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		<title>IdeasCategory: Religion &#124; Ideas &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: Stephen Hawking&#8217;s Israel Boycott Is Lost in Space</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/13/viewpoint-stephen-hawkings-israel-boycott-is-lost-in-space/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/13/viewpoint-stephen-hawkings-israel-boycott-is-lost-in-space/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 09:45:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rabbi David Wolpe</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Foreign Affairs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[academic boycott]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stephen Hawking]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=32309</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Israel has become the world&#8217;s premier nondestination for the smugly self-righteous. Since 2006, there has been a movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions organized by a coalition of Palestinian groups, to which people like Bono and Stevie Wonder have lent support. The latest to join this list is renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, who recently announced that he had refused an invitation to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference in late June &#8220;based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott.&#8221; In a statement, Hawking added: &#8220;Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.&#8221; Hawking has written about multiple-universe theory, and it is possible that in some alternate world his action makes sense. But in this world it is a new example of an enduring, egregious hypocrisy. When the odd musician or writer ostracizes Israel, it is contemptible enough. But someone of Hawking&#8217;s stature and intellect should know that boycotts are antithetical to the ideal of open inquiry that animates the scientific enterprise. (MORE: Strikes on Syria Signal an Emboldened Israel) Not that there aren&#8217;t times when ethics override the free exchange of ideas. Or perhaps Hawking just doesn&#8217;t believe in talking to people with whom he disagrees. Where then is his condemnatory statement about the treatment of the Maya people in Guatemala, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Kashmiris in India, the Kurds in Turkey, the Baha&#8217;i of Iran, the Shi‘ites of Pakistan, the Chechens in Russia or perhaps about the Tibetans in China, where Hawking recently paid a celebrated visit? Rather than actually confront the difficulties of the region, he is deploying his considerable prestige to say that one country, among all the nations of the world, is uniquely deserving of obloquy. Then there is the question of what, exactly, standing up the Israeli Presidential Congress is going to achieve. As Hawking must know, he is boycotting precisely those most likely to agree with his political stance, the left-wing academic community in Israel. It&#8217;s hard to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=32309&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/95773900.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">2010 Winter TCA Tour - Day 6</media:title>
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		<title>Why God Is a &#8216;Mother,&#8217; Too</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/11/why-god-is-a-mother-too/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/11/why-god-is-a-mother-too/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 May 2013 21:00:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Yolanda Pierce</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christianity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[God]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[God as mother]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[God as woman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mother]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mother's Day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religion]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=32308</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Long before I became familiar with the academic debates concerning calling God &#8220;Mother,&#8221; debates that I am now currently a part of as a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, I was being raised in a household where I instinctively understood that the divine presence was manifest in the loving hands and arms of mothers, and most especially in the life of my grandmother who raised me. My grandmother’s kitchen was a theological laboratory where she taught me how to love people just as naturally as she taught me to make peach cobbler and buttermilk biscuits. I watched and listened as she ministered to the sick and the lost, with a Bible in one hand and a freshly baked pound cake in the other, despite having no official ministry role. I knew that if God was real, if God truly loved me as a parent loves a child, then God was also “Mother” and not only “Father.” Only years of dogma and doctrine force you to unlearn what you know to be true in your own heart, demanding “Father” as the only acceptable appellation and concept for God. (MORE: Don&#8217;t Call the Planet &#8216;Mother&#8217; Earth) Scholars who oppose the notion of God as Mother often focus on the gender of Christ and his naming of God as “Abba” or Father. Others argue that God is beyond gender, all the while privileging masculine language to understand God. There are also scholars, myself among them, who support the naming of God as Mother along with God as Father, deriving their support from biblical passages which privilege more “feminine” metaphors and analogies, including the image of God as a nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15; Numbers 11:12); God as a midwife (Psalm 22:8-10); and God as one who gives birth (Isaiah 42:14). We do not have to choose only one form of address. God is Creator and Sustainer. God is Protector and Defender. God is Mother and Father. If we are humble, we know that human words and metaphors are incomplete and can never do justice<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=32308&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link>
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		<title>Viewpoint: In the War Over Christianity, Orthodoxy Is Winning</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/29/viewpoint-in-the-war-over-christianity-orthodoxy-is-winning/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/29/viewpoint-in-the-war-over-christianity-orthodoxy-is-winning/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:45:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mary Eberstadt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Episcopal Church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Falls Church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Falls Church Anglicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lutheran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Methodist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Presbyterian]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=31819</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Small wonder, given the harrowing times recently, that news about a long-running property fight over a picturesque church in northern Virginia escaped most people&#8217;s notice. But the story of the struggle over the historic Falls Church is nonetheless worth a closer look. It’s one more telling example of a little-acknowledged truth: though religious traditionalism may be losing today’s political and legal battles, it remains poised to win the wider war over what Christianity will look like tomorrow. On April 18, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld