#christianity

#christianity

On a rainy night in May, German writer Erich Kastner stands among Nazi SA officers and onlookers before a burning pyre that illuminates Berlin's Opernplatz, now called Bebelplatz.Men in black SA uniforms throw piles of books on to the fire.Kastner listens as his name is shouted into a microphone: "Against decadence and moral decay!

At 52, award-winning Scottish poet Em Strang is publishing her debut novel.Quinn is narrated by a convicted murderer who gets a shot at redemption when the mother of his victim makes a gesture of what appears to be radical forgiveness.Visceral, incantatory and startlingly beautiful in places, it's a book whose power is accentuated by its brevity.

Former teen actor and Christian conservative activist Kirk Cameron has a new children's book out, but public libraries passed on his offer to host story-time events reading his children's book As You Grow, which he described as "a book that teaches biblical wisdom."The Growing Pains star and brother of Candace Cameron Bure says that more than 50 public libraries across the U.S. have told his publisher, Brave Books, that they're not interested in hosting his events.

A Christian university is reportedly suing an Arizona public school district for ending its years-long student-teaching partnership with the college over alleged religious discrimination.Arizona Christian University filed a lawsuit against the Washington Elementary School District, which oversees students in the Phoenix area, Thursday after the school board terminated the contract that allowed ACU students to teach within the district's schools, 12 News reported.

I can vividly remember being curled up in one of the cozy brown velour armchairs in our '70s grasscloth-wallpapered Oklahoma living room, nose deep into Judy Blume's coming-of-age novel, "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret."My parents were in the adjoining kitchen, my mom likely stirring whatever Indian food she was making for the evening.

A library director at Tennessee's Hendersonville Public Library was fired after right-wing celebrities made a stink about not being treated well while promoting their children's books.The Sumner County Library Board voted 4-3 on Wednesday to fire Allan Morales after former child star Kirk Cameron, Duck Dynasty star Missy Robertson, and former swimmer Riley Gaines accused library staff of being rude and unwelcoming during an event for Cameron's book tour that also included a reading of Robertson's book from the same publisher.

Nineteen of the 20 players on Saturday night's roster for the San Jose Sharks of the NHL wore a kick-ass Pride jersey during warmups with rainbow tape and the word "love" on an image of two intersecting hockey sticks.One player, who cited Christianity, did not.I chose to begin my story with the 19 over the one, goalie James Reimer, who trotted out the old nonsense about how being gay is counter to his religious beliefs.

On the campus of a small Christian college in Wilmore, Kentucky, a massive worship service has been rolling, nonstop, for nearly two weeks.The event at Asbury University is so popular, people have flown from across the country, standing in line outside of the college's main chapel for an opportunity to take part in the singing, praying and discussion unfolding within.

Portland Public Schools (PPS) has presented a trio of options to an atheist parent who pulled his children off their school bus after they told him the bus driver encouraged Christian singing and prayer.The parent, Tim Bartholomew, moved with his children to the East Columbia neighborhood in January and enrolled his children in first and second grade at Faubion School.

The religiously wary, the spiritually curious - and anyone inclined to appeal to a higher power on game day - are the target audience for a Super Bowl ad campaign with a simple message: Jesus loves them.A group that includes wealthy Christian boosters is using the biggest megaphone TV marketing money can buy on Sunday to spread the word with two new ads that proclaim "He Gets Us."

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email The favourite to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader has been engulfed by controversy after saying she would have voted against gay marriage.Kate Forbes, a devout Christian, said she would have opposed it as a matter of conscience if she had been an MSP when it became law in Scotland in 2014.

Who "owns" Christmas?You might think the answer is obvious, but when enormous amounts of money are at stake, nothing can be taken for granted.That's glaringly apparent with music star Mariah Carey's failed attempt to cash in a little more on the mountains of money already earned by her perennial hit, "All I Want for Christmas Is You."

On the evening of February 11, 2006, a severe winter storm arrived in New York City.By four in the afternoon the next day, nearly twenty-seven inches of snow had fallen in Central Park, surpassing the record that had been set in 1947.That night, as many streets in the city remained impassable, I trudged to a church building on Manhattan's Upper West Side and found six hundred or so people, mostly young professionals, squeezed into the pews.

Timothy Keller, influential NYC pastor, author, and founder of the Gospel Coalition, died at age 72.Nathan Troester/courtesy of Icon Media Group Influential church leader Timothy Keller has died at the age of 72.He was a founder of The Gospel Coalition a group of evangelical congregations concerned with the direction of their faith tradition.

