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By Patrick Aleph
In this video, I explain how Wolverine is clearly a member of the tribe.
Enjoy, because this is as close as you're getting to Hugh Jackman being a Jew.
by Matt Sutton
GQ has an excellent article (“And He Shall be Judged”) in this month’s issue about the use of biblical passages on the cover sheets of war-time classified intelligence documents created by top military brass and delivered to George W. Bush by Donald Rumsfeld. The article begins:
on the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.” This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine.
GQ has also created an amazing slide show of such documents, available here.
As outrageous as this is, it is not new. I have just begun reading William Inboden's Religion and Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment (priced in typical Cambridge University Press fashion at $80), which looks like a great book that is very much relevant to our understanding of the intersections of religion and foreign policy today.
Here is the jacket blurb:
The Cold War was in many ways a religious war. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and other American leaders believed that human rights and freedoms were endowed by God, that God had called the United States to defend liberty in the world, and that Soviet communism was especially evil because of its atheism and its enmity to religion. Along with security and economic concerns, these religious convictions also helped determine both how the United States defined the enemy and how it fought the conflict. Meanwhile, American Protestant churches failed to seize the moment. Internal differences over theology and politics, and resistance to cooperation with Catholics and Jews, hindered Protestant leaders domestically and internationally. Frustrated by these internecine disputes, Truman and Eisenhower attempted instead to construct a new civil religion. This public theology was used to mobilize domestic support for Cold War measures, to determine the strategic boundaries of containment, to appeal to people of all religious faiths around the world to unite against communism, and to undermine the authority of communist governments within their own countries.
This is a great article and a great looking book that together provide a troubling commentary on the state of American foreign policy in recent decades. Not as troubling though as my own memories of my years growing up as a "Crusader." Of course we did kick the asses of the L.A. Baptist Knights in basketball, so maybe God does favor the Crusader mascot!
By Mordechai Shinefield
As seems de rigeur for
this sort of post, let me prove my Star Trek bona fides (or lack
thereof) before going forward. I was a child of Star Trek: The Next
Generation, only three years old when it premiered, but ten when it
concluded and old enough to remember the season finale broadcast. I
later caught up on every episode of that series. I have also seen more
than a handful of the original series, and about two to three dozen
episodes of Deep Space 9. So I'm not trekkie, as it goes. But ...
Reporters are told to follow the money but we rarely do—unless we already have a good idea where it's gone. On the religion beat that means covering the church treasurer who embezzled the pension fund, the prominent pastor living a little too large, or the TV ministry that doesn't smell right.
But in the current economic climate, smaller stories are more apt to show the human cost of the recession. They also underscore that religious institutions, like their secular counterparts, live and die by the market. Tending to Sunday school, shut-ins and sermons are part of the clergy's job description but so is minding the infrastructure, health insurance, and church brand. "Small business owners have to do it all themselves. I may not do everything, but what I do would surprise even my parishioners. I have mopped floors, painted walls, unclogged toilets, shingled roofs, repaired boilers, killed bugs, cut grass, chopped weeds and so on and so forth. If it has to get done I get it done. Ask the owner of a small retail shop who cleans. I doubt you will find many who can afford maid service. Ask the owner of small auto repair shop whose desk the buck stops on. In my church the buck stops on my pulpit. This is not the only similarity between us."That's the Rev. William Whitehead on the similarities between small churches and small businesses. His thoughtful piece that reminds readers that ministry may begin with a calling but ends with a spread sheet. If the numbers don't add up—translation: bodies into pews and cash in collection plates—the boss man (or woman) will be told to move on.Of course, that's assuming a well-meaning reverend can find a pulpit. According to anecdotal evidence, reports the New York Times, job listings are down for evangelical and mainstream Protestant clergy as well as for rabbis. We've all heard about the shortage of Catholic vocations but here's a new twist: "a contracting national economy has led congregations across the religious spectrum to cut or downsize clergy positions, hire part-time lay people instead and delay filling vacancies." (Hmm—any bets on whether the Roman Catholic Church sees an opportunity here?)The article neglects to say what happens when churches and synagogues lay off workers. In Virginia, many may find themselves on the wrong side of the unemployment line. Notes the Virginian-Pilot,"God may provide, but the state may not when it comes to unemployment benefits" for religious workers. Tax exemption for religious organizations also allows religious groups to skip paying unemployment taxes. With 20 percent of US churches reporting that they laid off staff in the past year, that's bad news for Virginia church workers as well as those in states with similar laws.News outlets have been quick to show how religious groups adopt marketing strategies to brand their identities and repurpose their missions. That's the sexy side of the money story. But William Whitehead reminds us there's another way of seeing connections between retail and religion: small churches and small businesses are both the largest category of their respective kinds in the U.S.—and both are hurting. Diane Winston
As I followed Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Middle East, I felt sorry for the poor man. He was trying his best to be nice to everyone without completely surrendering his dignity and his values and was yet getting consistently bad press. In his eight-day visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, the Pope underscored among many things the myth of Christian secularism. His trip to the Holy Land was labeled as a “pilgrimage” but at nearly every stop and in every speech he never strayed from high politics of war and peace. The Holy See is both a head of Church and a head of state. The Vatican is a church as well as a country – albeit tiny. It is ironic that while some Muslims wage jihads to establish a Caliphate – that is unite political and religious authority – the only religious community that actually enjoys such a privilege is Catholics. I find it rather clever that Europeans preach the virtues of secularism to everyone and on the sly enjoy having their own real Caliphate.
