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Archive for “Religion” news
Charges Likely Against Faith-Healing Parents of Dead Boy
By Joel Mathis 5/22/2013
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NBC Philadelphia reports that D.A. Seth Williams is expected to announce charges against Herbert and Catherine Schaible, the faith-healing parents of an 8-year-old boy who died in April of pneumonia, dehydration, and a strep infection. They remain on probation for involuntary manslaughter in hhe 2009 death of another, 2-year-old son who was similarly subjected to his parents' faith-healing ways. "Their seven surviving children have been placed in foster care."
What Hate Groups Say About Being Called Hate Groups
By Victor Fiorillo 4/18/2013
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The Southern Poverty Law Center maintains a database of organizations it designates as "hate groups." To make the list, your group must "have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."
WATCH: PA Family Says Jesus’s Face Is On Their Easter Egg
By Joel Mathis 4/03/2013
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It's a miracle!
WFMZ reports that Jessica Ramos is convinced that Jesus can be seen on her daughter's Easter egg. "If you really look at it, he has the long hair," Ramos says, "He looks very serious." He does! But he's also white! And everybody knows: Jesus was black. Unless he wasn't. In which case: It's a miracle!
Was the Cesar Chavez Google Doodle an Insult to Christians?
By Joel Mathis 4/01/2013
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If the Easter story is true—and I’m an agnostic, so I neither confirm nor deny the truth of what I’m about to discuss—something really amazing happened roughly 2,000 years ago. The Romans put a Jewish preacher up on a cross, killed him, and buried him … only to see him leave his grave a few days later, visit some friends, then rise to heaven with a promise to return.
“Jesus Stomping” Sounds Bad, But It’s Not
By Larry Mendte 3/28/2013
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Fueled by Fox News, the stomping of Jesus and the young man who tried to stop it has become a national story, a national outrage and a state investigation. Jesus stomping does sound bad.
It’s not.
Does Philadelphia Have a “Burqa Crisis?”
By Joel Mathis 2/26/2013
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Daniel Pipes—profiled in these pages a few years back as "the country's most controversial Middle East scholar"—is stirring debate again, taking to The Jewish Press to advocate a ban on wearing the niqab and burqa—clothing traditionally worn by Muslim women—in public spots. He says too many Philly crimes (including the recent kidnapping of a girl from her school) are taking place under, literally, the cover of Muslim garb.
As the Middle East Forum’s David J. Rusin points out in his detailed survey of Philadelphia burqa crimes, Muslim garb holds two great advantages over other forms of disguise: First, many full-body covered women
Philly Churches Giving Out “Ashes to Go” for Ash Wednesday
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 2/13/2013
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"Are you giving that out? For free? Right now?" asked a woman called Linda on the northeast corner of Market and 19th. Reverend Ethan Jewett, and two lay members from St. Clement's (Episcopalian) Church in Logan Square, were indeed smearing little ashen crosses on foreheads in Center City today, for Ash Wednesday. St. Peter's, also Episcopalian, on 3rd and Pine, was doing the same outside the Market East SEPTA station, as it did last year.
When I first encountered the trio, at 9:30 a.m., they had performed the rite on 256 people. By the time they headed back to St. Clement's
The Atlantic Publishes, Unpublishes “Sponsored Content” From Church of Scientology
By Joel Mathis 1/15/2013
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Advertorial happens, but it doesn't always happen with the country's most controversial church. Maybe that's why journalists on Monday night took notice of a Scientology-sponsored article at The Atlantic all about how Scientology is great! (It's not true that the text read as such: "David Miscavige is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.")
More impressive: In the early hours, at least, all the comments on the story were also pro-Scientology, and everybody knows that Internet commenters live to poop on everything, no matter how good or bad it is.
In any case, the story—the
The War on Women Didn’t End When Mitt Romney Lost
By Sandy Hingston 11/26/2012
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Sister, did you take five minutes to feel good about the future after President Obama was reelected, thus ending the immediate threat that contraception would be outlawed, abortions would become criminal, lesbians wouldn’t be able to adopt children or marry, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would be gutted? Good for you. Now gird your loins right back up again. Last week brought bad news in the form of a vote by the Anglican Church to forbid women from becoming bishops. That’s right: The bishops’ club, for at least the next five years, will remain all-male.
