When Mohammad Rabah prays during the holy month of Ramadan, he makes a special effort to conserve water during ritual purifications.
When his family breaks the month-long sunrise-to-sunset fast, Rabah tries to consume healthy food grown close to his home in the northern Israeli town of Um El Fahem.
Rabah, the director of his region’s environmental equality unit for the Arab sector, aspires to live the way he asks others to live: mindful of the environment.
In 2008, with help from the Israeli government, Rabah organized a conference aimed at helping imams — Muslim spiritual leaders — improve the environment …
Charles Wiley, coordinator for the Office of Theology and Worship, in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is deeply troubled. He's been reflecting theologically on the heated discussion around the proposed Islamic Center near ground zero, and now Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who planned to burn copies of the Qur'an on September 11, but backed away after believing he had received a promise the Mosque wouldn't be built there. "Consistently the Presbyterian Church has stood for respect for all of our neighbors," says Wiley.
Partnership is always a delicate balance between two sides, but what happens when one side is so large that it could easily swallow up the other?
A Hiroshima-based group is holding peace concerts featuring music with pan flutes made from Palestinian olive trees cut down by Israel to build a separation wall that juts into Palestinian territories.
For this year’s Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic holiday that concludes the holy month of Ramadan, Nakia Jackson received an unusual present from a Jewish friend: cab fare.
Youth from Gates Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N.Y., are featured in a religion special that will be telecast Sept. 26 on CBS.
Applications are due September 30 for $500 study grants available from Columbia Theological Seminary's S3 (Sabbath, Study and Service) Project.
For Nikhat Choudhury, the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha mean picking out new clothes, getting together with her cousins and feasting on homemade samosas and other traditional South Asian dishes.
In recent years, these joyous occasions have come with a struggle: Can she afford to stay home? New York City public schools allow absences for religious reasons, but Choudhury, 15, says it’s much harder to catch up on the work now that she’s in high school.
“I have to weigh the pros and cons of missing a test versus spending time with my family,” she said. “But …
Conservative Lutherans have formed a new church body they say will “uphold confessional principles” after disagreements with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over the ordination of gay clergy.
Michael Fisher was my great grandfather to the fifth power. The Fishers were German. To show you how German, I can only point to Michael’s birth in Heidelberg, Penn., and his wife’s in Germantown, Penn.
Michael enlisted with the Pennsylvania Troops when he was fifteen. He fought in several battles, including Yorktown where Hessian (German) troops fought on the British side. Afterward, he migrated to Tennessee where he and Christina had many children and descendants like me.