The global warming debate is heating up in the House, leading to the kind of quirky moments that are a common feature of life on the Hill.
Next week, Henry Waxman (D-CA), will bring his Waxman-Markey climate-control bill before the Energy and Commerce Committee he chairs.
Just minutes after Waxman announced he was "very, very close" to agreement on the legislation, his Republican counterpart held his own press conference, using some choice words to downplay Waxman's confidence.
Rep. Joe Barton, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said Waxman "doesn't have the nuts" to pass his energy bill.
Click here to view the full story on Huffington Post.
Is Pakistan collapsing? How far are the Taliban from Islamabad? Can al-Qaeda grab the country’s nuclear weapons? These are the types of questions raised every day by the American media, academia and policy circles. And these are critical issues, given the nature of the evolving crisis in Pakistan. The approximately two dozen suicide bombings in 2009 so far, 66 in 2008, and 61 in 2007, all of which have targeted armed forces personnel, police, politicians, and ordinary people not only in the country’s turbulent northwest but also in its major urban centers, indicate the seriousness of the threat. A major ammunition factory area located close to some very sensitive nuclear installations in Wah (Punjab) was targeted by two suicide bombers in August 2008, an act that sent shudders across the country’s security establishment.
By choosing Cairo, Egypt as the platform for his long awaited address to the global Muslim community, President Barack Obama predictably leans on a reliable dictatorship suffocating a country that is teetering toward religious and political irrelevance. Indeed, modern Egypt resembles its ubiquitous tourist attraction, the Sphinx, the symbolic temple guardian adorned with a human head on a prostrate lion. Similarly, the near-30-year, brutal autocracy of Hosni Mubarak weighs heavily on the immobilised body of an exasperated, stifled and proud populace who've wearily observed their country, a former beacon for Arab nationalism, transformed into a loyal watchdog and stooge for anti-democratic, "pro-western" policies. Perhaps Turkey, which Obama visited last month, served as a more ideal and dynamic location due to its successful marriage of secular democracy and Islam, as evidenced by the election of the AKP party, a moderate, pro-western political party with Islamic leanings.
Two articles on religion on television? Hmm—must be a trend. First, Variety reports that the Eppes men are going to synagogue. Dorky but cute, Numb3rs' crime-fighting father and sons give new meaning to the term mensch. After five seasons of studiously avoiding the J-word, they're now into mitzvas, matzahs and meaning. Not so at Kings, NBC's pop culture take on the biblical story of David and Saul. Featuring a family more conniving than kvelling, Kings pleased neither critics nor viewers. But Biblical scholars found merit in the show's dark and melodramatic characters.
