Monthly Archives: December 2007
Osteen’s `Become a Better You’ tops best-seller list: RNS Religion Best-Sellers List
By RNS Blog Editor — December 21, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service RELIGION BEST-SELLERS (Editor’s note: This December list is compiled by Publishers Weekly magazine from data received from general independent bookstores, chain stores and wholesalers within the month of November. Copyright 2007 Publishers Weekly. Distributed by Religion News Service.) HARDCOVER 1. “Become a Better You,” by Joel Osteen. (Free Press, $25.00) […]
On-the-go Bibles hit the fast lane
By RNS Blog Editor — December 21, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Often when Mike Sheppard listens to the stories of the Crucifixion or Mary’s discovery of the empty tomb, he gets so distracted that he almost forgets he’s behind the wheel. “There are points in the New Testament where you’ll be brought to tears while you’re driving down the road,” […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — December 21, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service Ministers lose job-tax exemption in Kentucky county (RNS) Ministers in a Kentucky county will no longer be granted an occupational tax exemption after a local atheist sued to challenge the practice. Edwin Kagin, national legal director of American Atheists Inc., filed his suit in 2005 to challenge Boone County’s exemption […]
Belly dancing as a vehicle for spiritual exploration
By RNS Blog Editor — December 21, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service AKRON, Ohio _ Middle Eastern music plays softly as the dancers gracefully raise their hands from their sides and lift them high, ending with their palms together above their heads. The movements of the women, short and tall, young and old, thin and not-so-thin, have a meditative quality. Their expressions […]
COMMENTARY: My top 10 religion stories of the year
By James Rudin — December 21, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) My choices for the top 10 religion stories in 2007 are: 1. Even as Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, investigated possible wrongdoing within six prominent evangelical megachurches, the mixture of religion and politics in the United States intensified. Mike Huckabee’s surge in the polls, Mitt Romney’s need to speak about […]
Infamous Irish Priest Faces New Sex Charge
By Daniel Burke — December 20, 2007
Oliver O’Grady, the Irish-born priests whose rape of children in California was documented in the Oscar-nominated film “Deliver Us From Evil,” now faces a new legal challenge, according to the Stockton Record. Says the Record: A new lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Stockton alleges that former priest sexually abused another child while serving in […]
Muslim Car Talk
By Daniel Burke — December 20, 2007
According to Catholic World News, an Iranian company is making a new vehicle specifically for Muslims. The car will be adorned with Islamic symbols and have a compass pointing toward the Muslim holy city of Mecca. There’s probably a good joke in there somewhere but I’ll let you make it. Read the brief here.
Till Proven
By Mark Silk — December 20, 2007
Huckabee pleads complete innocence on the Xmas Greeting ad. Someone ask the cameraman.
Hajj-Choo!
By RNS Blog Editor — December 20, 2007
Muslim officials brace for Hajj health risks RNS’ Omar Sacirbey looks at the health issues that Saudi Arabia deals with during the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, in this week’s full-text article, linked above. Quote: The Hajj, which this year begins Dec. 18, is a health-care challenge by any stretch. Some 2 million […]
Vatican nixes “Golden Compass”
By Francis X. Rocca — December 20, 2007
The makers of The Golden Compass were probably not expecting a rave review from the Vatican newspaper l’Osservatore Romano. And they didn’t get one.
Hillary or Barack?
By Mark Silk — December 20, 2007
Those with access to Lexis-Nexis should check out this good Religion News Service piece by Daniel Burke and Cecile Holmes on the struggle between Clinton and Obama for the votes of black folk in South Carolina. For black church women in particular the choice is hard, they report: Do I vote for the woman or […]
All Huck
By Mark Silk — December 20, 2007
For almost all Huck almost all the time, check out the Arkansas Times‘ Arkansas Blog. Editor Max Brantley is no fan.
B v. M
By Mark Silk — December 20, 2007
Useful overview in Slate of the contest for converts between Baptists and Mormons.
The Shiv
By Mark Silk — December 20, 2007
Robert Novak sticks his shiv into Huckabee not for being too religious but for not being religious enough–or at least, for failures on the barricades of the Baptist Wars of yore. The reason the panjandrums of the SBC are not backing Huck, saith Bob, is that when the charge was on to drive the liberals […]
10 Minutes with … Jody Myers
By Ron Csillag — December 20, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The international Kabbalah Centre has drawn high-profile praise and ire. Pop stars like Madonna have darkened the center’s doors in Los Angeles, but some traditional Jews say the center peddles New Age snake oil. “Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest,” by Jody Myers, a professor of religion at California State […]