The Mercury provides news and fun every single daybut your help is essential.If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us.Thanks for your support!Good morning, Portland!If last week's weather had you breaking out the jorts, you might want to opt for rain boots instead.

I was 8 when my mother died.She died at 35 of breast cancer, though it would be years before I knew that.Over time, I developed the belief that because she was dead, certain knowledge eluded me.If I had a mother, I'd think, I'd know how to walk in heels and sit like a girl.I'd know what to carry in a purse or how to operate a curling iron.

He promised a new start.I made no comment.What should I resent?No, not a response to the Tory leadership chaos but lines from TS Eliot's The Waste Land.This month marks the centenary of the publication of Eliot's masterpiece, one of the most influential works of the 20th century.And not just on poetry or literature.

A tie is a popular and classic accessory that can make a statement.According to surveys, men wearing ties are seen as three times more attractive and successful.And because of its popularity, many ways to wear it have become iconic.One of the most recognizable is the timeless Trinity Knot or Celtic Knot.

At Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, the royal family pose at Westminster Abbey in London on June 2, 1953.Universal History Archive/Getty Images As Britons prepare for the coronation of King Charles III, we take a look at the United Kingdom's last coronation for Queen Elizabeth II.That was 70 years ago, and Charles is making some changes for his own event.

According to legend, Rome was born on April 21, 753 B.C., when Romulus, the survivor of its feuding twin founders, hitched his plow and furrowed a circular perimeter in the hills above the Tiber River.Everything inside was urbs, city space consecrated by priests who interpreted the will of the gods; everything outside was ager unhallowed open territory.

The Russian President Vladimir Putin has marked the ninth anniversary of the illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine by visiting Tauric Chersonese, a Unesco World Heritage Site on the Black Sea peninsula that his government is transforming into a cultural and ideological platform for Russian expansion.

Pope Francis on Wednesday asked those present at his weekly audience to pray for the retired Pope Benedict XVI, who Francis said was very ill.In their prayers, Francis said, people should ask God to console Benedict and support him in this witness of love to the church, until the end.Matteo Bruni, a Vatican spokesman, said in a statement that, after the audience, Francis had visited Benedict, 95, at the monastery on Vatican City grounds where Benedict has lived since announcing his resignation in February 2013.

P rolific street artist Pegasus has given the King a Sex Pistols twist in his pop art Coronation tribute unveiled in north London.The artwork, created over the course of three hours outside the N7 collective in Highbury and Islington, draws inspiration from the Sex Pistols' original God Save The Queen artwork and Jean-Michel Basquiat's crown motif.

A cabinet minister has said he hopes people do swear the proposed oath to the king on the day of his coronation, as republicans described it as an offensive and tone-deaf gesture that holds the people in contempt.The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said he would be swearing the oath, to be known as a homage of the people and pointed out that MPs already pledge allegiance to his majesty on taking their seats.

Just weeks after a Daily Wire host called for " eliminating transgenderism," Fox News host Tucker Carlson described in apocalyptic terms that transgender people are the "natural enemy" of Christianity on his show last night in a rant about the Nashville school shooter, who is possibly transgender.

Tucker Carlson used his monologue Tuesday night to declare that transgender people are the natural enemy of Christianity because they claim dominion over nature.The trans movement is the mirror image of Christianity and therefore its natural enemy, Carlson told his Fox News audience, adding: In Christianity, the price of admission is admitting that you're not God.

Photographs by Naila Ruechel Text By Nicole Dennis-Benn When the photographer Naila Ruechel proposed a trip documenting religious practices in Jamaica the country where we were both born she set out to offer a broader understanding of the spiritual lives of Jamaican people; a Jamaica unseen by the average visitor.

In an 1822 letter to the physician Benjamin Waterhouse, Thomas Jefferson expressed his confidence that traditional Christianity in the young United States was giving way to a more enlightened faith, much like Jefferson's own in its rejection of the divinity of Jesus Christ.I trust, he wrote, that there is not a young man now living in the U.S. who will not die an Unitarian.

The five-member school board for the Washington Elementary School District in northwest Phoenix voted on February 23 to end a longstanding contract with Arizona Christian University (ACU) for student teachers.The board president pushed back against charges of anti-Christian bias, citing "this particular institution's strong anti-LGBTQ stance."