I flagged these pieces because of my own interest in religion on television. Maybe I watch too much, but TV, that most intimate of electronic media (no not my computer, too much writing and reading), is my solace and refuge. I want to know what happens to Sarah Connor and I've grown fond of Echo. And lest you think I am a sci-fi geek, I confess—I cried when the Chief apologized to Meredith and I wish Jack Bauer would get cured already. (Those shakes aren't helping his love life.)Happily, I found a way to channel my addiction into a socially acceptable outlet. I've complexified, problematized and operationalized my passion. You can judge the results yourself. This week "Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion" is out –and its 15 essays, from a wide range of scholars and academic perspectives, explore how religion, spirituality and ethics are embedded, emplotted and embodied in popular television programs. Yes there's some fancy footwork in the book ("watching television is a link in the chain of sacred storytelling") and some Big Ideas (reading post 9/11 TV as a window into America's troubled psyche). But if you want to know why we need heroes, how abortion fares on primetime, whether Lost skews Buddhist or Christian, and what a lawless Western town says about community—then this is the book to read. Academics focus on TV's negative effects while journalists fixate on the ratings' "horse race," but SSBP treats television as a virtual meeting place where citizens across racial, religious, and regional divides find instruction and inspiration. TV's storylines—addressing terror and torture, lust and love, murder and mortality—explore who we are and would like to be, the building blocks of religious speculation.But don't take my word for it. Check out the struggle between Silas and David when Kings comes back this summer or tune in Friday night to see what those Eppes boys are up to. Diane Winston
Paul HarveyA few days ago we put up a couple of posts about Jon Shields's important new book Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right. In the interests of being fair and balanced, and in the spirit of Dorothy Day, today we're moving on to rewnewed hopes for a recognition in public policy of the democratic virtues of the Christian Left.Nancy MacLean (author of the great book Freedom is Not Enough) has posted a compelling piece at the Boston Review -- "God's Work: What can Faith-Based Activism Do For Labor"? She begins,“I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain, common workingmen,” recalled Frances Perkins. And so she did. From 1933 to 1945, Perkins helped create the core features of the New Deal state: minimum wage and maximum hours laws, legal guarantees for workers’ rights to organize and join unions, prohibition of child labor, Social Security, unemployment compensation, and fair labor standards. For all of the New Deal’s limitations, its laws and programs tamed Upton Sinclair’s “Jungle,” encouraged broad economic security and prosperity, and created, in economic terms, the most equitable America in history. And it was promoted and protected not only by strong unions but also by religious leaders, thanks to the prominence of a social gospel in the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish traditions at mid-century. During her twelve years as secretary of labor, Perkins herself spent one day a month in contemplative retreat at a convent. For her, the reference to God was not simply a rhetorical flourish.Since the 1970s economic inequality has surged to levels not seen since the 1920s, Dickensian abuses of workers have returned, and deregulation has enabled the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. President Obama’s Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, faces challenges not unlike Perkins’s. Yet today, as in the 1930s, crisis also creates the opportunity for a bold new direction—a New New Deal, potentially more inclusive of the nation’s diverse labor force than Perkins could have imagined. Might the nation’s churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples again have a role in rescuing a wayward economy?In addressing this question, Solis can learn much from Kim Bobo, founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ). Bobo’s goal is to revive America’s justice-seeking prophetic tradition, with a particular focus on economic justice. In her new book, Wage Theft in America, Bobo argues powerfully for the importance of community allies in improving struggling workers’ lives. She aims to rouse believers from all faith traditions to a new sense of social mission. Her starting point, and the focus of her book, is to address a more specific challenge: “why millions of working Americans are not getting paid and what we can do about it.” The charge is not an exaggeration. Using Department of Labor settlements (which her organization has done much to win), Bobo documents how companies steal literally billions of dollars from millions of workers each year.Bobo, MacLean explains, "understands that wage theft is a strategic issue that could jumpstart an overhaul of the Department of Labor, help to shut down the low road, and importantly, reanimate progressive politics with the social-gospel spirit." Bobo and groups such as IWJ come from a long tradition ofcommitment to social justice in the Catholic and Jewish traditions and the Protestant social gospel that drove so much Progressive Era and New Deal reform. . . . 'We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,' FDR noted in 1937, 'we now know that it is bad economics.' ” We have relearned the truth that it is bad economics, but we still await the moral awakening.