an earlier court decision that a breakaway Episcopalian congregation (now called the Falls Church Anglicans) did not have rights to the historic church there. Instead, the court ruled, the property belongs to the same mainline denomination — the Episcopal Church — that the Falls Church Anglicans had voted to leave in 2006. What’s striking here is not so much the legal outcome, for earlier cases involving other breakaway congregations had also ended without any clear advantage to the rebels. It’s that this episode is exquisitely emblematic of today’s Christian moment. First, there’s the fact of why the split occurred. Once upon a time, schism was the stuff of doctrinal issues — disputes over the sacraments, or grace vs. good works, or the theological like. Not anymore. The Falls Church dispute concerned something that neither Martin Luther nor John Calvin could have seen coming: sex. In particular, it was the elevation in 2003 of an openly gay bishop that was the last straw in what Falls Church traditionalists and others like them believe to be a rewriting of the Judeo-Christian rule book. So they broke away to become the Falls Church Anglicans, and they lost their real estate in the process. (MORE: The Latino Reformation) But their objections are being heard ’round the religious world, not just in the global Anglican community but also the Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian and other mainline Protestant churches. The sexual revolution has accomplished what even the fractious Reformation could not. It has divided Protestantism so deeply that traditionalist Anglicans now have more in common<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=31819&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/141807170.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Country church</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: Anti-Semitism Never Goes Away</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/16/anti-semitism-never-goes-away/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/16/anti-semitism-never-goes-away/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:45:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rabbi David Wolpe</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Art]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arts & Entertainment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anti-Semitic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anti-semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Jewish Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jewish]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religion]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=31326</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On a recent trip to Paris with my 16-year-old daughter, we visited a score of museums: The Louvre of course, the magnificent Quai Branly, the Rodin museum, the Pompidou center, the Hugo house. Each had a small if cursory security check. Then we sought out the small, very fine Jewish museum in the Marais. Here, we passed through a double glass door that did not allow you to continue to the front until the back had closed. The saddest part was my daughter&#8217;s insouciance. &#8220;Did you notice the security?&#8221; I asked. She nodded, &#8220;Dad, it&#8217;s the Jewish museum.&#8221; There was nothing more to be said. My daughter was raised in Los Angeles. She and I live almost untouched by anti-Semitism, a blessing our ancestors could not have imagined. But the experience in Paris reminded us that we carry a deep, persistent awareness that many people in the world quite simply hate us. (MORE: Ancient Fear Rises Anew) During our trip, the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, in cooperation with the European Jewish Congress, issued a report that showed that there had been a significant jump in anti-Semitic incidents in Europe last year, with France leading the way. Researchers noted that there had been many &#8220;copycat&#8221; attacks following a shooting at a school in Toulouse in which a Muslim extremist gunned down 3 children and a Rabbi, and that physical assaults on Jews in France had almost doubled. Researchers also drew a connection between the rise in anti-semitic incidents and the ongoing economic crisis. As the world witnessed in Weimer Germany, mounting stress activates the scapegoat syndrome, and anti-Semitism often spikes with financial downturns. Uncertainty about the Euro and unemployment contribute to the phenomenon of targeting Jewish institutions and individuals. (MORE: The Limitations of Being &#8220;Spiritual But Not Religious&#8221;) But it&#8217;s not just France — anti-Semitism persists in some degree in a depressing range of cultures and countries. You can tour Europe, east and west, and find a resurgence of parties like Greece’s Golden Dawn or Hungary’s Jobbik party,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=31326&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">Anti-Semitism</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Can North Carolina Declare an &#8220;Official&#8221; Religion?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/08/can-u-s-states-have-official-religions/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/08/can-u-s-states-have-official-religions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Apr 2013 09:45:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Cohen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Case Study]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[defense of religion act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[north carolina]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tennessee school voucher]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=30548</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[North Carolina legislators made national headlines last week with a bit of high-profile religious extremism. They introduced a resolution declaring that the state has the right to declare an official religion – presumably Christianity. The bill also contended that states are “sovereign” and that federal courts cannot prevent states “from making laws respecting the establishment of religion.” The North Carolina bill—which appears to be dead for now—was one of two big church-state blow-ups last week. In Tennessee, legislators withdrew a school voucher bill that would have allowed parents to direct taxpayer money to private schools, including Christian academies. The reason they balked: it suddenly occurred to them that the bill would also allow parents to direct tax dollars to Islamic schools. (MORE: Where Are the Most Religious States in America in 2013?) State assaults on the separation of church and state are nothing new. What set the North Carolina bill apart, however, is that it was an aggressive attempt to change the constitutional landscape. It made an argument that conservative lawyers have been developing for some time: that the first amendment’s Establishment Clause does not apply to the states – and that, as a result, states are allowed to favor a particular religion in a way the federal government cannot. North Carolina’s “Rowan County, North Carolina Defense of Religion Act of 2013” came about as a response to a lawsuit by the ACLU. The civil liberties group charged that Rowan County was violating the first amendment by opening 97% of its meetings with Christian prayers. In 2011, a federal court ruled that another North Carolina’s county’s public prayers violated the first amendment. The North Carolina bill would have defended against the suit – and any other lawsuits alleging that the state was promoting a particular religion – in two ways. It would have declared that the Establishment Clause did not apply to the states. And it would have asserted that federal courts have no right to tell states what is and is not constitutional. (WATCH: Your Bill of Rights) The attempt<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=30548&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/151167234.