Worship

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'60 Minutes' visits a persecuted patriarch

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There is much to praised in the “60 Minutes” profile of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and his tiny, yet historically significant, flock of persecuted Orthodox Christians in Istanbul. It’s worth watching, if only for the remarkable videos taken at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai in Egypt and the remarkable city of churches and monastic cells carved into the mountain cliffs in Cappadocia (video link here) in Eastern Turkey.


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Is yoga religious?

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At the beginning of November, Missouri began a sales tax on yoga studios. The only state in the nation to do so, the move is controversial because many folks in the Show Me State’s yoga community believe yoga is not just exercise but, rather, a spiritual practice.


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On the banks of the Yamuna

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The Washington Post foreign service — which thankfully still exists – sent out this story on Thursday: “New Delhi’s filth continues to choke once-sacred Yamuna River.” It’s a very interesting and well-timed piece in light of all the talk this week at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen about getting better environmental controls in rapidly industrializing countries, particularly in China and India. The story does an excellent job illustrating the environmental problems and challenges in contemporary India. Can’t fault it there:


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Got camels?

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I’m a big fan of the Reuters religion team and love that reporters there are given time and freedom to really explore stories. But I have to admit that this story about a Muslim revival in Chechnya didn’t exactly delight me from the get go. Here’s how it begins:


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Spiritual, but generic, Santas at work

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It would be impossible not to be moved by USA Today feature story about the volunteers at Santa-America, who swing into action this time of year in 40 states to minister to children who are living in hospice care or those who face the lose of a parent.


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Tulsa's man of faith

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If you want a play-by-play of Oral Roberts’s life, look no further than Bill Sherman of the Tulsa World. Sherman’s piece was one of the first posted when news first broke that Roberts had died and is jam packed with Roberts’s chronology. For example, I didn’t know this piece of info: “The O.W. Coburn School of Law opened in 1979, and in 1985 regents voted to give the school to CBN University–now Regent University–in Virginia Beach, Va.”


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Gays, doctrine and Catholic University

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Several GetReligion readers have sent in the URL for a Washington Post story that ran last weekend about the formation of a group for gays, lesbians and, one would assume, bisexuals on the campus of the Catholic University of America.


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Let Hanukkah be Hanukkah

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Wise and faithful GetReligion readers! Is it a mainstream news story that the beleaguered social-events staff at the White House sent out an invitation card for the First Family’s second Hanakkah party (not the first, the second party) that referred to it as a “holiday reception”? And does this have anything whatsoever to do with the strained relations between liberal Democrats and, believe it or not, Jewish voters (see “Catholic voters”)?


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