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Eli’s Coming – Denzel Takes on the Good Book
In the post-apocalyptic world of The Book of Eli, the most precious things on earth are a trial-size bottle of shampoo; a cache of hand wipes, individually wrapped; and the last existing copy of the King James Bible. Denzel Washington, […]
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House of Worship: Finding Spirituality at Home
Seven percent of Americans say they “attend religious services in someone’s home.” This surprising little fact was buried in a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which showed that Americans are as loosey-goosey in their […]
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An American Original: Oral Roberts
The YouTube video is almost too corny to believe. The year is 1955. A young boy, about 6 and afflicted with polio, is sitting on Oral Roberts’s lap. With praise and prayer, the preacher touches the boy all over his […]
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Rick Warren Finally Opposes Uganda Anti-Homosexual Law
Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor who drew fire last January when he gave the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration, is to be lauded for his fortitude. In a videotaped statement released last week, Warren condemned proposed legislation in Uganda that […]
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Heaven on Film – the Lovely Bones
Heaven, according to polls, is a place nearly everyone wants to go to, so why don’t movies ever remotely capture that yearning? We all carry inchoate visions of heaven around in our heads, but we don’t realize how bruising another’s […]
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Who is Jewish?
Were I to submit my cells to DNA tests, results would doubtless show that —barring any surprises—I am a Jew. I have four Jewish grandparents. Genetically speaking, I share a common ancestry with most Jews, no matter where they live, […]
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Health Care: Abortion Is Not the Only Moral Issue
We suffer, this week, from a moral myopia. Thanks to the passage in Congress of a health-reform bill, abortion is in the news again, but with the same old warriors brandishing their same old spears. Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling […]
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Hasan was both a Fundamentalist and a Terrorist
We are giving ourselves shallow and untenable choices. Either Islam is a religion that condones violence. Or Islam is a religion of peace. Either Maj. Nidal Hasan, who opened fire at the Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, last week, […]
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The Fight over Abstinence at Harvard
At Harvard, it’s sounding a lot like the ’70s again. Thanks to the provocations of True Love Revolution, the university’s three-year-old pro-abstinence club, brainy women are defending their right to have sex with whomever they want, whenever and however they […]
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Mary Gordon’s Rethinking of the Gospels
The novelist and literary critic Mary Gordon loves the story of the prodigal son, for she is a Catholic in her bones. The story, from the Gospels, is of a father’s extravagant love for his proud and dissolute boy, a […]