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">A woman prays during a public prayer service at the Verizon Wireless Amphetheatre in Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 2, 2012.</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Whatever Happened to the &#8220;Common Good&#8221;?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/04/whatever-happened-to-the-common-good/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/04/whatever-happened-to-the-common-good/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:45:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jim Wallis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catholic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[constitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the common good]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=30435</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There is an ancient idea that we have lost, but can and should find again. It’s called simply the common good. It goes back many centuries, but the need for a new dialogue about what it means and what its practice would require of us has never seemed more critical. Our politics have become so polarized and increasingly volatile; and our political institutions have lost the public trust. Few Americans today would suggest their political leaders are serving the common good. The common good has origins in the beginings of Chrisitanity. An early church father, John Chrysostom (c. 347–407), once wrote: “This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good . . . for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for his neighbors.&#8221; Of course, all our religious traditions say that we are indeed our neighbor’s keeper, but today people of every faith don’t often actually say and do the things that their faith says and stands for. (MORE: The Limitations of Being &#8220;Spiritual But Not Religious&#8221;) The notion of the common good has both religious and secular roots going back to Catholic social teaching, the Protestant social gospel, Judaism, Islam, and in the American Constitution itself, which says that government should promote “the general welfare.” It is our fundamental political inclination: don’t go right, don’t go left; go deeper. But we’ve lost touch with that moral compass in Washington D.C., where it has been replaced by both ideology and money. A commitment to the common good could bring us together and solve the deepest problems this country and the world now face: How do we work together? How do we treat each other, especially the poorest and most vulnerable? How do we take care of not just ourselves but also one another? The common good is also the best way to find common ground with other people—even with those who don’t agree with us or share our politics.  Both liberals and conservatives<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=30435&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">The U.S. Capital</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: Why Predictions Fail but Prophecies Don&#8217;t</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/29/viewpoint-why-predictions-fail-but-prophecies-dont/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/29/viewpoint-why-predictions-fail-but-prophecies-dont/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:00:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rabbi David Wolpe</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Journalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nate silver]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Paul Krugman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[philip e. tetlock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prophets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pundit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=30114</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Everyone loves to make predictions and almost everyone is bad at it. Not only are we enchanted by our own forecasts, but people in all fields — journalism, politics, tech, marketing — make a nice living off fawning over the future, pretending to know which gadgets will sweep the next decade and whether the economy will recover and when. But a 2011 survey of morning talk shows came to the remarkable conclusion that the pundits featured were no more accurate than a coin toss. The realization that most predictions fail has been elaborated upon in Nate Silver&#8217;s book, The Signal and the Noise, and has even inspired Philip E. Tetlock, psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, to launch a project seeking to improve punditry&#8217;s abysmal record. (MORE: Predicting the NCAA Men&#8217;s Basketball Field—and Discovering the Selection Committee&#8217;s Biases) That we are wrong far more often than we are right can be explained by the odds alone; for every way of being right there are thousands of being wrong. There are always more variables than can be calculated, and we barely know what is going on in our own heads, never mind the world at large.  Still, each time an expert rears up to proclaim a new prediction we forget the previous errors.  When someone hits, we are fantastically impressed. When they don&#8217;t, the backup strategy is to explain why the prediction hasn&#8217;t come true yet. But mostly, we just count on each other to forget. But instead of trying to improve our ability to see the unforeseeable, maybe we should reframe the entire exercise. The prophets of the bible are thought of as predictors, but far more often they are moralists, less concerned with how things will be than how they should be.  Yes, occasionally a biblical prophet would venture a prediction that was inaccurate as a sportswriter in spring training. It has been a long time and neither repeated invocations that &#8220;the day of the Lord is at hand&#8221; (Joel, 4:14) nor cosmological speculations, &#8220;No longer shall you need the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=30114&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Society</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/society/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/krugmant100.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Time&#039;s 100 Most Influential People in the World - Cocktails and Dinner</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">ruthdaviskonigsberg</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: The Limitations of Being &#8216;Spiritual but Not Religious&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/21/viewpoint-the-problem-with-being-spiritual-but-not-religious/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/21/viewpoint-the-problem-with-being-spiritual-but-not-religious/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:00:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rabbi David Wolpe</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Easter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Passover]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spiritual]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spiritual but not religious]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spirituality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[unaffiliated]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=29363</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Do you like feeling good without having to act on your feeling? Boosting your self-esteem no matter your competence or behavior? Then I&#8217;ve got the religious program for you. According to the latest Pew report, almost 1 in 5 Americans identify themselves as &#8220;spiritual but not religious.