If you watched the community memorial service in tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo., on Sunday, you could not miss the powerful religious messages and imagery.
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Ghosts in the Egyptian virginity tests?
CNN is up with a horrifying story about what female protesters went through during the recent Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt. A senior Egyptian general has admitted that women were subjected to “virginity checks.” Amnesty International had alleged as such in a report following the protests. That group claimed that females “were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.” Those reports were denied. Things have changed:
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WHO are these good Samaritans?
That’s my first response to the reader who contacted GetReligion concerning a CBS News report on the Joplin, Mo., tornado relief effort:
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When the government dictates prayer
I’m not much for displays of civil religion but there’s one recent governmental intervention that really chaps my hide. That’s where the government requires citizens to submit prayers for governmental approval before they’re uttered.
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Pod people: Oprah, mainline evangelist
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The church of O is pantheistic
In Christianity Today, LaTonya Taylor offered the definitive look at “The Church of O” 10 years ago. There are many reasons why I’m not the type of woman to get into Oprah Winfrey, but her religious views always intrigued me.
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Study: non-Christians' brains atrophy
The other day we looked at the way the media handled a study that showed that Protestants who don’t identify a “born-again” experience had less hippocampal atrophy than Catholics, non-believers and those who do claim a “born-again” experience. I noted that all the headlines I could find highlighted that “born-again” Christians had “smaller brains.”
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The Joplin twister, God and CNN
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God, god and Oprah's good-bye
Click here if you want to read the dead-tree-pulp Washington Post story about the final show by Oprah Winfrey. Or don’t. It really doesn’t matter, because this story is about a television event — not a signpost event in the development of pop and/or civic religion in American culture. Ditto for this news report in the New York Times.
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