During the so-called 'family hour,' from 8-9 p.m., foul language increased by 94.8 percent between 1998 and 2002, the study found. It rose by 109 percent during the 9 p.m. hour in the same period.
This week networks will present a staggering array of new shows, each one painstakingly chosen to tap into viewers' latest moods. A surprising number of executives have put their money on piety, and this season's spirituality is far more peculiar than past feel-good shows like "Touched by an Angel."
CBS has "Joan of Arcadia," a gritty crime drama about a high school student whose visits from God converge with the police work of her father. Fox has two: "Tru Calling," another moody crime drama where God, not forensics, guides the heroine, and "Wonderfalls," a sitcom in which a benevolent higher being uses a sarcastic young slacker to work his wonders. Advertisers who complain that there is no novelty or break-out surprise to the 2003-4 season are not looking closely enough. An eschatological shift in programming can be found all across television, from HBO's "Carnivàle," a 12-part battle between Good and Evil set in the Depression, to Showtime's "Dead Like Me," in which the dead return to earth to help others make the transition to the afterlife, albeit in a hip, sardonic way. But the spiritual power awarded pretty, nubile heroines is by far the most striking element, a backlash against Buffy, Zena and "Girls Gone Wild."
The German Evangelical Church is translating the bible using feminist language.
More than 50 translators are working on a new edition of the holy book.
They are rewriting passages which are seen to discriminate against women, and are also using "unbiased and just" language.
The term disciple is to be changed to "disciples and disciplesses" and forms of address such as Lord or Our Father are to be omitted.
The translation project will run to 10,000 copies printed by the Gueterslohe publishing house in 2004.
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Jewish civil rights organization, insisted he was not calling Gibson an anti-Semite. But Foxman said the actor “entertains views that can only be described as anti-Semitic.”
“The Lady of Warka was one of the most important antiquities stolen when looters broke into the Iraqi Museum. Many people in Iraq and in the world will be delighted with its return,” said Jabir Ibrahim, head of the department.
Ibrahim said his department received information in mid-August about a group of people trying to sell the Lady of Warka. The negotiations collapsed for unknown reasons, and the relic was subsequently hidden in the orchard, Ibrahim said.
The artifact, from the ancient city of Warka in southern Iraq, was recovered Tuesday in a joint operation conducted by U.S. military police and Iraqi police.
The Fourth Gospel is part of a nasty exchange of polemics between two sects of Judaism (something the prologue of Mr. Drabinsky's production recognizes fleetingly). This obscure argument would have mere curiosity value except for two huge magnifiers.
First, these two sects were the only viable survivors from among the two or three dozen Jewish sects that had flourished in Jerusalem in the late Second Temple era. Then, in 70 AD, Rome destroyed the Temple and nearly levelled Jerusalem. Of all the forms of Judaism, only the descendants of the Pharisees adapted sufficiently to survive: The main group became the founders of modern Judaism, and a second bunch, a slightly off-brand set, the followers of Yeshua of Nazareth, became the forebears of Christianity.
Even so, the rivalry of these two groups would have been merely a cat fight in a Middle Eastern sandbox had not the Roman Empire turned Christian in the fourth century, a win for the Yeshua crowd. Suddenly, arcane polemics of the first century AD were broadcast empire-wide and eventually worked their influence on governmental policies in dozens of Western countries for several centuries.
Why would anyone want to be faithful to such a text? It can be redeemed by informed, discriminating and gentle scholarship. But, to film a literal version of the Gospel of John is like filming a faithful version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Garth, Mel, you're missing the point. To claim faithfulness to the text of the fourth Gospel is not a defence of your films.
"You have a problem with the patina of the beginning of the inscription (James, son of Joseph)," Lemaire said. "There are two interpretations: either it was a fake, or it was the result of a cleaning."
The inscription cut through the ancient limestone box's patina, proving the writing was not ancient, the Antiquities Authority ruled. "The inscription appears new, written in modernity by someone attempting to reproduce ancient written characters," according to a summary panel released of its findings.
Lemaire believes that the first part of the inscription was cleaned by an antiquities dealer who was trying to improve the readability of the inscription. The second part of the inscription, "Brother of Jesus," would be more likely to be added later, but has a patina with no evidence of being cleaned, he said.
"They found traces of patina even in the first part," Lemaire said.
"The members of the committee, I know some of them," Lemaire said. "They are not specialized in inscriptions; when you read their report carefully, they disagree between themselves. Their conclusion is not clear; it's not justified. It could have been cleaned. They just mention that possibility, then they forget it."
Lemaire accuses the Antiquities Authority of not wanting to deal with the possibility that the inscription on the box is authentic.