&#8221; In other words, they have some feeling, some intuition of something greater, but feel allergic to institutions. Yet as we approach Passover and Easter, it&#8217;s important to remember that it is institutions and not abstract feelings that tie a community together and lead to meaningful change. (MORE: Empty Pews: Everyone Is Misreading the New Numbers of Religiously ‘Unaffiliated’) All of us can understand institutional disenchantment. Institutions can be slow, plodding, dictatorial; they can both enable and shield wrongdoers. They frustrate our desires by asking us to submit to the will of others. But institutions are also the only mechanism human beings know to perpetuate ideologies and actions. If books were enough, why have universities? If guns enough, why have a military? If self-governance enough, let&#8217;s get rid of Washington. The point is that if you want to do something lasting in this world, you will recall the wise words of French Catholic writer Charles Péguy: &#8220;Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.&#8221; Got a vision? Get a blueprint. Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world. Religions create aid organizations; as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a column in the New York Times two years ago: the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization is not Save the Children or Care, it&#8217;s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian group. (MORE: Have We Evolved to Be Religious?) Aid organizations involve institutions as well, and bureaucracies, and — yes — committee meetings. There is something profoundly, well, spiritual about a committee meeting. It involves individuals trying together to sort out priorities, to listen and learn from one another, to make a difference. I have found too often that when people say, &#8220;I stay away from<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=29363&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Society</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/society/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/religion.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Religion</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: What It Means to Have a Jesuit Pope</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/15/what-it-means-to-have-a-jesuit-pope/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/15/what-it-means-to-have-a-jesuit-pope/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:00:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rev. James Martin S.J.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catholic Church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jesuit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jorge Bergoglio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pope Francis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society of Jesus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[St. Francis of Assisi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[St. Francis Xavier]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[St. Ignatius Loyola]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=29759</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When I entered the Jesuit order 25 years ago, several friends — including the Catholic ones — scratched their heads. “You’re entering the what?” was the most common response. When I slowly repeated the name of the Catholic religious order that I had decided to join, only a few registered a flicker of recognition. Tell your average Joe (or Joan) that you’re a Jesuit, that is a member of the group formally known as the Society of Jesus, and they’ll often ask “But aren’t you a Catholic?” Among Catholics, Jesuits may be best known for founding universities like Georgetown, Boston College and Fordham, and all those schools named Loyola. (We tend to have great basketball teams as well.) Despite our high-profile schools, the general confusion about Jesuits persists. My all-time favorite reply came from a reporter who once asked, “Were your parents Jesuits?” Um, no. (MORE: Pope of the Americas) So what does it mean that we now have Francis, a Jesuit Pope? And, to answer the question I’ve been asked for over two decades, what’s a Jesuit anyway? In short, a Jesuit is a member of the largest Catholic religious order for men in the world. (Other religious orders would include familiar groups like the Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines, Trappists and Salesians.)  That means that, like other religious orders (there are orders for women too, of course), we take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and live in community together. Unlike diocesan priests, however, our work isn’t focused as much on parish life. A diocesan priest (or parish priest in common parlance) enters a local seminary in order to prepare for his work in a particular diocese, in a series of parishes — celebrating Masses; presiding at baptisms, wedding and funerals; perhaps running a parish school; and entering into the lives of his parishioners. Religious-order priests have a somewhat different portfolio. For instance, besides our better-known work in education (in middle schools, high schools and colleges), Jesuits work as retreat directors, hospital chaplains and prison chaplains, and in positions as varied as geologists, musicians,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=29759&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><letterbox>1</letterbox><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/stignatius.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">St. Ignatius of Loyola</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: New Shepherd, Same Wandering Flock</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/14/new-shepherd-same-wondering-flock/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/14/new-shepherd-same-wondering-flock/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:31:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mary Eberstadt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bergoglio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[latin america]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[philip jenkins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secularization]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=29751</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On the surface, as the global thumbs-up from excited Christians goes to show, the surprise election of former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a.k.a. Pope Francis, signals some bold new directions for the Catholic Church. Geographically, the choice moves the center of gravity away from Europe and into the New World. As a matter of public relations, it re-directs attention away from the Ameri-centric and Euro-centric sex scandals (mercifully, many would say). And the very name “Francis” suggests a papal demeanor arguably more simpatico to many of the faithful than the fierce intellectualism of the preceding two popes — a Catholicism of the barrio and not just the baldacchino. (MORE: Pope of the Americas: Can a New Pontiff Unite a Divided Flock?) In reality, though, and despite the hopes in some precincts for a radically overhauled Church, these departures amount to mere atmospherics. That’s because the chief conundrum facing the new Pope is the same as it was for the exceedingly aware emeritus Pope before him. It is a problem as vexatious for Rome whether in the Global South or in the affluent West, and more than any other earthly force it will decide the fate of all the churches: namely, the secularization of large parts of the formerly Christian world. Evidence abounds that creeping godlessness is not just some European thing. According to Baylor University’s Philip Jenkins, one of the foremost authorities on these numbers, across Latin America “signs of secularization appear that would have been unthinkable not long ago.” Nine percent of Brazilians now report themselves “nones,” for instance, as in “none of the religious above,” and as with the “nones” in America, the number is higher among the young. Forty percent of Uruguayans now profess no religious affiliation. Nor is the new Pope’s home country exempt from the trend – quite the contrary. Political dictatorship may be over, but the “dictatorship of relativism” deplored by emeritus Pope Benedict is alive and kicking in an increasingly secular Argentina. (MORE: Fast Facts About Pope Francis) Then there is state-of-the-art god-forsaking Western Europe.