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Some mosques use the month of Ramadan as an opportunity to educate friends and neighbors about Islam. The Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia encourages members of its congregation to bring non-Muslim friends to their iftar dinners, the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan. Imam Johari Abdul-Malik describes how the program ties the community together. More
Faith communities respond to the latest mass shooting; the presumptive Republican nominee faces a sharply divided evangelical vote; and many refugees are finding a home in conservative Utah.
Muslim leaders spoke out this week after the massacre in Orlando. “We condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims.” And Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America, observed that “whatever they say about the practice of homosexuality is irrelevant to the fact we are committed to respect the other.” More
“It’s not just evangelicals,” says John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. “There are other pieces of the Republican Party that are in disarray as well. But because evangelicals play just a central role at the ballot box, that has to be a top priority for Republicans who want to be successful,” More
End-of-life care in the US is broken, and some say end-of-life conversations the solution; and students at this school for boys are guided by the Rule of Benedict as they engage in the daily practice of living in Christian community. … More
“We really need to free dying from the hospital and take it back into the community where it belongs,” said Dr. VJ Periyakoil, director of palliative care education and training at Stanford University School of Medicine.
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“We’re here as a sign of God’s presence,” says Father Edwin Leahy, headmaster of St. Benedict’s Prep School in Newark, New Jersey. “That’s who we are as monks. We take a vow of stability of place, so even though the neighborhoods change around us on a regular basis, we stay.” More
They provide quick money when banks do not, but they also target and trap the very poor; women lead prayers, preach sermons, and serve together at this all-female mosque—the first of its kind in the US; and a community church … More
More and more churches in Alabama are opposing the high interest charges of payday lenders. “There’s a moral and ethical injunction starting back in the Old Testament going all the way into the New Testament church,” says Rev. Shannon Webster, pastor of Birmingham’s First Presbyterian Church. “There are injunctions against lending at interest in an exorbitant way.” More
“Women have for a long time felt shut out from mosques everywhere. And so instead of trying to argue against whether this women’s mosque should exist or not, they should really be looking at their own communities and wondering how they can make them a more welcoming place for everyone,” says Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, one of the preachers at the all-female Women’s Mosque of America. More