Faith

From an article of the same by Sandra Sutton of the Midland Daily News:

Area Hindus joined Hindus around the world last weekend to celebrate the importance of knowledge by honoring the god of knowledge, Ganesh. Sunday was Ganesh's birthday, but Midland Hindus gathered Saturday in the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library auditorium to celebrate. Ganesh is one of thousands of Hindu gods. Siddhesh Shevade said special attention was paid to involve children in the festivities. Little ones with American accents were guided by parents with Indian accents through each step of the "puja," or prayer ceremony... Before the puja, images of Ganesh, who has a human body and an elephant head, were explained. For instance, Ganesh has large ears, which symbolize listening well, and a large belly, which shows the importance of digesting all that is good and bad in life.

Large ears and a large belly...I don't want to hear any jokes about what Ganesh and I have in common. The little boy in the picture is our friend Sid and the barely-visible face in the upper right corner is our friend Madan (Sid's dad). Though it didn't make the paper, I whipped Madan on the golf course Saturday afternoon.

From an article of the same title by Ted Wendling on beliefnet:

A national coalition of Christian ministers threw down the gauntlet Monday (Aug. 28), endorsing GOP candidate Ken Blackwell for governor and challenging an IRS crackdown on political activities by churches. Implored by the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster to "show your heart," the 28 ministers calling themselves Clergy for Blackwell said they had a legal right and moral responsibility to endorse the Republican secretary of state over Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland. The group noted the candidates' contrasting positions on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and placement of the Ten Commandments in public buildings... Asked about the endorsements, IRS spokesman Chris Kerns declined to comment. Donald Tobin, who teaches courses on tax-exempt organizations at Ohio State University, said he saw nothing improper. He said the event was not held on church property and didn't employ church resources and the pastors emphasized they were speaking as individuals.

The LA Times today ran a long article of the same title examining possible motivations for Mary Winkler killing her husband, a church of Christ preacher in Tennessee. The AP reported on a possible source for the financial problems that precipitated the murder:

A woman accused of shooting her preacher husband to death after they argued over money may have been taken in by a remarkably common scam that strained their finances and their marriage. Mary Winkler, who is charged with murder, had gotten tangled up along with her husband, Matthew, in a swindle known as an advance-fee fraud, in which victims are told that a sweepstakes prize or other riches are waiting for them if they send in money to cover the processing expenses, her lawyers say. ``They were always kind of living on the edge of their budget," defense attorney Steve Farese said, ``so I'm sure this would have just wrecked their budget."

The Christian Chronicle reported that she made $750,000 bail and that her trial is set to begin October 30. From todays LA Times article by Peter H. King:

She complained to investigators about constant carping from her husband, criticisms about "the way I walked, what I ate, everything." She mentioned financial pressures, which she described as "mostly my fault, bad bookkeeping." It was, she said, "just building to a point. I was just tired of it. I guess I just got to a point and I snapped." Certain details about her journey from adored preacher's wife to accused husband slayer Mary Winkler did not share with the Tennessee investigators in that initial interview. She did not tell them, for instance, about the bad checks she'd been passing through a web of bank accounts, transactions that had prompted a concerned call from the bank the day before her husband was shot. Nor did she tell them about her apparently related entanglement in what is known as a Nigerian scam, a common and often ruinous form of fraud that preys on those naive enough to believe they are about to come into big and easy money, if only they play along.

The blending of faith and politics seems to be a big controversy these days in the Christian community. Of course, it exists in other communities as well. There's an interesting article of the same title as this blog post by David Haldane in the LA Times about a controversy that broke out in a Jewish community when a Democratic rabbi, Nancy Meyers, spoke from the pulpit about Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay.

From an article of the same title by Neela Banerjee in the NY Times:

Whether they come from theologically liberal denominations or conservative ones, black churches or white, women in the clergy still bump against what many call the stained-glass ceiling - longstanding limits, preferences and prejudices within their denominations that keep them from leading bigger congregations and having the opportunity to shape the faith of more people. Women now make up 51 percent of the students in divinity school. But in the mainline Protestant churches that have been ordaining women for decades, women account for only a small percentage - about 3 percent, according to one survey by a professor at Duke University -” of pastors who lead large congregations, those with average Sunday attendance over 350. In evangelical churches, most of which do not ordain women, some women opt to leave for other denominations that will accept them as ministers. Women from historically black churches who want to ascend to the pulpit often start their own congregations. This year, women were elected to lead the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. But such success has not filtered down to the congregational level, said the Rev. Dr. Catherine Stonehouse, dean of the school of practical theology at the Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. It is often easier for women in the mainline churches - historic Protestant denominations like Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal and the United Church of Christ - to get elected as bishops and as other leaders than to head large congregations, Dr. Stonehouse said. People in the pews often do not accept women in the pulpit, clergy members said. "It's still difficult for many in this culture to see women as figures of religious authority," said the Rev. Cynthia M. Campbell, president of McCormick Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian seminary in Chicago... Conflicting interpretations of the Bible underlie debates over women's authority and ordination. Opponents of their ordination cite St. Paul's words in I Timothy 2:12, in which he says, "I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent." But proponents point to St. Paul again in Galatians 3:28, which says, "There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."... In the first decade after ordination, men and women usually hold similar positions, said Jackson W. Carroll, professor emeritus of religion and society at Duke University Divinity School and author of "God's Potters: Pastoral Leadership and The Shaping of Congregations," published this year. In their second decade in ordained ministry, however, 70 percent of men had moved on to medium-sized and large congregations, Mr. Carroll said, based on a 2001 survey of 870 senior and solo pastors. By comparison, only 37 percent of women led medium and large larger congregations. In the mainline Protestant denominations, Mr. Carroll found that women made up 20 percent of lead or solo pastors. But of the pastors at the top of the pay scale, largely those who lead big congregations, only 3 percent are women. Of all conservative Protestant congregations, 1 percent are led by women, he said; of African-American churches, just 3 percent are led by women... Several denominations began ordaining women in the 19th century, from the Quakers and the Christian Connection Church, a forbear of the United Church of Christ, to the churches of the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. One of the precursors to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) first ordained women in 1956, the same year that the United Methodist Church granted full clergy rights to women. The church bodies that ultimately formed the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America first ordained women in 1970, and the Episcopal Church officially ordained them in 1976. When the Pentecostal movement started in 1906, it did not bar women from preaching. But over time, congregations have limited women's leadership. The country's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, does not encourage the ordination of women, although some individual congregations and other Baptist groups do.