Religious News Online

Closing Down

Due to family illness, I am closing down the Religious News Online site. I'm sorry to be doing this, but my attention and focus now needs to be elsewhere, and I can't find the time or will to continue to update the site.

My thanks to those of you who supported the site. The archive will remain up for the forseeable future.

God Bless.

Muslim anger fear halts opera

A leading opera house called off a production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that features the severed head of the Prophet Mohammed, setting off a furious debate Tuesday over Islam, freedom of speech and the role of art.

The furor is the latest in Europe over religious sensitivities -- following cartoons of the prophet first published in a Danish newspaper and recent remarks by Pope Benedict XVI decrying holy war.

Kirsten Harms, director of Berlin's Deutsche Oper, announced "with great regret" that she had decided to cancel the three year old production after state security officials warned it could provoke dangerous reactions in the current politically charged climate.

Islamic school set on fire

Ramadan got off to a rough start for a west-end Islamic school yesterday morning after an arsonist set it ablaze.

Firefighters responded to a fire at Abraar School, located at 1085 Grenon Ave., at about 3 a.m. yesterday.

The fire began at the southwest exterior of the building and made its way to the roof before being extinguished. No injuries were reported and damage was pegged at around $100,000.

A Rare Coming-Together of the Jewish and Muslim Holy Seasons

Joining 1.28 billion Muslims and 14.9 million Jews around the world, Southern California adherents of the two faith traditions are observing their respective holy seasons starting today.

It's the first full day of Rosh Hashana — the Jewish New Year — and also the beginning of the month of Ramadan.

Rosh Hashana, the start of the 10 High Holy Days leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, began at sundown Friday. Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, prayer and charity, started today.

Convert from Islam to Christianity killed in Somalia

Somali Christian sources report Ali Mustaf Maka`il, a 22-year-old college student and cloth merchant who converted from Islam to Christianity 11 months ago, was shot and killed in the Manabolyo quarter of Mogadishu.

According to a report from the Barnabas Fund, quoting a Christian source inside Somalia, the gunman was loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts, the Islamist organization that took power in Mogadishu in early June and now controls much of southern Somalia.

The report states the gunman shot Ali in the back Sept. 7 after he refused to join a crowd chanting Quran verses in honor of the lunar eclipse. Solar and lunar eclipses are significant in Islam and are accompanied by special congregational prayers. The Union of Islamic Courts confiscated Ali`s body for 24 hours before delivering it to the grieving family, the report said.

Al-Qaida warns pope of war against Christianity

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida in Iraq warned Pope Benedict XVI yesterday that its war against Christianity and the West will go on until Islam takes over the world, and Iran's supreme leader called for more protests over the pontiff's remarks on Islam.

And, as a Vatican official said its ambassadors would seek to better explain the pope's statement, a Turkish man with a fake gun tried to storm a Protestant church in Turkey's capital, Ankara. He was arrested after worshippers trapped him in the church entryway.

Apart from the continuing anger at the pope's speech, in which he cited a medieval passage that called Islam "evil and inhuman," the debate yesterday seemed to turn on whether the pope had actually apologized.

One preacher's message: Have hotter sex

SAN DIEGO — About 100 evangelical Christian couples stand in the convention hall of a Four Points Sheraton, bow their heads and thank God for their lives and the new day. Then they sing the old-timey hymn “There’s Not a Friend Like the Lowly Jesus.”

I have come here expecting exactly this scene. The occasion is a seminar called “Love, Sex and Marriage,” being given by Joe Beam, a Southern preacher out of the old school, a self-described “book-chapter-and-verse guy,” who runs an outfit based in Franklin, Tenn., called Family Dynamics. So I’m anticipating condemnation of American culture — especially America’s sexual culture — that has made conservative Christians feel besieged.

But then Beam, a portly, silver-haired basso profundo dressed in khaki slacks, a sweater vest and brown tasseled loafers that make him look like a retired country-club golf pro, walks to the front of the room and proceeds to tell the men in the audience how to make their semen taste better.

Pope 'deeply sorry' for reaction to comments

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNN) -- Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday said he was "deeply sorry" for the reaction to comments he made last week when he quoted from a 14th-century emperor regarding Muslims.

"These in fact were quotations from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought," the pope said in his regular Sunday blessing, the Angelus.

The pontiff spoke to a rain-soaked crowd at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence outside Rome, in his first public comments since the controversy erupted last week. (Watch pope apologize as Muslims protest -- 2:02)

Muslims assail pope over Islam comments

As Pope Benedict XVI arrived back home from Germany, Muslim leaders Thursday strongly criticized a speech he gave using unflattering language about Islam and violence.

Some of the strongest words came from Turkey, possibly putting in jeopardy Benedict's plan to visit there in November.

"I do not think any good will come from the visit to the Muslim world of a person who has such ideas about Islam's prophet," Ali Bardakoglu, a cleric who is head of the Turkish government's directorate of religious affairs, said in a television interview. "He should first of all replace the grudge in his heart with moral values and respect for the other."

Hinduism no barrier to job as priest in Church of England

A PRIEST with the Church of England who converted to Hinduism has been allowed to continue to officiate as a cleric.

The Rev David Hart’s diocese renewed his licence this summer even though he had moved to India, changed his name to Ananda and daily blesses a congregation of Hindus with fire previously offered up to Nagar, the snake god. He also “recites Gayatri Mantram with the same devotion with which he celebrates the Eucharist”, according to The Hindu, India’s national newspaper.