"The problem is of identification; who is this man?" Lemaire said. "Very probably, this was the James that was the brother of Jesus. For them, the best way to get rid of this problem of identification is to tell that it is a fake."
[Blake] Temple [, a mathematician at the University of California at Davis] can’t say where the matter we see today originally came from. What existed before the Big Bang? This, in fact, is a thorn in the side of all cosmologists, and it may never be answered because we can’t see time and space as it existed prior to time as we know it.
Gaspari: Is Gibson's version of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ faithful to the Gospel accounts?
Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos: Mr. Gibson has had to make many artistic choices in the way he portrays the characters and the events involved in the Passion, and he has complemented the Gospel narrative with the insights and reflections made by saints and mystics through the centuries. Mel Gibson not only closely follows the narrative of the Gospels, giving the viewer a new appreciation for those Biblical passages, but his artistic choices also make the film faithful to the meaning of the Gospels, as understood by the Church.
Followers of Jesus believe we are all responsible – all human beings, alive, dead or yet to be born – for crucifying Jesus.
That may sound weird to non-believers, but it is an absolutely essential tenet of our faith.
Even weirder is this: We celebrate Christ's agony on the cross. It's a good thing. He did it for us – all of us. He bore our sins and they were nailed to that tree the day He died. We don't blame anyone but ourselves. To do so would miss out on the grace He offered with His shed blood.
The antagonist in Gibson's vision is plainly the Jewish high priest Caiaphas, played by an Italian actor who can seem a bit of a ham as he cajoles the ambivalent Pilate into executing Jesus. Finally, an exasperated Pilate relents and condemns the prisoner, but, according to the Gospel of Matthew, he first makes a show of his own guiltlessness by publicly washing his hands. In Matthew, that gesture is followed by a shout from the crowd: “His blood be on us, and on our children.” This passage, which is depicted only in Matthew, is one of the sources of the notion of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus. Gibson shot the scene, but with Caiaphas alone calling the curse down. Wright, Gibson’s editor, strongly objected to including even that version. “I just think you're asking for trouble if you leave it in,” he said. “For people who are undecided about the film, that would be the thing that turned them against it.”
Gibson yielded, but he has had some regrets. “I wanted it in,” he says. “My brother said I was wimping out if I didn't include it. It happened; it was said. But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be coming after me at my house, they'd come kill me.”
He was referring to his critics, activists at such organizations as the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, as well as some academics, who worry that Gibson will draw too much upon a literal reading of the Gospels, and not enough upon contemporary scholarship that seeks to distance Jews from culpability in the Crucifixion.
I asked Foxman if he believed that Gibson was an anti-Semite. “Per se, I don't think that Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic,” Foxman said. “I think that he is insensitive.”
But what of “The Passion” itself, I asked. Is the film anti-Semitic? “The film, per se, is not anti-Semitic,” Foxman said. The problem, he added, was that, as with any literal reading of the New Testament, its message of love could be twisted into something hateful. “The film can fuel, trigger, stimulate, induce, rationalize, legitimize anti-Semitism,” Foxman said.
“You know, the Gospels, if taken literally, can be very damaging, in the same way if you take the Old Testament literally,” Foxman went on. “It says, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' Now, has the Jewish state, or have Jews, practiced the Old Testament by taking an eye for an eye? No. So a literal reading of almost anything can lead to all kinds of things.”
Speaking with Foxman made me realize just what it was that Gibson had done in making “The Passion.” Gibson had said from the start that he was going to make a movie taken straight from the Gospels. Foxman was saying that, for better or worse, Gibson had done just that. In focussing on Gibson's Traditionalist Catholicism, some of his critics have created the expectation that “The Passion” is a medieval Passion play depicting Jews in horns drinking Christian blood. It is not that. Nor is it the attenuated dramatization that the Catholic scholars might have wished for. Gibson's “Passion” is a literalist rendering of the Gospels' account of Jesus' Passion, which makes it the ultimate Traditionalist expression.
[NY Times:] Christ himself was not exactly a fashion plate.
[Whaley:] I would say that Christ resisted fashion. He was not treated like a king, and he did not have the apparel of a king. He walked a lot, and it wasn't as if he was wearing Cole Haan.
Islamic authorities will prosecute Malaysian men who try to divorce their wives by sending mobile phone text messages or email without going to court.
The warning marks the latest move by the government to discourage the use of electronic messages to initiate divorce proceedings in the predominantly Muslim south-east Asian country.
Islamic law generally accepts that a husband has divorced his wife if he announces his intention to do so to her and the decision is ratified by a cleric. The process for a wife to divorce her husband is more difficult.
The government has ordered religious affairs officials to take legal action against men who declare their divorces by phone text messages, faxes or emails and try to obtain divorce certificates without having undergone Islamic court proceedings.
