For One Episcopal Parish, a Path to Catholicism
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When the Vatican announced last week that it would welcome groups of traditionalist Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church, leaders of one Episcopal parish celebrated as if a ship had arrived to rescue them from a drifting ice floe.
Bishop David Moyer of the Church of the Good Shepherd welcomes a Vatican decision to embrace traditionalist Anglicans.
“We’d been praying for this daily for two years,” said Bishop David L. Moyer, who leads the Church of the Good Shepherd, a parish in the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia that is battling to keep its historic property. “When I heard the news I was speechless, then the joy came and the tears.”
This parish could be one of the first in the United States to convert en masse after the Vatican completes plans for a new structure to allow Anglicans to become Catholic while retaining many of their spiritual traditions, like the Book of Common Prayer and married priests.
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Benny Hinn Faces Challenges At Home and Abroad
Pastor Benny Hinn is being investigated by the Senate Finance Committee and was recently denied entry into the United Kingdom. The press has been bad, he says, because the media doesn’t understand him.
But the Texas-based faith healer, whose “Holy Spirit Miracle Crusades” pack sports arenas across the United States, is fielding questions about his controversies nonetheless. He says he needs to voice his concerns over the land of his birth, Israel, and the threat to it posed by a nuclear Iran — which he talks about in his new book “Blood in the Sand.”
“[The media] are never going to paint me as I want to be painted,” Hinn said in an exclusive interview. “But, really, it doesn’t matter as long as people give me the chance to talk.”
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Last week Hinn was denied entry into the U.K. for a three-day rally at which, according to his Web site, thousands of evangelical Christians planned to hear him. New immigration rules that crack down on religious extremism required him to present a special certificate of sponsorship, which he didn’t have.
Hinn claims several Christian ministers before him also were denied entry, but his expulsion made headlines because he’s a well-known, charismatic pastor who preaches a prosperity gospel. Give generously to God, he preaches, and God will give even more generously in return
One Quarter of Americans Could Claim ‘No Religion’ in 20 Years
If current trends continue, a quarter of Americans are likely to claim “no religion” in 20 years, according to a survey out today by Trinity College. Americans who identify with no religious tradition currently comprise 15 percent of the country, representing the fastest growing segment of the national religious landscape.
While the numbers portend a dramatic change for the American religious scene—”religious nones” accounted for just 8 percent of the population in 1990—the United States is not poised adopt the anti-religious posture of much of secularized Europe.
That’s because American religious nones tend to be religious skeptics as opposed to outright atheists. Fewer than ten percent of those identifying with no religious tradition call themselves atheists or hold atheistic beliefs, according to the new study.
“American nones are kind of agnostic and deistic, so it’s a very American kind of skepticism,” says Barry Kosmin, director of Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture. “It’s a kind of religious indifference that’s not hostile to religion the way they are in France. Franklin and Jefferson would have recognized these people.”
60,000 Pray In Times Square – Media Doesn’t Cover It
You can see most anything at Times Square in Manhattan. But 60,000 people praying? That’s an unusual site in the heart of Broadway. Yet, that’s just what happened there yesterday for one hour – from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in a Christian rally called Prayer in the Square. Event organizers from Time Square Church had expected some 15,000. But their expectations were far exceeded at the third event of its kind in the last three years.
Despite the magnitude of the event, no major media covered it – even in the center of the media world on a slow news day.
More than 200 churches joined with the Times Square Church in promoting the rally to pray for the city and the nation.
60,000 pray Read Full Article.
50,000 Muslims To Hold Islamic Prayer Service On Capitol Hill
A massive Islamic prayer service will be held on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. at the end of this month – and 50,000 Muslims are expected to take part.
For a few hours on Sept. 25, the site where U.S. presidents are traditionally inaugurated, will essentially be turned into a giant outdoor mosque. The Jummah service – weekly Friday prayers – will “echo off of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and other great edifices that surround Capitol Hill,” according to the organizers.