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=29751&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rtr3ey2n.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Faithful cheer as newly elected Pope Francis I, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, appears on the balcony of St. Peter&#039;s Basilica at the Vatican</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Why The First Latin American Pope Inspires Less Hope Than We Hoped</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/13/why-the-first-latin-american-pope-inspires-less-hope-than-we-hoped/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/13/why-the-first-latin-american-pope-inspires-less-hope-than-we-hoped/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Mar 2013 01:18:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Argentina]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bergoglio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[homosexual]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pope Francis]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=29730</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=29730&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Does the Holy Spirit Choose the Pope?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/11/does-the-holy-spirit-choose-the-pope/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/11/does-the-holy-spirit-choose-the-pope/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:16:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rev. James Martin S.J.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cardinals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catholic Church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[College of Cardinals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Holy Spirit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[papal conclave]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pope Benedict XVI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roman Catholic Church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vatican]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=29519</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The long-awaited papal conclave in Rome officially began when the cardinals chanted an ancient hymn, called Veni, Sancte Spiritus. One of the most solemn of Catholic chants, it is used infrequently, and means “Come, Holy Spirit.” With this hymn, the cardinal-electors pray for the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the “Third Person” of the Trinity, or more commonly, God’s spirit, to help them in their deliberations. But does the Holy Spirit choose the pope? If so, how does that work? (MORE: TIME Cover Story: &#8220;Second Act&#8221;) Ironically, one of the most famous comments about the actions of the Spirit in a conclave came from the person who is now the Pope Emeritus. In 1997, when asked on Bavarian television whether or not the Spirit chooses the pope, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger answered: &#8220;I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope&#8230;I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.&#8221; Then the German theologian got to the heart of the matter: “There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!” I’ll say.  It’s difficult to read the long history of the Catholic Church and not come to that conclusion. Two examples of “not-so-holy” popes will suffice. The first is the Pope Emeritus’s namesake, Benedict IX (1032–1048) a thoroughly corrupt pope whom St. Peter Damian described as “feasting on immorality.” The second, Alexander VI (1492–1503) a Borgia pope, who with his several mistresses and children acted, well, like the stereotypical Renaissance Borgia. Did the Holy Spirit choose them for pope? I doubt it. (GRAPHIC: Electing the Next Pope: Who, Where and How History<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=29519&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/vatican.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Vatican</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Top Opinions About Pope Benedict’s Resignation</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/12/top-opinions-about-pope-benedicts-resignation/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/12/top-opinions-about-pope-benedicts-resignation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:03:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Erin Skarda</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catholic Church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pope Benedict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resignation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=28351</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pope Benedict’s surprising abdication inspired some thoughtful commentary on his legacy and the papacy in general. Did we miss one? Share those that caught your attention in the comment section. “The Pope’s Legacy” in America: The National Catholic Review Who: Rev. James Martin, Jesuit priest and editor-at-large The Idea: While John Paul II felt that staying in his position in the face of his declining health was a testament to the suffering of the human condition, Pope Benedict XVI determined that his advanced age was preventing him from doing his job properly in a time of “rapid changes.” Neither decision is wrong, but just a different interpretation of God’s plan. Father Martin goes on to say that while Pope Benedict will likely be remembered for his “newsworthy” acts — most notably his efforts to strengthen the orthodoxy of the church — his books on Jesus will provide his “lasting legacy.” Sum-it-up Quote: “Far more people will most likely read those moving testaments to the person who is at the center of his life—Jesus of Nazareth—than may read all of his encyclicals combined.” (MORE: Benedict XVI Retires: How They Will Pick a New Pope) “Church in Crisis: Pope Benedict Polarized More Than Unified” on Spiegel Online International Who: Peter Wensierski, German journalist The Idea: Germany rejoiced when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was chosen as the Pope in 2005. Now, eight years later, Wensierski argues that the country’s Catholics are glad to see him go. Wensierski points to a recent study that found that even the most loyal Catholics in Germany don’t trust their own bishops. He also claims that the church in Germany has been divided between those who want reform and fundamentalists who “wanted to turn the clock back to before the Second Vatican Council.” Pope Benedict, Wensierski says, wasn’t able to bridge the gap, but he hopes the next pop will “begin resolving the deep crisis facing German Catholics.” Sum-it-up Quote: “With all due respect to the first pope to voluntarily step down in hundreds of years: In the eight years he held office, the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=28351&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/benedict.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Pope Benedict Resignation</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">erinleighskarda</media:title>
