World religions

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Ignore religion's role in real news in the real world? That's 'anti-journalism'

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When British media critic Jenny Taylor talks to journalists about why they need to take religion seriously, she tells them stories about news stories -- mostly stories many journalists try to avoid.

"The majority world is deeply religious. That small bit of it that still dominates the world's agenda -- the secular West -- is deeply unaware of what drives the rest," she said, during the recent "Getting Religion" conference in Westminster, England, led by the Open University and her own Lapido Media network.

Thus, she argued, "The world is in grave danger from the West's own conceits and complacency. ... In Britain we have been trained through cultural prejudice and ideological pressure not to 'do God.' I was told by a BBC press officer that 'we leave our religion at the door when we come to work.'

"The intention may be the scrupulous avoidance of perceived bias, but misunderstood it leads to blindness and an inability to report the facts."

One story has been unfolding in East London, where controversy has long swirled around plans to build the massive Abbey Mills Mosque near Olympic Stadium. How massive? It would hold 9,000 people, roughly four times the size of the iconic St. Paul's Cathedral.

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Religion news 2014: The pope, ISIS, persecution and the rest of the Top 10 stories

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Soon after his elevation to the Chair of St. Peter, Pope Francis warned that the world was entering a time when Satan would increasingly show his power, especially in lands in which believers were being crushed.

Looking toward a rising storm in the Middle East, he warned that the persecution of religious minorities is a sign of the end times.

"It will be like the triumph of the prince of this world: the defeat of God. It seems that in that final moment of calamity, he will take possession of this world, that he will be the master of this world," said Pope Francis. "Religion cannot be spoken of, it is something private, no?"

A year later, the pope was even more specific in a letter to churches in the ancient lands of the Bible.

"I write to you just before Christmas, knowing that for many of you the music of your Christmas hymns will also be accompanied by tears and sighs. Nonetheless, the birth of the Son of God in our human flesh is an indescribable mystery of consolation," said Pope Francis.

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Facing the Hanukkah-Holidays puzzle, one American family at a time

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Anyone passing the Hoffman home in the Cincinnati suburbs during the holidays will see festive blue and white lights and an inflatable bear in the front yard -- a bear wearing a Santa cap and holding a candy cane.

 This is where things got complicated, with a typically blunt question from a child: Should Jews have a bear in the yard during Hanukkah?

 "I said it was a Jewish bear," said Neal Hoffman, a marketing executive. "One of our boys came right back with: 'What about the candy cane? Don't candy canes have something to do with Christmas?' I said I didn't think there was anything specifically Christian about a candy cane. Is there?"

 Well, that's complicated, too, since the candy cane often shown with Santa Claus is a symbol that links the shopping-mall superstar back through the mists of history to the 4th Century St. Nicholas of Myra, in Asia Minor. The saint was a bishop and, thus, this spiritual shepherd carried a crook staff -- which in Western church tradition is shaped like a large candy cane.

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St. Nicholas (the real one) returning to lower Manhattan

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When members of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church celebrate their patron saint's feast day on Dec. 6th, they may be able to mark the occasion with prayers on newly blessed ground in lower Manhattan. 

It depends on work schedules at the construction site for their new sanctuary, which will overlook the National September 11 Memorial. This is a problem Greek Orthodox leaders welcome after a long, complicated legal struggle to rebuild the tiny sanctuary -- 80 yards from the World Trade Center's South Tower -- which was the only church destroyed in the 9/11 maelstrom. 

"It's all of this powerful symbolism and its link to that Sept. 11 narrative that lets people grab onto the effort to rebuild this church and see why it matters," said Steven Christoforou, a youth ministry leader at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. 

Facing the giant holes at Ground Zero, he said, it was natural to see them as tombs, as symbols of never-ending grief. Today, the footprints of the twin towers have become fountains in reverse, with curtains of water pouring into a dark void that disappears down into the underground at the 9/11 memorial and museum. 

But sometime in 2016, or early 2017, the new St. Nicholas National Shrine will literally shine -- a dome lit from within, through layers of marble and glass -- over this memorial plaza. 

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Two clashing Orthodox takes on doctrine -- past and future

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When two global religious leaders embrace one another, someone is sure to turn the encounter into a photo opportunity. 

