Well, you can add the Hare Krishnas to the list of senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s religious experiments. Turns out she couldn’t handle the vegetarianism of ISKCON because she’s “Italian and I love meatballs.” And in case you weren’t sure, she’s still not a witch.
Sit. Stay. Pray. Jango the dog says grace before every meal. Good boy. More and more people see the divine in the canine as pet blessings grow in popularity.
Reverend Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, warned Christians that, “The embrace of yoga is a symptom of our postmodern spiritual confusion.”
Do you ever get chain letters or, even worse, chain emails… “forward this on to fifteen people and you’ll have good luck. A guy in Lisbon didn’t forward the email and he was eaten by a bear.” Well, guess who you can blame for those pesky chain correspondences: the Methodists. No word on which denomination is responsible for forwarding cute pictures of cats and toddlers.
American Eastern Orthodox parishes have grown by 16% in the past decade.
Palestinians hope that a sycamore tree in Jericho will help make the city a tourist destination. The ancient tree is believed to be the same sycamore that the diminutive tax collector Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus in the gospel of Luke. A Montana woman took a crowbar to a controversial piece of artwork in a Colorado gallery that allegedly depicts Jesus during a sex act. See for yourself here. In South Carolina a woman claims Jesus is depicted in her MRI.
Mixing scripture reading and prayer with exercise may be the best way to get the elderly to work.
President George W. Bush is reading a new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, according to Laura Bush. As the November elections get closer, more politicians are showing up at church.
An Algerian court acquitted two Protestant men who were charged with “offending public morals” for eating on their job site during Ramadan. By declining to hear an appeal, the US Supreme Court effectively upheld a ban on religious Christmas carols in a New Jersey school district. In Germany, a group of Catholics want to take the Santa out of Christmas. They want to replace the consumerist Claus with the selfless St. Nicholas.
Druidry is now recognized as a religion by Great Britain. That only took a few thousand years.
A priest at St. Vincent College in Pennsylvania was fired when pornography was discovered on his computer. The story takes an interesting turn, however. It turns out a former student is claiming he downloaded the porn to the priest’s computer and that he then told the priest about it during sacramental confession before it was ever discovered by college administration. Because of its sacred context the priest was forbidden from revealing the confession to administrators.
Pope Benedict denounced the mafia. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a letter thanking the Pope for denouncing the planned Qur’an burnings in Florida.
In the wake of recent teen bullying, Christian group Exodus International has decided to pull its support of the “Day of Truth,” an event that encourages school students to “counter the promotion of homosexual behavior.” As of Wednesday, Focus on the Family was standing by the event.
As the Major League playoffs get started, Texas Rangers’ Josh Hamilton relies on his evangelical Christianity to stave off his past addictions.