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		<title>Pulpit Freedom: Should Churches Endorse Political Candidates?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/16/should-churches-endorse-political-candidates/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/16/should-churches-endorse-political-candidates/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:30:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Cohen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Case Study]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Americas United For Church and State]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[endorsement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jim Garlow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mark Harris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pulpit Freedom Sunday]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ron Johnson]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=23896</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On Sunday Oct. 7, about 1,500 pastors of various faiths engaged in an organized act of civil disobedience: they endorsed political candidates from the pulpit, and many will continue to do so until election day. That may not sound like a crime, but the pastors were violating the U.S. tax code, which prohibits churches and other non-profits from engaging in electoral politics. (MORE: The Decline of the WASP President) “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” organized by a group called Alliance Defending Freedom, has been an annual event since 2008. The participants are trying to bait the IRS into coming after them so they can mount a legal challenge to the politics ban. So far, no luck, though they show no signs of quitting. Many of the participants are from conservative evangelical churches, and one critic — Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Church and State — has argued that the Pulpit Freedom clergy “want to elect Mitt Romney.” It is hard to know how all of the actual endorsements broke down, but Lynn’s take may not be completely off. (MORE: How Romney&#8217;s Faith Could Help Him Win) Indiana pastor Ron Johnson told his congregation that for people who believe in the Bible voting against President Barack Obama is a “no-brainer.”  Jim Garlow told Skyline Church, a San Diego megachurch, that he himself planned to vote for Romney though he did not make a formal endorsement. (Some pastors avoided the presidential race altogether; Mark Harris of the First Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. only endorsed a Republican candidate for state Supreme Court.) The impact this will have on the election this year, though interesting, is not really the point. Pulpit Freedom Sunday is trying to completely rewrite the rules so that in future elections, churches around the country will be free to actively politick. If the full force of the nation’s religious institutions is unleashed, it could have a powerful effect on future elections. The Alliance Defending Freedom insists that pastors have a right to preach “biblical Truth about candidates and<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=23896&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Politics</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/politics/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/600_pulpit-freedom-sunday_1015.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Pastor Mark Harris</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">ruthdaviskonigsberg</media:title>
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		<title>The Decline of the Wasp President</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/15/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-wasp-president/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/15/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-wasp-president/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Oct 2012 11:28:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jon Meacham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Biden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Carter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catholic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mormon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Paul]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[protestant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reagan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WASP]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=23870</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The New York Times headline was straightforward: &#8220;Study Finds That Percentage of Protestant Americans Is Declining.&#8221; We knew this was coming; trend lines have been moving in that direction for years. As Laurie Goodstein wrote in that NYT piece about the Pew survey, &#8220;For the first time since researchers began tracking the religious identity of Americans, fewer than half said they were Protestants, a steep decline from 40 years ago when Protestant churches claimed the loyalty of more than two-thirds of the population.&#8221; (MORE: Empty Pews: Everyone Is Misreading the New Numbers of Religiously &#8216;Unaffiliated&#8217;) There are two points worth noting in this news. One is how the numbers confirm the end of what the late Washington columnist and Georgetown fixture Joseph Alsop called &#8220;the Wasp ascendancy,&#8221; the era in which white Anglo-Saxon Protestants held so much of America&#8217;s political and economic power in their hands. This year, the two national tickets doing battle for the presidency and vice-presidency of the U.S. are made up of an African American, a Mormon and two Roman Catholics — and, wonderfully, most people don&#8217;t seem to care much about tribal distinctions that for so long divided us. The arguments are about fixing the economy, not professions of faith. And that&#8217;s as it should be. (MORE: How Mitt Romney&#8217;s Faith Could Help Him Win) The Roosevelt and Bush families are usually seen as exemplars of the Wasp category, but Carter, Reagan and Clinton were also Wasps, narrowly defined. What people tend to mean when they use the term is a white guy who comes from privilege and is not unaccustomed to the use of summer as a verb. It seems fairly safe to say that a figure from that world would have quite a fight on his hands to win a national election today. That&#8217;s one reason George W. Bush emphasized his evangelical Texas creed. His father may prove to have been the last classically Wasp President we&#8217;ll have. Nothing&#8217;s impossible, of course, but the prevailing demographic and cultural climate is hardly conducive to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=23870&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Politics</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/politics/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/50538684.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">George H. W. Bush [&#38; Family]</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">samanthagrossman</media:title>
