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Hajj Journal: Using the Toilet at the Grand Mosque

…sque is gigantic, full of beautiful and elaborate designs, with an immense number of repetitions to them. The stairs and the escalators are deceiving, taking two for each floor in one tower and only one escalator per floor in another tower. I never did figure out which was which. I knew the fastest way up to the third floor from my hotel, but this was always early and therefore less chaotic. It also involved a wide ramp straight from the outer fro…

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Ministries of Presence: A Report from Nepal

…hild, and his wife, Rheka, who have adopted or otherwise given a home to a number of girls and young women who have survived sometimes horrific abuse and neglect. “I’m just here to be here,” Heuertz would say apologetically from time to time during our visits in and around Kathmandu, as if showing up and being fully, lovingly present weren’t a robust enough mission. “I just wanted to come and support my friends, to show them I love them, and be he…

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Hobby Lobby: Key to a More Liberal and Less Religious America?

…te hearts and minds, and moving people out of the pews across America. The number of nones (people with no religious preference) is on the rise, with over 20% of all Americans claiming this status, and many point to the increased politicization of religion as the cause. This trend of legal victories will, in the long run, very likely create a more secular America. Recent data indicate that this process is already clearly under way. A poll just rel…

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Lessons from the Defeat of the Oklahoma Personhood Bill

…bivalent during that state’s recent personhood battle. This could mean any number of things, of course: from the simple and unsurprising non-news that sometimes people with the same job disagree with each other; to the possibility that personhood legislation is an unsettled question for US Catholic bishops; to the question of whether the bishops’ national fight with the Obama administration over contraception coverage has hardened their other posi…

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“Can You Tell Me Who The Villains Are?”: Rock and Religion, Irish-Style

…She feels examined by their eyes Is she right or is she wrong? She’s got a number in her pocket And one change of clothes Her innocence is fading Like last years winter snow’s Light a candle in the window So she can see it from the road With all the loving in your heart Welcome her back home. The Docs’ keening for a fallen innocent seems all too prescient, given the recent negotiations over revelations of priestly sexual abuse of both girls and bo…

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Catholic ‘Soul-Searching’ as Ireland Votes on Marriage; Churches, American Activists Join Kenyan Anti-Gay Group’s ‘Family’ Confab; Indian Mom Seeks Spouse For Gay Son; Global LGBT Recap

…the Christian Church felt ought to be dealt with before the passing of the new constitution. With the eventual passage and promulgation of the new constitution, the church is left with a major challenge in fighting for Godly values in the legal-social framework of our society. Christian professionals are critically needed at this juncture. It is in this context that the Christian professionals from all disciplines and all parts of the country have…

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Post-Election, “Is The Black Church Dead?” Redux

…oters out in record numbers as they did in 2008, even though a poll in the New York Times showed his favorables to be extremely high in the African-American community, while he is losing traction with other groups who voted for him in 2008. Issues in the community surrounding foreclosures and unemployment are likely to continue. If the black church writ large is to have any stake in the 2012 election, it needs to be organized around issues that ma…

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The World is (Always) About to End, No Zombies Required

…who will herald the Second Coming of Jesus.) The Stracks and Dan Lafferty knew each other, but apparently, according to reporters Lafferty did not talk much about the impending end of the world with the Stracks and their contact ended in 2008. Nothing in the Strack’s house (and nothing they said to their neighbors or friends or family, at least as far as has been revealed to the press thus far) indicates why the Stracks thought the apocalypse loom…

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The Catholic-Evangelical (Non-)Coalition

…ngelical Protestants than among Catholics.” But, as he notes, this isn’t a new trend; it’s the result of a two-decade long effort to cultivate “a new evangelical flock to compensate for the loss of lay Catholic support on cultural issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.” The real Catholic-Evangelical convergence is between the Republican leadership, the Catholic bishops, right-wing Catholics, and rank-and-file Evangelicals, a coalition that wa…

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