Ratified as part of the U.S. Constitution in 1788, the clause made slaves worth three-fifths of a "free individual" for the purpose of state representation in Congress.

Talking Points Memo's Sahil Kapur points out that Jackson called the clause "an anti-slavery amendment" in April 2011, when Jackson was running as a GOP candidate for Virginia’s open Senate seat. Jackson also said at the time that the clause's "purpose was to limit the voting power of slave-holding states."

Reporting on these statements back in 2011, Kapur wrote that Jackson had painted "a remarkably inaccurate interpretation of an important aspect of American history" and added that historians had debunked similar claims in the past.

Richard Beeman, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, said in 2011 that, as far as the Founding Fathers' compromises go, the "three-fifths compromise, by which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person, is not something any of us would applaud them for today."

Similarly, Albany Law School professor Paul Finkelman wrote in a recent New York Times column that the "three-fifths compromise was one of a number of proslavery provisions" that effectively "guaranteed a continuation of slavery."

Though Jackson has claimed he has nothing "to rephrase or to apologize for," regarding his past statement, Emory University President James Wagner was quick to apologize after he made a similar statement about the three-fifths compromise. Wagner in February angered many in the academic community after praising the compromise as a good example of the benefits of political cooperation.

"As the price for achieving the ultimate aim of the Constitution -- 'to form a more perfect union' -- the two sides compromised on this immediate issue of how to count slaves in the new nation," Wagner wrote in the winter edition of Emory Magazine. "Pragmatic half-victories kept in view the higher aspiration of drawing the country more closely together."

A few days later, Wagner issued an apology to "those hurt or confused by my clumsiness and insensitivity."

Previously, Jackson has drawn the ire of activists and liberals for comparing Planned Parenthood to the Klu Klux Klan, and for declaring a "direct connection" between pedophilia and homosexuality.

During his homily at Wednesday Mass in Rome, Francis emphasized the importance of "doing good" as a principle that unites all humanity, and a "culture of encounter" to support peace.

Using scripture from the Gospel of Mark, Francis explained how upset Jesus' disciples were that someone outside their group was doing good, according to a report from Vatican Radio.

“They complain,” the Pope said in his homily, because they say, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.” And Jesus corrects them: “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.” The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of ​​possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong . . . Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation”

Pope Francis went further in his sermon to say:

"The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can... "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!".. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

Responding to the leader of the Roman Catholic church's homily, Father James Martin, S.J. wrote in an email to The Huffington Post:

"Pope Francis is saying, more clearly than ever before, that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for everyone. That's always been a Christian belief. You can find St. Paul saying in the First Letter to Timothy that Jesus gave himself as a "ransom for all." But rarely do you hear it said by Catholics so forcefully, and with such evident joy. And in this era of religious controversies, it's a timely reminder that God cannot be confined to our narrow categories."

Of course, not all Christians believe that those who don't believe will be redeemed, and the Pope's words may spark memories of the deep divisions from the Protestant reformation over the belief in redemption through grace versus redemption through works.

The pope's comment has also struck a chord on Reddit, where it is the second most-shared piece.

More from Reuters:

Atheists should be seen as good people if they do good, Pope Francis said on Wednesday in his latest urging that people of all religions - or no religion - work together.
The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics made his comments in the homily of his morning Mass in his residence, a daily event where he speaks without prepared comments.
He told the story of a Catholic who asked a priest if even atheists had been redeemed by Jesus.
"Even them, everyone," the pope answered, according to Vatican Radio. "We all have the duty to do good," he said.
"Just do good and we'll find a meeting point," the pope said in a hypothetical conversation in which someone told a priest: "But I don't believe. I'm an atheist."
Francis's reaching out to atheists and people who belong to no religion is a marked contrast to the attitude of former Pope Benedict, who sometimes left non-Catholics feeling that he saw them as second-class believers.

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) An American missionary priest who is entangled in a dispute with the country’s top Catholic cleric and a group of nuns in Kenya over the ownership of two mission hospitals has been suspended from the priesthood by his order.