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		<title>Empty Pews: Everyone Is Misreading the New Numbers of Religiously &#8216;Unaffiliated&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/12/empty-pews-everyone-is-misreading-the-new-numbers-of-religiously-unaffiliated/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/12/empty-pews-everyone-is-misreading-the-new-numbers-of-religiously-unaffiliated/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:30:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[atheist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catholic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christopher Hitchens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pew study]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religiously unaffiliated]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[richard dawkins]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=23748</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Earlier this week, while men in miters hunkered down in Rome for the start of a bishops synod on how to make the Roman Catholic Church more relevant to the 21st Century—which coincides with the 50th anniversary of Vatican II, the council charged with making the Church more relevant in the 20th Century—the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion &#38; Public Life in Washington, D.C., released a survey indicating just how futile their task might be. It reports that one-fifth of the U.S. public, and a third of adults under 30, aren’t affiliated with any religion today—a 15% increase in just the past five years. While religious leaders bemoaned the data and, like the Vatican synod, vowed to defy it, groups like the New Jersey-based American Atheists cheered the Pew study as evidence that the “number of godless continues to rise” and that the “stranglehold of religion is fading away.” (MORE: Why We&#8217;re Still Catholic) But both responses—the alarmed resistance from many corners of organized religion and the smug celebration among many atheists—are a misreading of the Pew findings. The survey reveals neither a “tsunami of secularism,” which Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., spokesman for the bishops synod, fears is bearing down on organized religion, nor a triumphant upsurge of “godless” atheists who revere Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Despite the rise in the religiously unaffiliated, for example, Pew also found that more than two-thirds of those people believe in God. What’s out there instead is a nation of people who, like most people in most nations in the developed West, acknowledge faith as a positive human urge but are increasingly, and not too surprisingly, turned off by the often archaic institutions that claim to represent faith. (MORE: Have We Evolved to Be Religious?) According to Pew, the spiritually engaged but religiously unaffiliated do think that “churches and other religious institutions benefit society by strengthening community bonds and aiding the poor.” But “overwhelmingly,” it adds, “they think that religious organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=23748&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/id_vatican_1011.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Vatican</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">ruthdaviskonigsberg</media:title>
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		<title>How Mitt Romney&#8217;s Faith Could Help Him Win</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/27/how-mitt-romneys-faith-could-help-him-win/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/27/how-mitt-romneys-faith-could-help-him-win/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:58:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jon Meacham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American Exceptionalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Winthrop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joseph Smith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mormonism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mormons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sermon on the Mount]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=22743</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For Mormons, America is a very special place indeed. It&#8217;s central to the story of their faith; it was home to the Garden of Eden and will be the site of the Second Coming of Jesus. The notion of American exceptionalism is of course not a new idea. Two centuries before Joseph Smith had the visions that led to the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Puritan leader John Winthrop delivered a sermon entitled &#8220;A Model of Christian Charity&#8221; in which he projected a vision of America as a New Israel where the fate of the nation would be inextricably linked to the maintenance of the covenant between God and man. &#8220;For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill,&#8221; wrote Winthrop, alluding to the Sermon on the Mount. &#8220;The eyes of all people are upon us.&#8221; The next lines are less-quoted but revealing: &#8220;So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.&#8221; Down the years, religious Americans have also found inspiration in a popular text from II Chronicles: &#8220;If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.&#8221; (The Bible on which Ronald Reagan took the presidential oath in 1981 was opened to this verse.) As someone who&#8217;s always been interested in the intersection of politics and religion—a subject that seems to me as important in many ways as the intersection of politics and economics—I wondered, where did Mitt Romney fall in all this? Is he a caricatured Reaganesque optimist? (Reagan, always the master of the image, added the modifier &#8220;shining&#8221; to Winthrop&#8217;s words, which were themselves drawn from the Sermon on the Mount. Only Reagan could offer an<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=22743&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/cover_horiz_1008.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">TIME cover</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">erinleighskarda</media:title>
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		<title>Is This The Mormon Moment?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/27/is-this-the-mormon-moment/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/27/is-this-the-mormon-moment/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:53:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matthew Bowman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Smith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catholicism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John F. Kennedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mormon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mormonism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Book of Mormon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=22723</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[According to his memoirs, Richard Nixon believed that he lost the 1960 election because his opponent, John F. Kennedy, was a Roman Catholic. The Kennedy machine managed to “turn the election partially into a referendum on tolerance versus bigotry,” and the hapless Nixon found himself holding the bag for bigotry. Mitt Romney would like to be Kennedy in this scenario, bringing America to a Mormon moment just as JFK brought American to its Catholic moment; both the candidate and the media have made the comparison incessantly. (MORE: Read TIME&#8217;s Cover Story, &#8220;The Mormon In Mitt&#8221;) A Mormon moment would mean a sudden instant in which America collectively grows up, reexamines its prejudices, learns more about a foreign faith, and realizes that its adherents are not so different after all. But the truth is that the integration of a religion into American life is the work of decades, not a single presidential election. Only 32 years before Kennedy’s narrow win, the Catholic presidential candidate Al Smith was torpedoed by a whisper campaign that insinuated he planned to invite the Pope to live in the White House. By 1960, Roman Catholics had spent a century making concessions to American culture. Kennedy’s election was a culmination, not a catalyst. Romney, on the other hand, is swimming against the tide: his faith remains far more alien than Catholicism was to Kennedy&#8217;s fellow Americans in 1960. (MORE: Is Romney Using Mormonism as a Shield?) By 1960, roughly one in every four Americans was a Roman Catholic and the growth of Catholicism was matched by its cultural integration; while the first generation of Catholic immigrants settled the cities of the East Coast, by the end of World War II Catholics lived across the nation. By the time of Kennedy’s election, most Americans had a Catholic neighbor, coworker or friend, Notre Dame football had rocketed to prominence, and the bishop Fulton Sheen was dispensing advice on his national TV talk show. Catholicism had entered the cultural mainstream. Mormonism has yet to make that leap. While Hollywood movies of the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=22723&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/jfk-mitt-romney.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/jfk-mitt-romney.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">JFK-Mitt-Romney</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">erinleighskarda</media:title>