Paul HarveyNathan Schneider, "Beyond Belief: Research in Religion Goes After a New Target, The Secular," takes up a topic we've discussed here some before: the new scholarly research into secularity. We hit this topic before in covering Phil Zuckerman's new book Society Without God, and also in looking at the rise of the "nones" in surveys such as ARIS (that is, those answering "no religion" in surveys about personal religiosity). Recent commentors have noted that most of the growth of the nones took place from 1990 to 2001, and growth has leveled off since then, so the media hype about the recent study has been (surprise) as much hype as substance. Nonetheless, careful studies of un-belief are overdue and welcomed. Schneider surveys a variety of recent studies, the most interesting of which suggest how the boundary between being religious and irreligious is far more permeable than generally assumed:Phil Zuckerman's study in Scandinavia, in fact, suggests that these distinctions aren't as clear as one might expect. His interviews show the extent to which, even in the absence of traditional supernatural beliefs, the subjects' religious heritage provides them with moral guideposts and cultural habits. Not believing in God doesn't stop most Danes and Swedes from considering themselves Christians.Religions, we are beginning to learn, can be better understood by paying attention to what irreligion looks like. Probe irreligion, and you encounter not only new insights about how it works in people's lives, but also echoes of the very religions it defines itself against.Before getting too comfortable with their apparent newfound status, however, the new secularists still have to contend with some fundamental realities, including the (still) remarkably high rates of religiosity in America. In short, other ways of looking at the evidence suggest that we're about as close to being "post-Christian" as we are to being "post-racial." Stephen Prothero addresses this in "Post-Christian: Not Even Close," where he suggests:What the rise of the "nones" shows us is not how American Christianity is declining but how it is changing. The data tell us that Christians are increasingly likely to describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious, that they are increasingly wary of labels and institutions, and that they identify their faith less and less with "organized religion" and more and more with the personal power of Jesus himself.What the data do not tell us is that the United States is becoming "post-Christian." If you meet a random American walking down the street, the odds are only one in 62 that he or she will self-identify as atheist or agnostic. . . . Meanwhile, Christianity remains, for good or for ill, a vital political force, not just on the right but also on the left, and the Christian Bible remains the scripture of American politics, invoked thousands of times a year on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Over the past two decades, I have taught the "Christian America" debate to hundreds of students in my Religious Studies courses. When we finish our discussion, I call the question. My Christian students almost invariably describe the United States as a multicultural nation of religions, but my Jewish students tell me you have to be blind (or Christian) not to see that this is a Christian country. Here Christmas, not Passover, is a national holiday, and the only question about our presidents' religious affiliation seems to be from which Christian denomination they will come.Prothero and others (including some posts here) have pointed out that the real news of the ARIS survey is the the shift of Catholicism from Northeast to Southwest, and the continuing decline of mainstream Protestantism and rise of evangelical faiths (born-agains now constituting 34% of Americans).All of which makes me think of the protagonist in my favorite Elvis Costello song "Beyond Belief," from his Imperial Bedroom:History repeats the old conceitsThe glib replies, the same defeatsKeep your finger on important issuesWith crocodile tears and a pocketful of tissues . . . I've got a feelingI'm going to get a lot of griefOnce this seemed so appealing,Now I am beyond belief.
by Phillip Luke SinitiereEdward Curtis and Danielle Sigler have edited what looks to be a fantastic new collection of essays on Arthur Huff Fauset and African American religious traditions. Titled The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religion, essays cover multiple traditions and explore many issues in the field. Religion in American History's own Kathryn Lofton has an essay. Among many others, this collection of essays might be beneficially read alongside Edward Blum's work on Du Bois, Barbara Savage's new work on Black religion and politics, Wallace Best's study of Black Chicago and religion, and Curtis Evans's book The Burden of Black Religion.Here's a description from the Indiana University Press web site:Taking the influential work of Arthur Huff Fauset as a starting point to break down the false dichotomy that exists between mainstream and marginal, a new generation of scholars offers fresh ideas for understanding the religious expressions of African Americans in the United States. Fauset's 1944 classic, Black Gods of the Metropolis, launched original