They explain that the objective of the gathering is to “invite the Muslim Communities and friends of Islam to express and illustrate the wonderful diversity of Islam. We intend to manifest Islam’s majestic spiritual principals [sic] as revealed by Allah to our beloved prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) of Arabia. Likewise, we intend to inspire a new generation of Muslims to work for the greater good of all people.”
The event, organized by a mosque in Elizabeth, New Jersey, is billed as a “Day of Islamic Unity.”
“Thousands of Muslims from all races, creeds, colors and ethnicities will gather for the sole purpose of prayer,” the organizers’ website states, and “the peace, beauty and solidarity of Islam will shine through America’s capitol.”
The website page concludes, “Our Time Has Come.”
Passage Found, May Have Been Used by Abraham
A Jerusalem walkway from the times of the Patriarch Abraham, protected by a wall of large rocks, has been discovered, and will be displayed to the public on Thursday.
The double-wall was uncovered in a dig run by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and sponsored by the City of David Association. Prof. Roni Reich of the University of Haifa, who is directing the dig together with Eli Shukrun of the IAA, told Israel National News, “Based on clay pottery fragments found at the site, it is assumed to have been built by the Canaanites some 3,700 years ago, during the period known as the Middle Bronze Age.”
The Patriarch Abraham met with “Malki-Tzedek, King of Shalem” – later known as Jerusalem – during this period, according to Biblical chronology and Genesis 14,18.
The fortifications are eight meters (over 26 feet) high, and served to protect those walking down to a spring in what is now the National Park, around and at the foot of the walls of Jerusalem. Some 24 meters of the double wall’s length have been uncovered, but it is apparently even longer, waiting to be uncovered in the future.
“This is the most massive wall ever discovered in the City of David,” Reich said. “It is tremendously large in terms of its dimensions, thickness, and size of the rocks used. It appears that they protect a walk-way used to walk down from some tower atop the hill towards the spring.”
President Obama Praises US Muslims At Ramadan Dinner
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised American Muslims for enriching the nation’s culture at a dinner to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
“The contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country,” Obama said at the iftar, the dinner that breaks the holiday’s daily fast.
The president joined Cabinet secretaries, members of the diplomatic corps and lawmakers to pay tribute to what he called “a great religion and its commitment to justice and progress.”
Attendees included Congress’ two Muslim members – Reps. Keith Ellison and Andre Carson as well as ambassadors from Islamic nations and
School Sues State for Banning Bible Use as Textbook
A public charter school is suing Idaho officials, saying the state illegally barred use of the Bible as an instructional text. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boise on behalf of Nampa Classical Academy in Idaho.
The charter school is scheduled to open Sept. 8 and had planned to use the Bible as a primary source of teaching material, but not to teach religion.
Lutherans to Allow Sexually Active Gays As Clergy
Leaders of the nation’s largest Lutheran church voted Friday to allow sexually active gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy. Gays and lesbians are currently allowed to serve as ministers in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America only if they remain celibate. The proposal to change that passed with 68 percent approval.
At 4.7 million members and about 10,000 congregations in the United States, the ELCA is one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance on clergy.
The final decision on whether to hire gay clergy in committed relationships will lie with individual congregations.
Some critics of the proposal have predicted its passage could cause individual congregations to split off from the ELCA, as has been the case with other Christian denominations, including the Episcopal Church.
via Read Article.
Principal, Athletic Director Face Jail for Prayer Before Lunch
A principal and an athletic director in Florida could be charged with crimes and spend six months in jail after they prayed before a meal at a school event, the Washington Times reported. Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and athletic director Robert Freeman will go on trial in federal district court Sept. 17. They’re accused of violating the conditions of a lawsuit settlement reached last year with the American Civil Liberties Union, according to the Times.
Local pastors and some students and teachers are outraged that Lay and Freeman face criminal charges, and they have protested during graduation ceremonies, the newspaper said.
“I have been defending religious freedom issues for 22 years, and I’ve never had to defend somebody who has been charged criminally for praying,” said Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, the Christian-based legal group that is defending the two school officials.