"I protect her from sex full stop," she said.
"She's not aware of sex, nor should she be. You know, we've had little conversations about where babies come from, but sex is not, and shouldn't be, part of her repertoire right now."
The interview comes just days after Madonna French-kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera live on stage at an awards ceremony.
The pictures offer a new insight into foetal behaviour.
The ultra-sound scanning techniques capture images which show the foetuses yawn, blink, suck their fingers and seem to cry and smile.
Up to now, doctors did not think infants made such expressions until after birth and believed they learned to smile by copying their mother.
[Attorney Brian] Carney said that sometime between May and July, he believes Will Rhoads and Kuang Tang set up an elaborate scheme to take pictures of women in various stages of undress.
Carney said he believes Rhoades and Tang cut a hole in the ceiling of one of the dressing rooms of the Midland Park Mall store.
“It took some coordinated effort to do it,” Carney said. “He had to send the girls to one particular dressing room and instruct the other guy to get up there when they were there.”
Carney said Riggan found that there might be pictures of her from a friend.
Carney blamed the idea on Abercrombie and Fitch’s advertising campaign.
“Look at the way they advertise,” he said. “A lot of their ads are of semi-nude and half-nude people. It’s as though these guys tried to make their own ads.”
"Elma has dropped back to the dark ages," Kathy Shaw, whose daughter is on the drill team, told The Daily World. "They are making our kids feel like they're not nice girls when they are."
For years on game days, the brief blue-and-white skirts have been exempt from the dress code at this small town west of Olympia. Now they'll be allowed only at games and other performances -- not in the hallways.
“Madonna seems to be the high priestess of proselytizing for the Bergs and the Kaballah Centre,” Rick Ross, an expert on cults and alternative religions who has been an outspoken critic of the Kabbalah Centre, tells The Scoop. “No doubt she’s pitched it to anyone with a brain in their head, and that might include Ms. Spears.”
A Spears spokeswoman confirms the story. “Britney was introduced to Kabbalah through her friendship with Madonna,” the rep tells the Scoop. “She is now learning more about it.”
The state Historical Commission installed the panel display in the old Supreme Court library room in the Capitol. Riley said it is similar to displays in the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol and it has the blessing of Attorney General Bill Pryor....
The display includes not only the Ten Commandments but also the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence, all part of the foundations of American law.
The London Telegraph said the poster is an attempt to promote Christmas as more than just an opportunity to spend money. The slogan beneath the traditional tableau reads: "Go on, ask Him for something this Christmas."
The poster, to be displayed at more than 1,000 sites across England in December, is part of a nearly $400,000 campaign by the Britain-based Churches Advertising Network.
Taxpayer funds are being used for school sexuality education programs that subvert the idea of abstinence for teens and target children as young as 9 years old with lessons on masturbation, condom use and homosexuality, say opponents of the courses.
— Becoming a Responsible Teen: Originally designed for teens from 14 to 18, it suggests in a list of recommended activities a trip to the grocery store to examine the different kinds of lubricants for condom use.
— Be Proud! Be Responsible!: Designed for adolescents from 13 to 18, it includes “brainstorming” about different ways to make condoms sexy. It also includes role-playing situations involving “negotiating safe sex” in bisexual and homosexual relationships.
— Focus on Kids: Designed for youths 9 to 15 years of age, provides “condom hunts” at local markets and a condom race to see who can apply the condom fastest.
In large letters that were once painted black so they could be seen from across the valley, the inscription reads, "This is the funerary monument of Zacharias, the martyr, the very pious priest, father of John."
[Father Emile] Puech believes it was carved by monks around a decade after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
During that period Holy Land Christians began to set up shrines connected to Jesus, among them Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site of the crucifixion.
[Joe] Zias now hopes to find an inscription linking James the Just - whom some Christians believe to be Jesus' brother - to the tomb as according to Christian tradition, Zacharias, Simeon and James were buried together. Roman Catholics - who believe Jesus' mother Mary was a virgin all her life - say James was his cousin.
"There is room for three people (in the tomb). There are three burial niches so it certainly fits," Zias explained.
A poll last week of 600 registered voters showed 68 percent supporting Moore's position that the Ten Commandments should be displayed on public property. Forty-nine percent said he should not have defied an order to remove a 5,280-pound monument from the rotunda of the judicial building in Montgomery.
Indeed Deal Hudson has written that “one of the two glimpses of Gibson in the movie is when you see his hand placing the stake on Christ’s palm—thus underlining Gibson’s own guilt, which in Christian theology he shares with all mankind, for the death of Christ.”
Eva, 24, has a 2-year-old son and is pregnant again. She's never been married.
Earlier in her pregnancy, she had thought about having an abortion. But watching ultrasounds of her developing fetus has erased that idea from her mind.