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		<title>Jesus&#8217; Wife Matters a Lot — and Not at All</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/25/why-jesuss-wife-matters-a-lot-and-not-at-all/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/25/why-jesuss-wife-matters-a-lot-and-not-at-all/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:43:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tim Padgett</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[celibacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jesus's wife]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Karen King]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mary Magdalene]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[papyrus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the Da Vinci Code]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[women priests]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=22596</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests — a breakaway group founded in 2002 — sent out an e-mail yesterday announcing that its bishops will ordain six new female clerics next month. (The howl you just heard was from the archconservative Catholic League.) These ladies have nothing if not good timing: their missive immediately made me think of last week&#8217;s news from Harvard Divinity School that an early Christian text asserts Jesus was married and suggests his wife was a disciple — which would indicate women were eligible for the Catholic priesthood all along. But it also reminded me of the other reaction I usually have to these Da Vinci Code–ish historical discoveries about Jesus: So what? (MORE: Padgett: Why We&#8217;re Still Catholics) As a Catholic, I do think Jesus scholarship is important. What experts like John Dominic Crossan and others have done to illuminate Christ the man and his ancient milieu enhances religion as well as the record — it raises questions that prod us to examine our faith and its purpose more deeply. But its value in that regard is also limited. As I’ve written on this site before, you could show me incontrovertible scientific proof that Jesus was not the product of a virgin birth or that he didn’t rise from the dead, and it wouldn’t dampen my faith one iota. Likewise, handing me hard evidence that Mary was indeed a virgin mother, or that the resurrection did occur, wouldn’t do much to reinforce it. Faith doesn’t, or shouldn’t, work that way. Which is why the revelation by Harvard professor Karen King — that a Coptic papyrus fragment quotes Jesus as saying “my wife” as well as declaring that a woman believed to be that spouse, perhaps Mary Magdalene, is one of his apostles — makes me both turn my head and shrug my shoulders. If Jesus was a husband and did consider a woman as clerically worthy as Peter and the rest of the apostolic crew, it matters a lot, for all the reasons Tom Hanks discovers<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=22596&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Religion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/religion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/id_jesus_0924.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">US-RELIGION-CHRISTIANITY</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">ruthdaviskonigsberg</media:title>
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		<title>Why I&#8217;m a One-Issue Voter</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/19/why-im-a-one-issue-voter/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/19/why-im-a-one-issue-voter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2012 11:45:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rabbi David Wolpe</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War & Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[2012 presidential election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hezbollah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jewish]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nukes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=22294</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have never voted in a Presidential election on one issue alone, but I will this year. We all know there are crucial economic and social issues. If you are out of a job, what could be more pressing? There are foreign policy challenges with Russia, China, North Korea and the Middle East. I do not mean to minimize the urgency of these issues. But this year, for me, they must all take a back seat. Although I recently delivered the benediction at the Democratic National Convention, I considered the act religious, not political — a blessing, not an endorsement. My decision this year will be simple: I will vote for whichever candidate seems likelier to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. (MORE: Red Lines, Deadlines and End Games: Netanyahu Turns Up Iran Heat on Obama) There are two words that symbolize the terror of the twentieth century: Auschwitz and Hiroshima. An Iranian bomb threatens to combine them both. It portends the destruction of an entire nation and an entire people in a moment. However hard it may be to imagine such wholesale slaughter, if history has taught us nothing else, it has taught that today’s delusions of madmen can become tomorrow’s reality. The problem is not one person. True, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad describes Israel as an “insult to humanity” and “a cancerous tumor,” and calls for its “disappearance.” But it is equally true that in May, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Major-General Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi, said: “The Iranian nation is standing for its cause [and] that is the full annihilation of Israel.” And in June, Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told a United Nations-sponsored anti-drug conference that the Jews were responsible for the spread of illegal drugs around the world, that the Zionists control the international drug trade, and that they had ordered doctors to kill black babies. (MORE: A Blueprint for Preventing Nuclear Terrorism) Experts from Israel&#8217;s former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan and others point to a genuine concern that Iran would bomb Israel. So<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=22294&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Politics</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/politics/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/600_iran_0917.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Iran</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">erinleighskarda</media:title>
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