A Michigan high school football team is holding preseason practices in the middle of the night to help its Muslim players practice both faith and football. The predominantly Muslim squad from Dearborn says the nocturnal regimen is a way for players to eat and drink while observing the holy month of daytime fasting known as Ramadan that started last week.
The thistle is the weed or the flower, depending on your perspective, that still grows on the streets and the alleys where the women walk. It has the deepest taproot of any plant, and it can push through two, three inches of concrete. It is a great reminder that all of us, with our prickly outer selves, have this beautiful, deep, rich center that’s a gift from God.
We expect our congregations to be places of health and healing, an oasis in the midst of the demands and stresses of daily life. Yet some people experience great pain in their congregations, pain that robs them of the comfort their faith could give them. Burnout is one kind of pain that goes against the very promise of congregational life.
Bonnie Anderson: Ministry is a shared enterprise in which lay people are equal partners. Clergy burnout occurs because both parties lose sight of this fact. The result is clergy who believe that they must meet everyone’s needs while playing the role of a lone superhero, and members of the laity who are either infantilized or embittered because they cannot make meaningful contributions to their church.
We do not believe that Bishop Bennison has the trust of the clergy and lay leaders necessary for him to be an effective pastor and leader of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, nor that he can regain or rebuild the trust that he has lost or broken.We believe that it would be in the best interest of the Diocese that Bishop Bennison not resume his exercise of authority here.
More than 40 prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders and scholars have issued a statement condemning the “xenophobia and religious bigotry” fueling the increasingly strident opposition to a proposed mosque near Ground Zero. These leaders from New York City and across the country are specifically challenging the divisive rhetoric of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.
Whom earth, and sea, and eke the skies,
Adore, and worship, and declare,
As ruler of the triple frame,
The closure of Maria bare.
I’m noticing how much some of these Story Corps’ personal vignettes are like Jesus’ parables. The stories create a mosaic proclaiming the work of God in all kinds of human lives, all without the declared or even hidden presence of church or religion.
We affirm that the fire that Christ sent out is for humanity’s salvation and profit. May God grant that all our hearts be full of this. The fire is the saving message of the gospel and the power of its commandments. We were cold and dead because of sin and in ignorance of him who by nature is truly God. The gospel ignites all of us on earth to a life of piety and makes us fervent in spirit, according to the expression of blessed Paul.
In 1965 Lowndes County, Alabama, the piney hill country between Selma and Montgomery, was known among civil rights workers as “Bloody Lowndes.” It was one of the poorest counties in America, a place where 80 percent of the population was black, and not one black had ever voted. The official motto of the Lowndes County Democratic party was “White Supremacy.” After civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo was murdered, bumper stickers reading “Open Season” appeared on cars in Lowndes County. “Selma was scary enough,” said one civil rights worker, “but Lowndes County was the edge of the civilized planet.”