"She was so innocent," Eva said. "I thought, `I can't do this.'"
One of the Jewish scholars, Alan Segal of Barnard College, told a Toronto media preview that "it's a stunning and illuminating film."
The scholars provide words of explanation that scroll down the screen before the action begins, noting that crucifixion was a Roman punishment not sanctioned by Jewish law and that Jesus and all his early followers were Jewish.
"We got ourselves upside down financially when everything was working wonderfully," [Big Idea founder and CEO Phil] Vischer told Christian Retailing. "When things were doing so well, I thought that was God wanting us to expand, so we grew like crazy. Now I think it was more me having all these great ideas in my head and being so excited that I wanted to do them all at once."
In raw numbers, home schooling is no threat to traditional education. More than 50 million students attend more than 94,000 public elementary and secondary schools in the United States.
But as school budgets shrink and enrollments rise, home schooling has proved to be an effective alternative for many families.
And it has more than held its own in standardized measures of learning:
In 2002, home-schooled students averaged 1,092 on the SAT, compared with the national average of 1,020, according to data from the Home School Legal Defense Association.
A 2001 study by the U.S. Department of Education found that minority children educated at home fared better on reading and math scores than their counterparts in public schools.
A 1998 study by the Education Policy Analysis Archives found that achievement levels of homeschoolers “are exceptional.” The peer-reviewed scholarly electronic journal reported that by the time “home school students are in eighth grade, they are four years ahead of their public/private school counterparts.”
The contract — called the "Agreement and General Release Regarding Spiritual Assistance" — makes it clear that the signee does not believe in psychiatry and does not want to be treated for any kind of psychiatric ailment should one befall him.
Instead, once the paper is signed, the agreement calls for the Church of Scientology to step in if there's ever a problem. The result would be total isolation and constant surveillance.
The wording of the agreement is shocking, to say the least. If a member of the church becomes what we might call "mentally incompetent," he automatically agrees to be placed in the care of Scientology counselors, potentially barring family, friends or anyone else from interceding, including doctors and psychiatrists.
The new agreement seems to stem from a long-simmering wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the estate of Lisa McPherson against the Church of Scientology.
It alleges that McPherson died in 1995 after being held against her will by the church for 17 days. When she died, it is claimed, her body was covered with cockroach bites and McPherson was dehydrated.
By having members sign the contact agreeing to be isolated from family and medical professionals, the church apparently believes it would be immune to such lawsuits. The lawsuit, which has suffered several postponements, may come to trial in 2004.
"The sooner I am executed ... the sooner I am going to heaven," Hill said in a jailhouse interview. "I expect a great reward in heaven. I am looking forward to glory. I don't feel remorse."
"More people should act as I have acted," Hill added.
Now, over Labor Day weekend, members of the Winnebago County Board [contact info here] have hatched a plan, which they hope to ram through this week, to try to tear down St. Mary's to make room for a massive new county jail. While they're currently back-pedaling, claiming that they only want St. Mary's School (which closed its doors in 1974), the resolution that the board will vote on this week refers to the entire church property. Moreover, St. Mary's heating plant is inside the school, so tearing down the school will mean the end of the church as well.
St. Mary's is one of the most vibrant parishes I've ever belonged to, brimming with young families with lots of children. (At five children, our family is one of the smallest.) The church has spawned two independent Catholic schools, been the center of much homeschooling activity, and helped to save the western portion of Rockford's downtown from sliding further into the abyss. Located near state and local government buildings, it is the only Catholic church that serves the needs of downtown residents and workers.
Through the efforts of Rockford's Bishop Thomas Doran and the Institute of Christ the King, St. Mary's has been lovingly restored. Parishioners donated over a quarter of a million dollars to restore the stained-glass windows (which Frank Houtkamp, a stained-glass expert, has declared to be some of the finest in the Midwest) alone. Sunday Mass attendance averages 425. Now, this jewel of traditional Catholicism is threatened by a county board with a history of confiscating other people's property.
The church is the state's largest Episcopal church, with 1,500 members. Its governing body voted Aug. 11 to allow individual members to specify that no portion of their offerings go to the Diocese of Kentucky and the national church. More than 100 members -- out of a pledge base of 550 -- have sent notice that they plan to withhold money from the diocese and national church, Jennings said. St. Francis contributes 11 percent of the diocese's total annual revenue.
What is Christian feminism? It is a school within the broader feminist tradition that seeks to define woman's liberation and her equality with man through reference to the Christian religion. This sounds odd to modern ears. But it is no odder than trying to define liberation and equality with reference to post-Marxist theory, the well from which PC feminism draws. Or by referring to the classical liberal tradition as does the school I favor -- individualist feminism or ifeminism.
