It may be one of the fastest growing religions in the world, but in the U.S., it’s a challenge for converts to Islam to learn about their new faith. Muslims are a minority here, with estimates of the population ranging from 2 million to 6 million, and they often come together in small groups to learn what they can and cannot do as practicing Muslims.

Some of the questions new Muslims have can be as complex as the “meaning of life” or as simple as owning a dog or hanging a photo in their home. Many Muslims regard dogs as unclean, and there are rules about whether you can own one. Whether Muslims can hang a picture depends on if it has any spiritual meaning.

Imam Johari Abdul Malik is the outreach director for a mosque in Falls Church, Va. He heads a meeting at Howard University for a half-dozen men who come every week looking for answers Muslims in other countries would normally get from their sheik or spiritual adviser.

Read or listen to it all.[/i]

The national leader of the Episcopal Church will be in Lodi this weekend to lead a major reorganization of the embattled San Joaquin Diocese and to elect a new bishop.

The diocese, which had 47 member churches, voted in December to secede from the national church body over disagreement on issues such as biblical interpretation, women in leadership roles and whether the church should ordain openly gay clergy.

But 18 churches wanted to stay aligned with the national church.

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The Spitzers are the latest in a chain of publicised indiscretions where the wife not only stays put, but stands by her man: from Hillary Clinton to Wendy Vitter and Kathy Lee Gifford.

Public or not, what motivates someone to stay after his or her spouse has an affair?

In her 25 years of research and consulting on extramarital affairs, DearPeggy.com’s Peggy Vaughan says as much as 70 per cent of people stay in the marriage after infidelity. “Most people think all infidelity ends in divorce, but frequently they (the couple) just keep it quiet,” she says.

The common yet judgmental question “Why did she stay?” implies that she shouldn’t, Vaughan says. “It’s an extra burden for all the women who stay to have to defend themselves to their family and friends. When somebody tells you ‘If it were me, I’d …’ you can ignore the rest of the sentence because they aren’t you.”

She cautions couples from seeking divorce right away. “The people who get out right away second-guess themselves the rest of their lives,” says Vaughan, founder of the Beyond Affairs Network and the author of eight books, including The Monogamy Myth.

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The parliamentary elections in Iran this month resemble the work of a clumsy illusionist. A Guardian Council of clerics and jurists disqualified about 90 percent of the reformists who wanted to run. The campaign was confined to a week, and public rallies were banned. Iranian liberals claim the official turnout figure was greatly exaggerated and a certain amount of finagling entered into the counting of votes.

Nevertheless, what makes Iran different from other authoritarian states is that Iranian politicians compete for power in a uniquely hybrid system: democratic institutions draped over a rigid autocracy. The founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, invented rule-by-the-supreme-Islamic-jurist out of whole cloth. Thanks to that system, Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rules Iran as a grand puppet master.

All the strings dangle from his hands. The chiefs of the armed forces and the Revolutionary Guards report to him. He has representatives in each of the ministries. All important decisions on foreign and security policy and on Iran’s nuclear program are his. And he has ultimate control over the intelligence and security services.

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“The president is doing well, in fact, he is doing very well indeed.” Mohammed Ali Ramin leans back, sips his tea, pours in a little milk, and takes another little sip. Then he sets down his glass and folds his hands. The man with reddish-blond hair and a pious full beard enjoys his position as close advisor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ramin, 54, who once studied engineering in the German town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld, has been a member of the president’s inner circle of “friends and companions” for years. The university lecturer is said to be an influential figure even among Iran’s religious zealots, and he is proud to have stood beside the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during his exile in Paris. “Anyone who knows my thoughts,” he says knowingly, “also knows what motivates the president.”

And what motivates Ahmadinejad?

Primarily his “boundless love for the people, especially the disenfranchised” and “his commitment to the Islamic principles of truth and justice.” And, of course, “the welfare of the Iranian nation.” Ramin: “Ahmadinejad is the standard-bearer of our people and the entire Islamic world.”