methods and theories for thinking about African American religions as modern, cosmopolitan, and democratic. The essays in this collection show the diversity of African American religion in the wake of the Great Migration and consider the full field of African American religion from Pentecostalism to Black Judaism, Black Islam, and Father Divine's Peace Mission Movement. As a whole, they create a dynamic, humanistic, and thoroughly interdisciplinary understanding of African American religious history and life. This book is essential reading for anyone who studies the African American experience.Here's the Table of Contents:Introduction / Edward E. Curtis IV and Danielle Brune SiglerPart 1. New Religious Movement(s) of the Great Migration Era1. Fauset's (Missing) Pentecostals: Church Mothers, Remaking Respectability, and Religious Modernism / Clarence Hardy2. "Grace Has Given God a Vacation": The History and Development of the Theology of the United House of Prayer of All People / Danielle Brune Sigler3. "Chased out of Palestine": Prophet Cherry's Church of God and Early Black Judaisms in the United States / Nora L. Rubel4. Debating the Origins of the Moorish Science Temple: Toward a New Cultural History / Edward E. Curtis IV5. "The Consciousness of God's Presence Will Keep You Well, Healthy, Happy, and Singing": The Tradition of Innovation in the Music of Father Divine's Peace Mission Movement / Leonard Norman Primiano6. "A True Moslem Is a True Spiritualist": Black Orientalism and Black Gods of the Metropolis / Jacob S. DormanPart 2. Resurrecting Fauset's Vision for African American Religious Studies7. Religion Proper and Proper Religion: Arthur Fauset and the Study of African American Religions / Sylvester A. Johnson8. The Perpetual Primitive in African American Religious Historiography / Kathryn Lofton9. Turning African Americans into Rational Actors: The Important Legacy of Fauset's Functionalism / Carolyn Rouse10. Defining the "Negro Problem" in Brazil: The Shifting Significance of Brazil's African Heritage from the 1890s to the 1940s / Kelly E. Hayes11. Fauset and His Black Gods: Intersections with the Herskovits-Frazier Debate / Stephen W. Angell
By Rabbi Jill Jacobs
Liberal Jews, myself included, love to quote biblical verses
about the care of the poor, the widows, the orphans, and the strangers. We feel
good knowing that our tradition demands ethical behavior, and point to these
verses as evidence that ritual practice is not the end all and be all of Jewish
life.
But how many of us actually take these verses seriously?
This week’s parashah lays out some of the basic
principles for agricultural tzedakah:
When you reap the harvest of your land, ...
A newspaper buddy who worked (even as I write "worked" I wonder if a thesaurus might have a more accurate term: a fulsome word that evokes the 15-hour days, coffee-addled nights, hapless stake-outs, nowhere interviews, blown deadlines, spiked stories, clueless editors and then the breaking-news-with-a-front-page-byline-rush that made her, and maybe you, give up way too much for far too long) at the Baltimore Sun was fired Tuesday. Security guards escorted her from the building where she'd toiled for 20-plus years. She was one of 61 staffers—one third of the newsroom—who were laid off this week.
In a parallel bid to cut costs, the Dallas Morning News ended its religion beat, exiling its two former religion reporters to the 'burbs from where, we're assured, they can be plucked should a major story—hmm, the Second Coming—break.
Both examples should lay to rest any misconception that newspapers, as corporate entities, care about the news, much less their communities and employees. The decades when great families ran newspapers as private plantations, mingling with the townsfolk and being gracious to the help—are gone. The new masters have made their priorities transparent: the only question is who goes next.But that does not mean the profession is doomed. Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I work at a journalism school, my academic training is in history, and my ring says "this too shall pass." When it does, we need to be prepared. The blogosphere is filled with hopeful futuristic scenarios, and this one, at The American Prospect, sees public media 2.0 as an alternative to the legacy media. Authors Jessica Clark and Patricia Aufderheide admit that public media 1.0—whether NPR, PBS, CSPAN or foundation-backed documentaries—"was accepted as important but rarely loved." Sapped by weak support and caught in the cultural crossfire, many of these news outlets could not meet their own objectives. But public media 2.0, with enhanced and expanded opportunities for participation through multiplatform projects, has the potential to inspire active and engaged publics.This new world, freed from corporate poobahs more afraid of offending advertisers, subscribers and officials than pledged to speak truth to power, will need journalists to report the news. (Admittedly, sorting out the roles and responsibilities that differentiate "professional" journalists from citizen journalists will be a challenge.) Moreover, I have no doubt that a good portion of that news will reflect the impact of religious and ethical convictions on issues, decisions and activities at the individual and