A number of Islamic associations have put a quick end to their collaboration with a professor -- and trainer of people who are supposed to teach Islam in German high schools -- who has expressed his doubt that Muhammad ever lived. Islam scholar Michael Marx spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about what lies behind the debate and the historical person of the Prophet.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Marx, someone studying Islam learns that the Prophet Muhammad was born on the Arabian Peninsula in A.D. 570 and died in Medina in A.D. 632. Is there any reason for doubting that this is true?

Michael Marx: Those are provisional dates that we should hold on to until there are better figures. The Islamic sources are rich with material about the person of the Prophet and his life story. Some of it is has elements that are somewhat mystical. But we can generally rely on the solid core of Islamic tradition.

-Article Continues Off Site

The report claims more than 50,000 women a year have deserted their congregations over the past two decades because they feel the church is not relevant to their lives.
It says that instead young women are becoming attracted to the pagan religion Wicca, where females play a central role, which has grown in popularity after being featured positively in films, TV shows and books.
The study comes amid ongoing controversy over the role of women in all Christian denominations. Last month its governing body voted to allow women to become bishops for the first time, having admitted them to the priesthood in 1994, but traditionalist bishops have warned that hundreds of clergy and parishes will leave if the move goes ahead as planned.
The report''s author, Dr Kristin Aune, a sociologist at the University of Derby, said: "In short, women are abandoning the church.
"Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
"Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church.
"Women''s ordination, as priests and now bishops, has dominated debate and headlines – but while looking at women in the pulpit we have taken our eyes off the pews, where a shift with more consequences for the church''s survival is underway."
Her research, published in a new book called Women and Religion in the West, cites an English Church Census which found more than a million women worshippers have left churches since 1989.

Article Continues (Off Site)
Courtesy Telegraph (UK)

That loud crack heard throughout the evangelical world when national research showed that more than half of American evangelicals believe people of other religions can go to heaven wasn’t thunder from an angry God.

This crack came from the rock upon which the modern American evangelical movement sits. It was splitting right down the middle.

There is both rejoicing and lamentation.

I am among those rejoicing.

The universalist/evangelical finding, which came from the Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, was one more sign that American Christianity is entering the most exciting era in our lifetime. Some people believe a new awakening is at hand. Others believe a reformation is in the making. No one knows how long it will take or how far it will go.

What’s clear is that people in the pews are taking back their faith, wresting it from leaders who helped sell the idea that only the most fundamentalist brands of Christian belief could succeed and that their words alone represented that belief.

As an evangelical from Corsicana wrote recently about a powerful evangelical leader, "I found myself not wanting to be this ventriloquist’s dummy anymore."

Southern Baptist Convention leaders were among those lamenting. So they did their own study, which showed that only 20 percent of evangelicals think people of other religions will get a go-to-Heaven pass.

That would be good news for them, except Southern Baptist researchers didn’t use the same criteria in picking their evangelicals that the Pew study used. The Pew study counted anyone who called themselves an evangelical or some variation thereof. That standard reliably returns 25 percent of Americans.

Article Continues (Off Site)
Courtesy The Star-Telegram.

 A toddler whose remains were found inside a suitcase in Philadelphia this spring was starved to death by members of a religious cult, including his mother, in part because he refused to say "amen" after meals, police said.

Ria Ramkissoon, the mother of Javon Thompson, was charged Sunday with first-degree murder in the boy''s death, and Baltimore police said Monday that three other members of a group called 1 Mind Ministries have also been charged with first-degree murder. Police and Ramkissoon''s family say the group is a cult.

Members did not seek medical care for Javon when he stopped breathing, and the boy died in his mother''s arms, according to court do*****ents that described police interviews with a confidential informant and two children. He would have been about 15 months old when police say adults stopped feeding him in December 2006.

Ramkissoon, 21, was being held Monday in the psychiatric ward of Baltimore''s Central Booking and Intake Center, and a bail review was postponed until Tuesday. Her public defender declined comment.

The three other people charged in Javon''s death - Queen Antoinette, 40, also known as Toni Ellsberry or Toni Sloan; Marcus Cobbs, 21; and Trevia Williams, who turns 21 on Tuesday - were already in custody. They were arrested in May in New York City on warrants charging them with failure to appear in court in Baltimore. Those charges stemmed from a scuffle with police in a child custody dispute.