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No googling or snooping, take a guess.

For the House of Bishops

My brothers and sisters:

As discussed in our spring meeting, we will hold a special meeting of the House of Bishops 17”“ 19 September. We are exploring the possibilities of holding this meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, and will get back to you in the near future once the location is certain. The 16th is recommended as a travel day and the meeting will conclude at midday on the 19th. The main purpose of this meeting will be to reflect and deliberate together following the Lambeth Conference. I encourage you to be present for the entirety of the meeting as your voice and presence are needed and appreciated. Those bishops who will have been consecrated since our last spring meeting are encouraged to join us.

Concerning the issue of Bishop Duncan, all relevant materials have been posted on the College of Bishops website, including the Review Committee’s certification and the two submissions the Committee reviewed. It does not include the exhibits to either submission, which are voluminous. If any of you wish to see them, you can contact David Beers or Mary Kostel. Regarding financial assistance for Lambeth, those who can assist are invited to send checks to my Discretionary Fund via Sharon Jones, and marked for Lambeth. Those in need are invited to contact our office for assistance. Companion diocese bishops are our second priority, and only after that will we send any excess to Lambeth itself.

We had mentioned the possibility of a one-day May meeting. I am not sure there was adequate desire for it on the part of the House at this point, and so this will be determined after a poll in April.

Again, more detailed information about the agenda, registration fee, and location of the September meeting will arrive in a future mailing to help you prepare for our time together.
Until then, I wish you every blessing in this Easter season.

Shalom,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Katharine Jefferts Schori is Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church

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The United Kingdom has been ranked as one of the most stable and prosperous countries in the world, beating the United States, France and even Switzerland in a global assessment of every nation’s achievements and standards.

A one-year investigation and analysis of 235 countries and dependent territories has put the UK joint seventh in the premier league of nations. The top ten comprise also the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic.

The US lies 22nd and Switzerland, normally associated with wealth and untouchable stability, is rated 17th, losing points in the assessment of its social achievements.

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Policy on embryo research continues to zig-zag. Having first said it would outlaw the creation of animal-human hybrids for medical experimentation, the Government then decided to allow it. That position was endorsed last week by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

I hope that the Government will change tack yet again. I am deeply uncomfortable with the use of human embryos for research. The HFEA recognised the revulsion many feel at such use of human cells, but insisted that the benefits outweighed such feelings. The recent go-ahead for the creation of ‘cybrid’ embryos – created by the use of a human cell or its nucleus to fertilise an animal egg from which the nucleus has been removed – brings more dilemmas.

If the embryos are human enough to be of use in research, are they not human enough for it to be wrong to experiment on them – whatever the possible benefits?

Read it all. Many more links to related material may be found there.

In June, Robinson plans to enter into a civil union with his partner of 20 years, Mark Andrew. He says he will do everything he can to keep photographers away, out of deference to those who find his same-sex relationship offensive, but he acknowledges that the event is likely to attract negative attention nonetheless.

And then, in July, he will head to London, as the most prominent uninvited guest of the Lambeth Conference, the decennial gathering of the world’s 800 Anglican bishops. Robinson was not invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury because he is a noncelibate gay man, a status that many Anglican leaders believe is prohibited by the Bible.

The Anglican Communion offered to allow Robinson to appear at a booth in an exhibition hall, rather than attending the meeting; that proposal was ridiculed by a columnist for one British newspaper, the Guardian, who suggested, tongue in cheek, that the invitation for Robinson to appear in the so-called “marketplace” was made “presumably so that passing bishops can poke him in his cage with a stick.”

Robinson said that because he will not be permitted inside the Lambeth Conference, he will instead be outside the meeting daily, talking to anyone who will listen. He said he is working with gay organizations internationally who hope to have gay people from throughout the Anglican Communion in London to show the bishops that the issue is global.