The New York-based Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers suspended the Rev. Dr. William Charles Fryda after he refused to drop a case he filed three years ago against Cardinal John Njue and Sister Marie Therese Gachambi, the mother superior of Assumption Sisters of Nairobi.

Fryda alleges that the cardinal and the nuns were attempting to seize control of St. Mary’s Mission Hospital, which has branches in Nairobi and Kenya’s third-largest city, Nakuru.

Fryda left his home in the U.S. to work and live in Tanzania and Kenya in 1980. Having trained as a doctor, the missionary wanted to help poor Kenyans access medical services. Many could not afford services in private and government-run hospitals.

Within 15 years, he has built two hospitals, one in Nairobi and the other in Nakuru, about 150 kilometers north of Nairobi.

Because he was a foreigner, Fryda enlisted the help of the nuns to register the land on which the hospitals were built. The agreement with the nuns was that the hospital would later be transferred to a new company, known as St. Mary’s Mission Hospital Limited. The attempt to put the institutions under the new company sparked the dispute.

By then, the priest was attempting to build a similar hospital under the same name in central Kenya, when the nuns branded him a trespasser and asked him to move off their land.

The Maryknoll order asked Fryda to drop his suit, and many missionaries say the suit paints them and the Kenyan Catholic Church in a bad light, according to one Maryknoll priest who did not want to be named.

Last year Njue asked the court to refer the suit for arbitration within the Catholic Church. His lawyers argued the case could be resolved through the church’s internal canon law, but Fryda’s lawyers argued the case should remain in civil courts.

He later filed a constitutional petition seeking to stop the cardinal and the Maryknoll Society and its regional superior, the Rev. Lance Nadeau, from interfering with his rights.

Nadeau then circulated a May 1 letter that said, “With exception of the sacrament of penance in danger of death, Father Fryda is suspended from exercising any public priestly ministry or governance in the church.”

Fryda’s lawyers said the priest declined to comment on the case.

In the past, I had been involved with planning and implementing five Simchot Bat (a celebration of the birth of a girl) for my three daughters, and three granddaughters (one set of twins, so we only had one combined ceremony for them). So this was something new: a baby boy! Wow! "What will we do for this guy?" I thought to myself.

Naturally, my daughter the rabbi came up with a good idea. We weren't going to simply let the circumcision ceremony for a boy be cut and dry (pardon the pun). We needed to be creative, as we have always been. So I was commissioned to come up with some ideas.

My first call was to my friend and colleague, Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman, spiritual leader of Congregation Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem, who told me "I have just the book for you!" One of his former congregants, who is a now a rabbi herself in London, Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, and a good friend of mine too, edited a book of naming ceremonies. The book, which is called Neshama Hadasha ("A New Life"), came out about 15 years ago, and has since become a precious resource for people who want to make a circumcision or naming ceremony more meaningful in contemporary Jewish life.

While this book was of much help to me since it gave me many good ideas, the best part of the ceremony took place when my daughter and her husband, explained to us, in their own special way, why they chose the name Ro'ei Yehuda, for their son. Listening to them talk was a highly spiritual and meaningful moment for all of those who were lucky to be part of this wonderful occasion.

My son-in-law, Joshua, explained why he and my daughter decided to name the boy in memory of his mother, who passed away suddenly 10 years ago:
 

Ro'ei -- Naming you in my mother's memory and honor is our testament to her that indeed we must navigate the pain toward the future -- Grandma's legacy is a part of who you are and hopefully will be.
 

My daughter Dahlia also had some inspirational words to say. She spoke about the name of the baby, based on the biblical verses from the end of the book of Genesis (48:15): The God whom my Fathers -- Abraham and Isaac -- walked before. The God who has been Ro'ei, my shepherd, from my birth until this very day.

She also talked about the nature of faith in personal and poignant ways:
 

Today in addition to being welcomed into the Jewish community, you are joining our family and in doing so, you are joining the Kronish clan.

 

I am very fortunate to be a member of that clan, for without it, I would not have had the faith in God needed to shepherd me to get here today to meet you -- Ro'ei Yehuda.

