August 25, 2008

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
From Prayer to 'Faith Caucuses,' Party to Show Religious Side
Suzanne Sataline/Wall Street Journal (08/25/2008)
The Democrats hope this week to show that they have found religion. Their convention opened Sunday with an interfaith prayer, which is set to be followed this week by an opening invocation and closing benediction on each day of the get-together. The party is holding "faith caucuses" led by prominent ministers to discuss topics considered important to religious voters this year.

Democrats open faith-filled convention with prayer
Eric Gorski/Associated Press (08/25/2008: ap.google.com)
Denver — At the first official event Sunday of the Democratic National Convention, a choir belted out a gospel song and was followed by a rabbi reciting a Torah reading about forgiveness and the future. Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who wrote "Dead Man Walking," assailed the death penalty and the use of torture. Young Muslim women in headscarves sat near older African-American women in their finest Sunday hats. Four years ago, such a scene would have been unthinkable at a Democratic National Convention.

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE
Christians see climate change as moral issue
Alister Doyle/Reuters (08/25/2008)
ACCRA - Morality should be a spur for stronger action to fight climate change, which threatens food and water supplies for the poorest in Africa, a group of Christian activists said on Saturday during U.N. climate talks

'Jewish clause' divides a family
Ron Grossman/Chicago Tribune (08/25/2008)
State courts weigh in on a man's will that disinherited any descendant who married a gentile

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
California churches plan a big push against same-sex marriage
Jessica Garrison/Los Angeles Times (08/25/2008)
Organizers hope to get 1 million Catholics, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, evangelical Christians, Sikhs and Hindus to post lawn signs supporting Prop. 8 in unison next month.

EDUCATION
A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash
Amy Harmon/New York Times (08/25/2008)
In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the state’s public schools to teach evolution, calling it “the organizing principle of life science.” Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history, over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years.

CONGREGATIONS AND FAITH GROUPS
For a Congregation, a Church Out of Reach
Samuel G. Freedman/New York Times (08/23/2008)
The pews, the altar, the baptismal pool were already installed in their new home. The kitchen and the social hall were complete. All that was left was to lay the cedar planks of the floor, then tack down the carpet. On the third Sunday of September, Holy Ground’s members would march into a sanctuary of their own. Before then, of course, Hurricane Katrina struck and Holy Ground sat deep in floodwater.

Woman's turn in pulpit at Irving Bible Church brings buzz, beefs
Sam Hodges/Dallas Morning News (08/25/2008)
Irving Bible Church will have a woman preaching Sunday for the first time in its 40-year history, a move that has caused alarm among fellow conservative evangelicals in North Texas and beyond.

Wading in Baptismal Waters -- at Hydrants
Hamil R. Harris/Washington Post (08/25/2008)
As the trombones blared, the "saints" -- dressed in white -- filled the streets in front of God's White House in Northwest Washington yesterday to be soaked in the name of Jesus during the final day of the 82nd annual Holy Convocation of the United House of Prayer for All People.