“One of the things I think I’ve learned in the last five years is that, as much as I wanted to be known as the good bishop, and not the gay bishop, there’s no escaping,” Robinson said in an interview last week at the diocesan headquarters here. “I would love just to be a simple country bishop, but that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards.”

I will consider posting comments on this article submitted first by email to Kendall’s E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Spirituality is a major contributor to a child’s overall happiness–even more so than for adults–according to a new study from the University of British Columbia.

The study tested 315 children aged 9 to 12, measuring spirituality and other factors such as temperament and social relations that can affect an individual’s sense of happiness.

“Our goal was to see whether there’s a relation between spirituality and happiness,” said Mark Holder, associate professor of psychology and the study’s co-author. “We knew going in that there was such a relation in adults, so we took multiple measures of spirituality and happiness in children.”

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All lank and bone, the boy stands at the corner with his younger sister, waiting for the yellow bus that takes them to their respective schools. He is Billy Wolfe, high school sophomore, struggling.

Moments earlier he left the sanctuary that is his home, passing those framed photographs of himself as a carefree child, back when he was 5. And now he is at the bus stop, wearing a baseball cap, vulnerable at 15.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy Wolfe. While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead.

The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold.

The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning.

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The anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders is testing the limits of the Internet.

Promotions for his film purportedly condemning the Koran, that were posted on YouTube in February led the government of Pakistan to block the site in its entirety.

Wilders also created a stir when he announced that he would premier the film on his Web site, fitnathemovie.com, hosted by Network Solutions (best known for its domain name services). Network Solutions suspended fitnathemovie.com, saying that it did so to investigate whether the site’s content violated its “acceptable use policy.”

Under that policy, material that is “harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar [or is] hate propaganda” is prohibited.

Predictably, on the blogosphere in the United States, Network Solutions is being called a censor and a coward, with scores of posts praising the Internet for its “anything goes” culture. Some are arguing that if Wilders’s movie is offensive and prompts violence, so be it – that’s the price of Internet freedom.

But do we really permit anything on the Internet? Of course not.

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In recent years, a number of Christian writers, inspired by French critic and philosopher René Girard, have stressed with new urgency how the Bible shows the way in which groups and societies work out their fears and frustrations by finding scapegoats.

Because we compete for the same goods and comforts, we need to sustain our competition with our rivals and maintain distance from them. But to stop this getting completely out of hand, we unite with our rivals to identify the cause of the scarcity that makes us compete against each other, with some outside presence we can all agree to hate.

Just as the BBC drama suggested, Jesus’s context was one where Judaeans and Romans equally lived in fear of each other, dreading an explosion of violence that would be destructive for everyone. Their leaders sweated over compromises and strategies to avoid this. In such a context, Jesus offered a perfect excuse for them to join in a liberating act of bloodletting which eliminated a single common enemy. The spiral of fear was halted briefly.

Frequently in this mechanism, the victim has little or nothing to do with the initial conflict itself. But in the case of Jesus, the victim is not only wholly innocent; he is the embodiment of a grace or mercy that could in principle change the whole frame of reference that traps people in rivalry and mutual terror.

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Africa’s Lutheran churches saw their total membership increase over the past year by nearly two million, boosting the total number of members of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) worldwide to more than 68.3 million.

The Geneva-based federation says that Lutheran churches in Asia also registered an increase overall in the period, while slight decreases were again recorded in other world regions.

With an increase of 368,861 members, or 8.2 per cent, to 4.87 million, the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, the largest LWF member church in Africa, now becomes the second largest worldwide.

The largest LWF church is the Church of Sweden, which remained nearly unchanged over the course of 2007, with a slight drop of 0.03 per cent to reach 6,893,901 members. Still, Germany remains the country with largest overall Lutheran count at 12.63 million, but they belong to different churches, some of which are organized on a regional basis.

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Home prices across the country continued to fall in January at record rates while one measure of consumer confidence reached a five-year low, sending Wall Street shares down in early Tuesday trading.

