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The force is growing in North Wales. What started as something of an Internet joke has grown into something more significant and concrete as a group of Jedi-loving residents of Holyhead are taking their 2001 census statements seriously that their religion is Jedi.
The iconoclastic chess genius Bobby Fischer – one of the most unique public figures of the Cold War era — lived a bizarre life that blended astonishing victories with mysterious choices that, to others, looked like intentional failures or lapses of judgment or something. You can read all about that in the New York Times obituary for Fischer, simply by clicking here.
Gentle GetReligion readers! Please know that this post is not a shameless attempt to shoot the following paragraph from a William Booth feature in the Washington Post out into the search-engine universe at Google and Yahoo. Your GetReligionistas are above that sort of thing, I’ll have you know.
There is a fascinating religion story developing right now out in cyberspace, one in which Hollywood crashes into the Internet, while bloggers and journalists (and journalists who are bloggers) square off once again with the crack legal team from the Church of Scientology.
The New York Times had a fascinating story about gay Muslims in Berlin. Reporter Nicholas Kulish interviewed visitors to a gay nightclub in the Kreuzberg neighborhood and produces a piece showing how young Muslims — many of them immigrants — are navigating their sexual identity and religion:
Where I grew up in California, Saturdays were for Quinceaneras (why won’t WordPress accept the letter n with a tilde?). If you drove by the Catholic church at the right time, you’d see what looked like a wedding party pouring out. The Associated Press’ Eric Gorski uses the hook of Quinceaneras to discuss how the Roman Catholic church in America is embracing its changing identity:
I’m sure we all enjoyed the relative downturn in this year’s War on Christmas. One personal downside was that I didn’t get a chance to write about the war on Advent and the rest of the liturgical calendar. Why is Christmas always singled out?
Of the many routine Christmas-themed stories that local reporters could take on, The Detroit News picked a difficult story Monday that is not quite so predictable. Reporter Catherine Jun looked at what is perceived to be an increasing trend of Muslims in southeastern Michigan celebrating Christmas.
