)
Pope Warns of 'Signs of Deviation' | The pope told visiting Brazilian bishops it would be regrettable if "immature young men, or those with obvious signs of deviations, were ordained, which, as it is sadly known, can cause serious anomalies in the consciences of the faithful, producing clear damage to the whole Church" (Associated Press)
Ending legal secrecy | One of the most troubling, and least scrutinized, aspects of the child sexual abuse scandal now roiling the Roman Catholic Church is the enabling role played by the court system (Editorial, The New York Times)
In Law's corner | Defending the Cardinal, a leading lawyer must roll with the punches (The Boston Globe)
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Diocese, ex-priest hurl accusations | The Diocese of Peoria and a former priest have accused each other of lying in statements to the media regarding a defamation lawsuit the priest filed after he was accused of sexually abusing girls. (Associated Press)
Legal problems plague Pell sex abuse inquiry | Legal representation for both sides in the inquiry into sexual abuse allegations against Sydney's Catholic Archbishop George Pell will today hold talks to reconsider their involvement. (ABC, Australia)
Also: Church under fire for denying Pell accuser legal funding | A Catholic church inquiry into sexual abuse allegations against Sydney Archbishop George Pell is under criticism for not treating the accuser fairly (ABC News, Australia)
Voice of the Faithful is not the church | The scandals in the Catholic Church have created a free-for-all for those who wish to vent against the church. (John Mallon, The Boston Globe)
Catholics say diocese policy assumes guilt | Many Catholics fear that a proposed policy for handling allegations of child sex abuse weighs too heavily against priests, church employees and volunteers who face such accusations in the future. (The Plain Dealer)
Cardinal's accuser charged with extortion | Loren Mitchell Saffels, 34, told Stockton police in June that he had been molested in 1982 by Mahony, who was bishop of Stockton at the time. (Associated Press)
Panel on abuse drops 2 clerics | The nation's Roman Catholic bishops said yesterday they have restructured a committee that drafts policies on how dioceses should discipline priests who molest children. (The Boston Globe)
Charge of sex abuse levied on mentor | Steven E. Kuehne was cohost of Roc House Cafe, a weekly, hourlong show that airs Friday nights and features Christian music videos (The Augusta [Ga.] Chronicle)
Vicar wanted to French kiss me, says parishioner | The Rev Harry Brown, 49, priest-in-charge of Crosscrake and Preston Patrick, near Kendal, was accused by a woman to have tried to kiss her as they sat on a sofa at her home. (The Times, London)
'Silentlambs' speak out about sex abuse | Several former Jehovah's Witnesses stood outside a Kingdom Hall church near Green Lake yesterday with a tiny toy lamb whose mouth was covered with black electrician's tape. (The Seattle Times)
In defense of Rowan Williams | Williams' conservative opponents have judged the man not for what he has said about, for example, the resurrection, prayer, the virgin birth or charity, but because of his stance on the Gay issue (Michael Coren, The National Post, Canada)
Embracing that 'city upon a hill' | Societies do not always live up to their ideals, but a society without ideals is hollow (Charles C. Euchner and William M. Fowler, The Boston Globe)
Scientists wrangle with questions of faith | Discussions of religious faith have in recent years become increasingly friendly terrain for scientists (The Christian Science Monitor)
An independent commission concluded that dozens of women were violated by Vanier and his mentor under exploitative spiritual disciplines.
Amid controversies and threats of defunding, Christian public librarians work for the good of their communities.
Can human sexuality be a nonessential issue for a denomination that seeks to “stand in the center”?