My grandfather Rabbi Leon Kronish taught me about faith through the power of song. Even when he could not speak, Grandpa could communicate his faith, his love of people, humanity and God through song.

Grandma Lil taught me about faith through her ability to face each day even as she suffered one loss after another. Grandma Lil believed in the words that her husband preached -- Forward Forward to the future -- always look ahead.

My father -- your grandpa -- will teach you as he has taught me that faith means seeing the world through the eyes of an optimist. He will teach you about the true definition of what it means to embody Hope.

And finally your grandma who, similar to your father, lost her mother at a very young age -- will teach you that faith is about how you put each foot in front of the other and always march forward.

In the book of naming ceremonies, I found a reading in the form of a blessing for the new boy, which contained in it special messages for him and his life, that are inherent to the Jewish Tradition, but often neglected in baby-naming ceremonies. This reading, which calls to mind great teachers in our Jewish Tradition, was dedicated to my daughter, who is a wonderful Jewish teacher of the great values of our Tradition through teaching the classical Jewish texts of the Bible and the Talmud in her own creative way.

Members of our extended family joined me in blessing the little boy with these thoughts:
 

May He who blessed Moses, Aaron and Miriam, and gave them leadership and responsibility, the pursuance of peace and humility, give Ro'ei Yehuda a pleasant nature and the ability for self-sacrifice.

May She who blessed our prophets with a pursuit of justice, a powerful vision, give Ro'ei Yehuda spirit and adherence to principles, the pursuit of peace and the searching out of justice.

May He who blessed Rabbi Akiva and Bruria with curiosity and passion for study, may He bless Ro'ei Yehuda with a love of books and with wisdom.

May He who blessed the People of Israel with keeping traditions and the hope of better days, give Ro'ei Yehuda optimism and a lightness of laughter.

I was privileged to be part of this meaningful milestone in the Jewish life cycle of a new member of my family. It was such a momentous occasion in my spiritual life that I wanted to share it with readers all over the world. May you too enjoy such poignant memories in your own personal, family and communal lives.

Here philanthropists and business men and women met this spring, a group called Market Place Initiative, believing their gifts of entrepreneurship matter to Christian witness and kingdom deployment.

Linked to a global group of pastors from "mega" churches, it is an idea created and led by Elias Dantas, a Brazilian and Fuller grad, and Pastor Sameh Maurice -- made famous when he opened his church as a field hospital to those injured in the Arab Spring at Tahir Square, Cairo, Egypt. They bring together pastors to energize their vision for kingdom influence in their world and beyond. Going beyond pastors, it extends to those in business who believe their calling is as kingdom-driven as is that of pastors.

Key to the working of this group is a South African, Graham Power, a civil engineer and building construction magnate. An unlikely candidate to lead a prayer movement. After coming to faith in the late 1990s, in 2001 he launched the Global Day of Prayer at the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town with 45,000 in attendance. In just a decade, this prayer movement encircles the globe, linking prayer groups, encouraging Christians to live within the power of prayer.

A year ago, I was invited along with my colleague Geoff Tunnicliffe (Sec. Gen. for the World Evangelical Alliance) to sit alongside this group, as spiritual advisers. In the end, we were the ones advised. Inherent in the vision of these business leaders is a biblical understanding that each is called, anointed and equipped by the Spirit to advance kingdom life.

More than 500 years ago, Martin Luther unleashed a reformation of faith, breaking the bondage of human administered-faith with heart-believing faith. The priesthood of every believer became foundational in this new paradigm of understanding.

Graham Power and his colleagues have figured that out and are pressing forward, calling men and women from all sorts of professions and businesses, from inventors to financiers, from developers to judges. Learning from each other, pooling ideas, and praying in faith, they look for ways in which their skills, knowledge, connections and pools of capital can lift people from poverty, re-craft the environment in renewal and bring into the church a vital and rich understanding of the importance of Christ-centered professional and business leadership.

I've too often seen people in business seen as worthy contributors to spiritual enterprises but not as examples of spiritual virtue, for after all, isn't business done on the fine edge of ethical choices? Graham and his colleagues disagree. There should be no more inclination for those in business to veer from the path of the ethical than one in any other sort of vocation.