But an ACLU official said the Santa Rosa County School District has been guilty of “flagrant” First Amendment violations for years, the Times reported.
“The defendants all admitted wrongdoing,” said Daniel Mach, ACLU’s director of litigation for its freedom of religion program. “For example, the Pace High School teachers handbook asks teachers to ‘embrace every opportunity to inculcate, by precept and example, the practice of every Christian virtue.’”
The case stems from a Jan. 28 incident in which Lay, a local Baptist church deacon, asked Freeman to offer mealtime prayers at a lunch for school employees. Staver said no students were there and the event took place on school property after hours.
Mach countered that the event was held during the school day and Lay has admitted in writing that there were students present, according to the newspaper.
More Jews In Israel Than Out – 1st Time in 2000 Years
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed a planeload of olim on Tuesday at Ben-Gurion Airport, telling them that “for the first time in 2,000 years, there are going to be more Jews in Israel than outside it.”
Speaking to a terminal full of olim from the United States and Canada, who came with Nefesh B’Nefesh on the organization’s 38th chartered aliya flight since the first one in July 2002, Netanyahu noted that Israel’s Jewish population was nearing the six million mark.
It is hard to gauge the number of Jews in the Diaspora. In the largest community – America – the only effective tool is a telephone poll. Nevertheless, Diaspora Jewry is usually estimated at between six and seven million, though some demographers and scholars consider this figure low.
via ‘Israel will soon be larger than Diaspora’ | Israel | Jerusalem Post.
Ayman- al Zawahri: Israel Must Be Wiped Off Map
Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaida’s second-in-command, said on Monday that Israel should be wiped off the map and described the Jewish state as a crime against Muslims.
Zawahri also accused US President Barack Obama of conducting a policy on Israeli-Palestinian issues that was bound to end in failure for the Palestinians, Reuters reported, saying that Obama wanted a Palestinian state that would serve as “an extension of the CIA.”
“Israel is a crime that should be removed,” the news agency quoted Zawahri as saying in an interview with al Qaida’s media arm As-Sahab, posted on an Islamist website on Monday.
Al-Qaida has repeatedly lashed out at Obama since he was elected, a move some analysts believe indicates the terrorist organization is worried he will be effective in improving the US image in the Muslim world.
“His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words,” Zawahri said of Obama’s speech in Cairo in early June.
via Ayman- al Zawahri: Israel must be wiped off map | International | Jerusalem Post.
Dems Sneak Hate Crimes Bill In Defense Initative
Democrats are expected to sneak the hate crimes bill through the Senate as early as tomorrow after they offered it as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill.
The Senate approved the same hate crime legislation last year as part of the military funding bill, but it was never reconciled with the House’s bill.
The current House version – H.R. 1913, or the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 – was passed April 29 and referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
Now the Senate is considering the military appropriations bill, or S.1390, and the Senate “hate crimes” act, or S. 909, may be passed as an amendment soon.
The “hate crimes” legislation now faces its best chance in years to become federal law.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced Senate consideration of S.909, or the “Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act” on Tuesday.
“For the last decade, Matthew Shepard’s name has been associated with hate crimes. When this bill passes, his name will thereafter be associated with justice,” Reid said, according to a Politico report.
Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz, blasted the hate crimes amendment today, saying it is unrelated to the defense bill
Group Seeks to Block ‘In God We Trust’ Engraving
The nation’s largest group of atheists and agnostics filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block an architect from engraving “In God We Trust” and the Pledge of Allegiance at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington.
The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in western Wisconsin, claims the taxpayer-funded engravings would be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
The House and Senate passed identical resolutions this month directing the Architect of the Capitol to engrave “In God We Trust” and the pledge in prominent places at the entrance for 3 million tourists who visit the Capitol each year.
The resolution came in response to critics who complained Congress spent $621 million on the new three-story underground center without paying respect to the nation’s religious heritage. The center opened in December after years of construction.
The foundation is seeking a court order to stop the engravings, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost less than $100,000.
“In God We Trust” has been the national motto since 1956 and has appeared on U.S. currency since 1957.
