Dec 29th, 2008 · Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue is the last shul in Detroit. The shrinking congregation has been without a rabbi since 2003. Members often have to recruit bartenders and waiters from a next-door night club to achieve the number of worshippers required for prayer service.
Dec 19th, 2008 · A former hospital chaplain says that before she retired, she often met with the staff. "One of the things we do is go around and bless the hands of all the people who work in the hospital," Janet Lutz says. One day, she found out there was much more prayer going on.
Dec 19th, 2008 · President-elect Barack Obama has invited the Rev. Rick Warren to offer the opening prayer at his inauguration. The selection has infuriated pro-choice and gay marriage supporters. Others applaud Obama's outreach to the evangelical community. Harry Knox, of the Human Rights Campaign, the Rev. Harry Jackson, Jr., a conservative, and the Rev. Yvette Flunder, who is openly gay, debate Warren's participation.
Nov 22nd, 2008 · They look just like telephone booths, but they are decorated with hands folded in prayer, and there's a place to kneel. The prayer booths are an art installation designed to spark dialogue on prayer in the public sphere. There are prayer booths in Jackson, Tennessee, in Ceder Rapids Iowa — and now on a bustling Manhattan street in New York City.
Oct 1st, 2008 · Last month, more than 100 Somalis were fired for walking off the job at a meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colo. They were protesting the company for not allowing breaks to pray at sunset during Ramadan. Now they are in the first stages of filing a class-action lawsuit.
Sep 18th, 2008 · Wayne Wang's low-key father-daughter story succeeds less with the peaks and valleys of its family drama than with the gently amusing immigrants-discovering-America vignettes it offers.
Aug 14th, 2008 · For historian-turned-mystery-writer Jason Goodwin, the bustling Istanbul bazaar is a perfect setting for murder, and the evening call to prayer is "a good time to kick a man to death in the street."
Jun 11th, 2008 · Novelist Ron Hansen is best known for his tales of Western bandits and whiskey runners, but he claims his inspiration for these unsavory characters is divine. The author of Exiles discusses writing, faith and his status as a Catholic deacon in a secular literary world.