So, all this time, we've been thinking that Santa's a big guy - big beard, big belly, big laugh, ho, ho, ho, etc.We tell our kids that he slides down chimneys, without any explanation for how this is possible.Granted, there are a lot of things about the Santa story that makes no sense, and we happily lie about all of them.

An English professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University said his teaching contract has been put on hold after complaints about his instruction on race and racism.The professor, Samuel Joeckel, said in an email that the dean of his department and the university's provost waited outside the class he was teaching last week to inform him of the news.

To kickstart the new year, we take a look at 12 of the most interesting and unusual architecture projects expected to complete in 2023, including the renovation of a brutalist pyramid and a forest-like library.The Pyramid of Tirana, Albania, by MVRDVMVRDV has several projects set for completion in 2023, but one of the most unusual is its overhaul of a brutalist 1980s pyramid in Tirana.

This year, Feb. 21 isn't simply another Tuesday in New Orleans: It's Mardi Gras.And while the prevalence of bead-related nudity is exaggerated, the sheer amount of food and drink celebrators will consume is not.In Louisiana, the traditional Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, sweet is the king cake, covered in icing and decorated, commonly, with purple, green and gold sugars.

Yusuf Kocaoglu stands in the wreckage of buildings damaged by the earthquake in Antakya, Turkey, as he tries to walk through the city where he used to give history tours.Claire Harbage/NPR ANTAKYA, Turkey Yusuf Kocaoglu, a professional guide, leads us on a tour he never wanted to give.The site of ancient Antioch a crossroads of civilizations and a modern tourist and religious pilgrimage destination in southern Turkey is one of the cities left most devastated by the Feb. 6 earthquake that killed tens of thousands in Turkey and Syria.

Benedict XVI, the first pope in seven centuries to resign, has died at the age of 95.ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST: Pope Benedict the XVI, the first pontiff to step down since the 15th century, died today in Vatican City at the age of 95.The German born Joseph Ratzinger was a theologian by training.Before becoming pope, he served for a quarter century as Catholicism's top enforcer of orthodoxy.

Losing religious faith can be a shattering experience, turning a universe that seemed full of providential order into a frightening and meaningless void.It is first of all an internal catastrophe  the voice of God falls silent, comforting certainties are overturned, notions of right and wrong vanish into thin air.

Firework sales have increased compared to last year as some city councils choose not to put on public displays, retailers have said.Steve Raper, chairman of the British Firework Association, said sales at his own firm - Bright Star fireworks - were up between 30 and 50 per cent.He said he thought transactions will have increased right across the industry as budgetary constraints force councils to scale back events.

In the illuminating and entertaining blog Going Medieval, Eleanor Janega, a medievalist at the London School of Economics, upends prevalent misconceptions about medieval Europe.These misunderstandings include that people didn't bathe ( they did) and that these were the Dark Ages*.Her new book, The Once and Future Sex, is subtitled "Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society," and that's exactly what she does-if by "going medieval" you intend the pop culture meaning of "dismembering in a barbaric manner" which, despite her protestations, you probably do.

Image Evan Funke, as seen in Shape of Pasta.Credit...Roku Channel Shape of Pasta' When to watch: Now, on the Roku Channel.If your spirit cries out for sumptuous images of simple doughs being pressed, stretched, snipped, rolled, stamped and pinched, try this short-form series (initially made for Quibi, R.I.P.).

The sky started to change slowly, writes Sari Soininen in her photobook Transcendent Country of the Mind.I could see and sense his rage from the movement of the clouds, which started to get darker and darker.It felt like I had stepped into the Book of Revelation.The Finnish photographer had in fact fallen headlong into the hallucinatory intensity of an LSD trip and was undergoing the first of several acid-induced experiences that would culminate in a prolonged bout of psychosis.

Subscribe to our daily newsletter and have the latest stories from Mission Local delivered directly to your inbox.When waiting in the reception area in the Native American Health Center on Capp St, visitors can easily feel the coming festival season - ornaments in the shapes of Christmas trees, snowmen, stockings, hats, and gifts decorate the room.

A 1,300-year-old gold-and-gemstone necklace that was recently discovered in an ancient grave site in England may have belonged to a woman who was an early Christian leader, according to experts involved in the discovery.The ancient jewelry was unearthed in Northamptonshire in April during excavations that took place ahead of a planned housing development, according to RPS, a professional services firm that managed the archaeological investigation on behalf of the housing developer, Vistry Group.