Article Continues (Off Site)
Courtesy CBS News

Rowan Williams believes that gay sexual relationships can “reflect the love of God” in a way that is comparable to marriage, The Times has learnt.
Gay partnerships pose the same ethical questions as those between men and women, and the key issue for Christians is that they are faithful and lifelong, he believes.
Dr Williams is known to be personally liberal on the issue but the strength of his views, revealed in private correspondence shown to The Times, will astonish his critics.
The news threatens to reopenbitter divisions over ordaining gay priests, which pushed the Anglican Communion towards a split.
As Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams recommitted the Anglican Communion to its orthodox position that homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture at the Lambeth Conference, which closed on Sunday.
However, in an exchange of letters with an evangelical Christian, written eight years ago when he was Archbishop of Wales, he described his belief that biblical passages criticising homosexual sex were not aimed at people who were gay by nature.
He argued that scriptural prohibitions were addressed to heterosexuals looking for sexual variety. He wrote: “I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.” Dr Williams described his view as his “definitive conclusion” reached after 20 years of study and prayer. He drew a distinction between his own beliefs as a theologian and his position as a church leader, for which he had to take account of the traditionalist view.

Article Continues (Off Site)
Courtesy (London) Times online

A group of senior Anglican clergy has told the Lambeth Conference that liberal churches must end the ordination of gay bishops and stop blessing same-sex relationships if the Communion is to arrest its slide towards a permanent split.
The working party given the task of finding possible solutions to the rift told the 650 bishops meeting in Canterbury that traditionalist churches in Africa must also stop setting up parallel church bodies in the United States as homes for congregations splitting away from the American Church because of the dispute.
The group, headed by the former Archbishop of the Middle East Clive Handford, said in the long term some sort of statement of shared beliefs and an agreement to abide by them would be necessary.
But in the short term, a ban on gay bishops and blessings was needed to prevent "irreparable damage" to the Communion.
Bishop Handford made it clear that did not mean that the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, should resign.
But it did mean the Episcopal Church promising not to repeat such ordinations.

Article Continues (Off Site)
Courtesy: BBCNews

Diners have been flocking to a restaurant in northern Nigeria to see pieces of meat which the owner says are inscribed with the name of Allah.
What looks like the Arabic word for God and the name of the prophet Muhammad were discovered in pieces of beef by a diner in Birnin Kebbi.
He was about to eat it, when he suddenly noticed the words in the gristle, the restaurant owner said.
A search of the kitchen''s meat revealed three more pieces which bore the names.
The meat was boiled and then fried before being served, owner Kabiru Haliru told newspaper Weekly Trust.

Article Continues (Off Site)
Courtesy: BBC News

Despite strong opposition from conservative Anglicans, the Church of England has Voted to allow women to become Bishops.  While feminine clergy in Anglican affiliated churches  is common in North America and Australia, this is a first in Britain.  Though the Measure passed by a wide margin, the  implementation of  the Women as Bishops Policy will NOT be immediate.  The conservative factions of the church of England have threatened further schism.

More in depth  article (Off Site)

The United States is one of the most religious countries in the world, but American views often defy categorization and contradict the teachings of their faith, according to a huge survey released Monday.

Some Highlights

70% of those claiming religious affiliations believe multiple religions can lead a person to salvation, while 68 percent say there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of their religion.
57% of evangelical Christians say that multiple religions can lead to salvation, though nary an evangelical theologian or minister would be likely to say that.
58% of Catholics believe society should accept homosexuality, a view that is greatly at odds with U.S. Catholic bishops, including those in the Bay Area.
12% of Eastern Orthodox Christians say they speak in tongues once a week, though it is largely a Pentecostal practice that is not in Orthodox liturgy.
21% of self-defined atheists believe in God - leading scholars to think that these atheists see how they identify themselves as a position against organized religion, not divinity. (Ed Comment: Huh?)

Complete Article (Off Site)
Courtesy: SFGate

More than half of Britons think Christianity is likely to have disappeared from the country within a century, according to a survey

Research by the Orthodox Jewish organisation Aish found that just over a third of people thought religions like Christianity and Judaism would still be practiced in Britain in 100 years'' time.

Although four in 10 people said they would choose to be a member of the Christian religion, almost the same number said they would rather practice no religion at all.

Buddhism however, proved more attractive than both Islam and Judaism, and was chosen by nine per cent of those questioned.

Article Continues (Off Site)
Courtesy Telegraph (UK)

As seen at The Amazing Meeting!





~ Click to purchase ~