The value of single-family homes plummeted 10.7 percent in January compared with a year earlier, as measured by the Case-Shiller index, a closely watched survey of 20 major metropolitan regions.

It was the steepest year-over-year decline since the index began eight years ago, and economists said the slump was probably worse than at the height of the last housing recession in the early 1990s.

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Denny and Diana Glusko start and end their day with prayer. Despite the wrenching transformation of their lives, that much has never changed.

He bends low over his wife’s bed, her hand sometimes clasped in his, as both give thanks to God. Denny prays that Diana will breathe free of pain. For himself, he prays for patience. Just beyond the door are the usual disruptions of a hospital unit — the noise, the glare. But inside Room 2-007, it is different.

“Yours is the honor and the glory,” Denny says. Diana whispers, “Amen.”

Never have they questioned whether God has a purpose for this journey, which started one afternoon last May when their car veered across a rural road in Fauquier County, slammed into a ditch and flipped. He was driving when a cup of coffee diverted his attention and Diana gasped, “Oh, Denny!” He braced himself with the steering wheel and crawled out his shattered window without a scratch. She had nothing to grab for protection. Neither she nor Denny was wearing a seat belt.

The impact broke Diana’s second cervical vertebra, paralyzing her from the neck down.

In the days that followed, both asked God to forgive them for their disobedience of the law. Then they asked for guidance and strength for whatever lay ahead. Three seasons have passed, and Diana still is not home. Yet instead of despair, they talk of miracles — and faith.

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Canada’s Anglican primate has called the jailing of six Northern Ontario native community members a throwback to colonialism, a dangerous violation of the rights of native people and an act of the Ontario government putting itself above the law.

Archbishop Fred Hiltz’s unusually forceful language appears in a letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty, in which the Anglican leader implies that members of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation are being punished solely for defending the sacred trust of their traditional lands.

He also links the jailing of KI Chief Donny Morris, the deputy chief and four councillors to the abuses of the residential school system, and says it has caused a “serious impasse” between Canada’s native peoples and the Ontario government.

On March 17, Mr. Justice Patrick Smith of the Ontario Superior Court ordered the KI six jailed for six months for being in contempt of court by refusing to allow mining company Platinex to test drill for minerals on land the band claims as its own.

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Jennifer Davis, 34, of Milwaukee, who was raised a Southern Baptist, joined St. Paul’s four years ago after receiving a warm welcome while helping with the wedding preparations of a sister who is a member.

“I felt welcome from the time that I walked in the door, and that was a completely different feeling,” said Davis, who likes the church’s outreach to the needy. “I like that we’re taught directly out of the Book of Common Prayer, versus someone just putting it all in their own words.”

Mary Ellen Hermann, 47, of Greendale was content in the Catholic faith of her childhood until she attended an Episcopal service with a friend while working in San Francisco. Now remarried, she was then a divorced mother with three children. The Episcopal priest, a woman, also had been a divorced mother of three.

“Somehow, she got my number, and she called and paid a visit,” Hermann said. “Within minutes, she was helping organize baby-sitting for me and really giving me a great cheerleading experience, that I could do this and everything would be fine.”

At the time, the pastor of her Catholic parish had just told her that she couldn’t walk down the aisle with her daughter for the girl’s First Communion, because she was a single mother and he wanted to emphasize the Catholic Year of the Family.

“All of sudden I found myself going to that other church,” said Hermann. “I just stayed with it because it just fit.”

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The Rev. James Snell, rector of St. Columba Church, Frenso, Calif., and president of the standing committee in the Diocese of San Joaquin, said he is concerned that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the Rt. Rev. Jerry Lamb, retired Bishop of Northern California, may be violating canon law and may be liable for presentment if they make good on plans to convene a special convention scheduled to be held at St. John-the-Baptist Church in Lodi on March 29.