corporate levels. (Notwithstanding recent polls on the demise of religion, reports of its passing are greatly exaggerated. Read Nathan Schneider's review of two new books for some reasons why.) Public media 2.0 offers a both/and solution: There is room for journalists who specialize in religion and for generalists who integrate it into their stories. The former may find a home in long-form narratives, and the latter will need expertise to report on religious and ethical issues that arise in the ongoing coverage of courts, police, health care, education, government and so on. Now more than ever, journalists need to be familiar with the hows and whys that induce people to lobby, vote, fight and kill for what they believe to be true, right and good. As specialty beats wither and experts lose their jobs, journalism educators will reconceptualize the content of their classes to meet the need for critical thinking and indepth knowledge as well as for the mastery of new media skills. I am appalled by the Sun's treatment of its workers, and I am distressed by the Morning News' decisions. But this is the world we live in. Another world clamors to be born, and it is there I focus my attention. I don't teach students to be print reporters ready for the religion beat, I help them become multimedia journalists who understand that almost every story reflects the human need for meaning and purpose. That's why my students need to ask the hard questions, engage the tricky issues and come back with great pictures.Diane Winston
By Leila Segal
April 18, 2009
Demonstrators, Ministry of Defence, Tel Aviv
I
almost felt sorry for the security man. Only at the end that is, as I
boarded the plane and walked down the aisle and he came towards me and
could not look me in the eye.
They’d
taken all my things at the check-in and did not give them all back. The
security supervisor, a tall balding man with blue eyes, thought I might
be a terrorist. A woman asked ...
You would think this year's Mortgage Bankers Association annual meeting would be a rather solemn affair -- given the criticism the industry has endured in recent months. But an ANP reporter attending the meeting found the bankers in a celebratory mood. The reason? A massive lobbying campaign against bankruptcy reform legislation known as "cram-down" appeared to be working.
Speaking in Chicago on April 22nd to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, addressed religion and politics in world affairs. The particular religion he focused on was Islam. Early in his speech, Blair stated that "fundamental Islam is the opposite of what extremists preach" and that the Qur'an, Islam's holy text, is full of progressive, humanitarian principles. Still, the sense that he was singling out Islam was palpable. Blair noted there are jihadist extremists fighting in not only Afghanistan and Iraq but also in smaller, more remote, rarely heard of regions throughout the world. Blair further noted that jihadist extremists all have three characteristics in common: (1) they are relentless, (2) they believe they are fighting in the name of true Islam, and (3) they use terrorism to create chaos in the world.
"Class Dismissed in Swat Valley," a short, sobering video on The New York Times Web site, outlines the Taliban's decision to ban girls' education in the beautiful and formerly peaceful Swat Valley of northern Pakistan, the country where I was born and raised. The video profiled Ziauddin Yousafzai, an educator, and his 11-year-old daughter, Malala, who dreams of becoming a doctor. As Malala talked about her desire, she knew she might have to defer that dream. To conceal her tears, she covered her face with her hands; tears welled up in my own eyes. Malala's school, owned by her father, would close the next day. The Taliban has burned or bombed more than 100 girls' schools. Ziauddin feared if he defied the ban his school would be destroyed.
In New York people just know they're sinners.
By Nicole Greenfield
“New York City is wide open to the Gospel,” Pastor Ron Lewis declared one Sunday at St. George’s Church, a neo-Romanesque building where his Morning Star New York congregation held its evening services until 2007. “There is a hunger for and a desire to experience God.”
Lewis peered through his frameless glasses at the hundreds before him. “Every day people are turning to Jesus,” he continued, much more slowly and with a smile revealing teeth that sparkled under the bright lights. “Every day.”
It was September 11th that brought Ron Lewis to New York City. Moved by how churches filled up “in the wake of tragedy,” as he puts it, Lewis hopped in a car two days later with Rice Broocks—a college friend Lewis met through his involvement with a charismatic, and controversial, campus ministry called Maranatha—and made the drive from North Carolina in order to take advantage of the city’s “spiritually opened hearts.” With the help of the larger Morningstar International organization, Broocks started the Morning Star New York church plant within weeks, while Lewis went back to Durham and committed to his own church, King’s Park International.
“Then one morning in June or July,” Lewis recalled, “I was in prayer and at 4:17, to be exact—the red letter clock said 4:17 am—I remember clearly hearing something on the inside of my s