Here's wishing all our Christian readers a prayerful Lent.
Today, of course, is Ash Wednesday. Episcopalians have started a tradition of sorts with an “Ashes on the Go” program for commuters. Episcopal priest and serial memoirist Lauren Winner says Ash Wednesday belongs on the streets.
CNN asks if Ash Wednesday will also make an appearance on the foreheads of Catholics Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum at tonight's presidential debate.
For an election that was supposed to be about the economy, there's been a whole lot of religion-talk lately, much to the chagrin of some liberal church-state watchdogs.
In Ohio on Tuesday, Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of having “fought against religion” these last three years. This comes after Santorum lambasted Obama's “phony theology” and Franklin Graham questioned the president's Christian bona fides. (BTW, have you heard about MSNBC's new quiz show, “Who's a Christian?” They had Robert Jeffress (remember him?) on yesterday.)
Santorum later said he was talking about Obama's “worldview” on the environment, but as past speeches and interviews show, he has a history of denouncing Obama's faith.
With the president's religion in the limelight, we went back and looked at some of Obama's most personal religious statements over the past three years.
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the NYPD's monitoring of Muslim student groups at more than a dozen universities across the Northeast.
Israel’s top court struck down a law designed to encourage ultra-Orthodox Jews to join the military and the workforce, saying it had backfired, Reuters reports.
The Philly Inquirer says Archbishop Charles Chaput is “emerging as a fierce warrior-bishop.”
The anti-abortion group Priests for Life is deeply in debt and behind on its bills, NCR reports.
The Mormon church is (again!) apologizing for baptizing Anne Frank. That's the second time a Mormon has baptized the famed Holocaust victim and diarist.
Gawker asks in horror whether Mormons (including Ann Romney) are taking over Pinterest and one Mormon scholar wonders whether all the “Mormon moment” media attention is worth it.
The C.S. Lewis College flopped and is giving away its Massachusetts campus for free. Watch out for the wardrobe.
Yr hmbl aggregator,
Daniel Burke