The photo-op on Nov. 7 was symbolic and for many historic. The elder statesman was the Rev. Billy Graham and, rather than an evangelical superstar, the man who met with him at his North Carolina mountain home was Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev. This visit was linked to a Hilarion address to a gathering of Protestant and Orthodox leaders in Charlotte, organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. 

After generations of work organizations such as the Episcopal Church and the World Council of Churches, the archbishop said many Orthodox leaders now realize that -- on issues of sex, marriage, family life and moral theology -- some of their ecumenical partners will be found in evangelical pulpits and pews. 

"In today's pluralistic world, the processes of liberalization have swept over some Christian communities. Many churches have diverted from biblical teaching ... even if this attitude is not endorsed by the majority of these communities' members," said Hilarion, who is the Moscow Patriarchate's chief ecumenical officer. 
 

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Too strong for television: Tragic stories from the vicar of Baghdad

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The 5-year-old boy was named Andrew, to honor the British priest who baptized him at St. George's Anglican Church in Baghdad.

 When Islamic State forces moved into Qaraqosh, the boy's parents faced an agonizing choice that has become all too common in the ancient Christian towns of the Nineveh Plain. The choice: Convert to Islam or suffer the consequences. 

Andrew was cut in half, his parents said, while they were forced to watch.

 The traumatized parents were later reunited with Canon Andrew White, long known as the "vicar of Baghdad." This is one of many stories he has been sharing with journalists -- for years he acted as special envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury -- in an attempt to raise awareness of the hellish details behind the now-familiar television images.

 A recent trip to Washington, D.C., brought him to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, a setting that raised agonizing questions about the massacres carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria -- which has claimed the power to establish a new Islamic caliphate in the region.

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Technology shapes content: High Holidays with the online flock

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The idea was really simple, in terms of technology: Since many Jews could not attend High Holiday rites, why not put microphones in key locations and let them listen on their telephones? 

It wasn't as good as being there, but -- for shut-ins -- it was better than nothing.

Decades later, some Jewish leaders mounted cameras in their packed sanctuaries and let people watch High Holidays rites on video. Again, it wasn't the same as being there, but it was better than nothing and, certainly, better than listening on a telephone.

Jewish leaders who tiptoed into these technologies "didn't change what they were doing, they just put a telephone near it," said Rabbi Robert Barr, founder of Congregation Beth Adam, a 30-year-old independent congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio. "When cameras came along, they just aimed cameras at what they were already doing. They didn't change anything."

That isn't what this self-proclaimed "humanistic" congregation is trying to do with it's global OurJewishCommunity.org congregation, which began with High Holidays services in 2008 and has been meeting in cyberspace ever since.

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Rosary prayers and the hellish death of journalist James Foley

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When a believer is immersed in the rosary, the familiar phrases of the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Doxology find a soft rhythm, as clicking beads mix with steady breaths and the human heart. 

While meditating on each great mystery of the faith, the final words of the Hail Mary prayers are particularly sobering: "Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." 

The prayers are "like a pulse that sinks deep inside and goes on and on as you meditate on how these mysteries are connected to your life," said writer Elizabeth Scalia, known as "The Anchoress" among Catholic bloggers. 

"I think all the mysteries would have offered inspiration and consolation to James Foley" while in captivity, she said, as he "faced the fact that his life was truly in danger." 

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Western elites still struggling to see the suffering Eastern Church

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At first glance, there was a bizarre gap in the proclamation Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi issued as his forces rolled to victory after victory in their rush to rebuild a caliphate in Iraq, Syria and beyond. 

The modern world, he said, in a July 1 statement circulated on Twitter, has "been divided into two camps and two trenches, with no third camp present: The camp of Islam and faith, and the camp of kufr (disbelief) and hypocrisy -- the camp of the Muslims and the mujahidin everywhere, and the camp of the Jews, the crusaders, their allies and with them the rest of the nations and religions of kufr, all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the Jews." 

Missing from this list were key groups immediately impacted by the rise of the Islamic State -- the region's ancient churches. In one stunning blow, ISIS forces seized Mosul and other Nineveh Plain communities that have sheltered Christians since soon after the faith's birth. Jihadi militiamen burned churches, or turned them into mosques, and marked Christian homes with "n," for "Nisrani" or "Nazarene." 

Thus, believers with 2,000 years worth of local roots were declared foreigners -- Nazarenes.