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✴︎ Newsweek
Not a ‘Weak Creature’
A mystic and the modern woman. Lest one imagine that female achievement and ambition is a new phenomenon, the life of Hildegard von Bingen stands as a stark corrective. Hildegard lived in the 12th century. Born to a noble family,
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✴︎ Newsweek
Sweet Virginia
The wife of Justice Clarence Thomas is a Tea Party activist. Together, they’re the right’s new power couple. Justice Clarence Thomas probably had a ho-hum day on June 7, 2010. From time to time, the Supreme Court of the United States makes
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✴︎ Newsweek
Dare to Care
A minister and the politics of poverty. In a political season, it’s easy for a journalist to be cynical—until David Beckmann walks into your office. Beckmann, in his blue blazer, looks like any Washington lobbyist, down to the dark circles
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✴︎ Newsweek
Hear Them Growl
Sarah Palin says a new crop of conservative women will ‘rise up’ to protect their cubs. But will they? ma·ma griz·zly noun, pl. -zlies 1. Large brown bear, female of the species, native to North America with big claws. 2. A certain
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✴︎ Newsweek
Not Too Mormon
Conventional wisdom in the last election cycle held that Mitt Romney could never win the hearts of America’s conservative evangelicals—the Republican base—because he’s Mormon, and evangelicals don’t consider Mormons to be properly Christian. “I don’t believe conservative Christians will vote
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✴︎ Newsweek
Our State of Disgrace
A new religion book and the mosque. While researching their forthcoming book about American religion, the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam and his colleagues polled on this hypothetical question: Say a group of Buddhists wanted to build a large temple
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✴︎ Newsweek
Fiddling While Christianity Burns
Pope Benedict is hitting all the wrong notes in his trip to the United Kingdom. Ireland, where the Roman Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal has been the most appalling—hundreds of children molested over decades—is a short plane ride from England. And
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✴︎ Newsweek
The Other Religion at Ground Zero
A Greek Orthodox congregation has been waiting longer—and working harder—than Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to restore the church that was destroyed on September 11, 2001. Father Mark Arey won’t put it quite this way, but he doesn’t see why Muslims
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✴︎ Newsweek
The Misinformants
What ‘stealth jihad’ doesn’t mean. Here is the latest semantic assault from the party that brought you “Islamo-facism” (circa 2005) and “Axis of Evil” (2002). The term “stealth jihad” is suddenly voguish among politically ambitious right wingers who see President
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✴︎ Newsweek
Religious Pluralism at Ground Zero?
If President Obama wants to convince Americans to support the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ he needs to tie it to our personal tolerance for other faiths. With his remarks last week in support of “the mosque at Ground Zero” and his rather lame