“It’s one thing for her not to ‘recognize’ us,” Fr. Snell said. “Acting contrary to the canons of this diocese and of The Episcopal Church is another matter. The Presiding Bishop is not the ecclesiastical authority of this diocese and the canons of this diocese and the national church do not grant her the authority to call a diocesan convention or nominate someone for election as bishop.”

At the conclusion of the House of Bishops spring retreat on March 12, Bishop Jefferts Schori announced that she had nominated Bishop Lamb to stand for election as provisional Bishop of San Joaquin. She also said she would personally convene the March 29 special convention at which Bishop Lamb’s nomination was to be ratified. The agenda for the special convention also calls for undoing the constitutional changes approved during the annual convention last December. The constitutional amendments were used at the convention in December as legal justification to leave The Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.

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These stories always do me in, but this one in particular really moved me. Maybe it was because he outlived both his parents, maybe because I have done military funerals myself and so could identify with many of the sounds, maybe it was because my mother grew up in Washington, D.C., and so I could see Arlington National Cemetery in my mind’s eye, maybe it was because it came on Easter week.In any event, you need to take the time to listen to it all–KSH.

On Easter Sunday, many black worshipers and church leaders are talking about Sen. Barack Obama’s recent speech on race in America. NPR’s Audie Cornish in Nashville, Tenn., talks with Andrea Seabrook about what is being said on the pulpit and in the pews.

Listen to it all from NPR.

It is inappropriate to speak publicly about specific personnel matters. However, during these contentious times over the issue of sexual morality in the life of the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion, I have chosen to follow the recommendations of the bipartisan, international “Windsor Report.” Therefore, I will not ordain or license any clergy member who is unable to promise faithfulness in marriage or to abstain from sexual relationships outside of marriage.

While Episcopalians in North Dakota are not of one mind on these matters, at our annual convention in 2005 a resolution was overwhelmingly passed which “commended the Windsor Report as a way forward together in spite of the differences which threaten to divide us” and expressed our desire for the Diocese of North Dakota “to remain both a member of the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.”

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The Risen Christ, who is the way, longs to lead you out of your prison of fear.
Jesus Christ’s resurrection assures us of God’s help to know his presence, forgiveness and peace.

It assures us of God’s help to fulfil his wishes and to respond to the needs of others; and to become fulfilled, caring and loving people. It is also the assurance that God will one day transform this decaying and dying world into a completely new world.

But, like Mary, the broken-hearted disciple, and like the confused disciples on the road to Emmaus and like the frightened disciples behind locked doors, you must have a personal encounter and experience of the Risen Lord.
Christ has to be risen for each one of us. For the belief that Christ rose on the third day is based more on encountering Christ in experience than the discovery of the empty tomb. We have to be prepared for an encounter with the Risen Lord.

He will then lead us in the triumph of the resurrection wherever we are. And every day will become a celebration of his feat of victory. We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song.

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Two issues of Muslim practice ”” whether the call to prayer should ring out across Harvard Yard and whether the university should grant women separate gym hours ”” have unleashed small waves of controversy over how Harvard practices tolerance.

Heated discussions have erupted on dormitory chat rooms, students said, while various opinion articles in the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, have denounced both practices.

“I think that because Harvard is a secular campus, there is a fear among some students that religious beliefs or practices might be imposed on people who don’t want anything to do with them,” said Jessa Birdsall, a 20-year-old sophomore who said she thought the university should accommodate the beliefs of all students.

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Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a one-time rising star and Detroit’s youngest elected leader, was charged Monday with perjury and other counts after sexually explicit text messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy also charged the popular yet polarizing 37-year-old mayor with obstruction of justice and misconduct in office.

Former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty, 37, who also denied under oath that she and Kilpatrick had a romantic relationship in 2002 and 2003, was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.

“Some have suggested that the issues in this case are personal or private,” Worthy said.

“The justice system has been severely mocked and the public trust trampled on. … This case is about as far from being a private matter as one can get,” she said.

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