However, to drive home the point, Graham upped the ante, not letting business leaders or pastors slip under the door of ethical behavior.

To move the idea into gear he assembled an idea under the Unashamedly Ethical campaign, which challenges people to fight systematic corruption and pressing governments, businesses and individuals to work at eradicating systemic poverty.

Power notes that to come anywhere close to our promise of reducing poverty by half by 2015, it will cost $210 billion per year. He estimates that the poor lose over $1 trillion through deliberate or direct dishonesty.

For Graham Power, while living ethically is both biblical and Christ-honoring, it also is practical. It functions to break the binding nature of poverty so people can rise in the quality of life, lifted to see their being in God's image and set loose to renew their lives, families and societies.

The commitment form of the Unashamedly Ethical campaign is tough, calling on leaders of organizations, corporations, churches and businesses to sign on their behalf. Note what it includes:
 

To be entirely truthful in all I say; to be faithful in my family relationships; to do nothing out of selfish ambition or deceit, but to look out for the interests of others; to refuse to elicit, accept or pay any bribes and to report those who do; to be a diligent leader without being harsh, and to pay my staff what is just and fair; to be a peacemaker; to do my work wholeheartedly; to submit myself to just and ethical governing authorities; to remember the poor by investing generously and sacrificially in the broader community; to collaborate with my peers to impact our community and nation.

Listening to business professionals and entrepreneurs tell stories of failure and success, describing plans to see their communities and nations changed, I saw an emerging strategy to use the gift of leadership and wealth to lift the poor and unleash the church in its kingdom witness.

An understanding of the priesthood of every believer is alive and well.

Graham Power demonstrates that.

"Me, I will always side with hope -- and never cease to adorn you with praise. My mouth strives to speak of your justness, of the constant potential you provide for redemption, though surely my words will always be incomplete." (Psalm 71:14-15)

Adonai Ro-iy, God, who sees what we so often cannot:

We thank you for bringing us to this very moment. One eternally imagined but never previously before experienced -- just like this.

We thank you for our God-given capacity to dream of sacred gatherings -- such as this one -- and we thank you for the dedicated people who toil to ensure they happen.

We praise you, God, for providing a world in which the only true hierarchy begins with you and immediately ends, equally, with each one of us. In here, out there, everywhere.

We praise you, God, for entering this world as pure dynamism, a lofty example of our own potential to endlessly demonstrate that uniqueness is Godliness, that diversity is both sanctified and sanctifying.

We praise you for giving each of us the inner strength to know that the only authentic measure of "likes" in this world is that which we can feel in you and your great name. Almost anything else is fleeting, a distraction, a mere illusion.

Thank you, God, for blessing us with teachers for teachers, clergy for clergy and healers for healers. We have come to know that your Torah, our gift, permeates only in so much as its infinite depth is refracted through those who live it, embody it, and carefully deliver it as a soulful script.

We thank you, God, for the courageous hearts of people, such as these to be ordained tonight, who love you deeply and are motivated by that love to live lives of service. On your behalf and on our behalf.

We ask of you, God, to help us help you in supporting them -- each with precisely what they need -- as they take leave from the warm, rigorous, embracing and complicated shelter of the Ziegler School -- to teach, to preach, and to spread Torah in a world that so desperately depends on ancient wisdom coupled with modern, textured, truth. Please bless their hands with conviction, compassion, courage and reasonably thick skin.

We also ask you to also to bless this holy community to always remember that our role as Jews in this world is to elevate you and your Torah by providing religious meaning to chaos, by seeing, like you, precisely what goes unnoticed, by uplifting those who are fallen, and by gathering closely those who are marginalized -- whether it be by others or whether they sideline themselves -- for we know not what is in their hearts unless we stand in their presence, they in ours.

May God grant strength to all God's people; May God bless humanity with peace (Psalm 29).

Amen.

Republican Rep. Steve Smith on Wednesday said the prayer offered by Democratic Rep. Juan Mendez of Tempe at the beginning of the previous day's floor session wasn't a prayer at all. So he asked other members to join him in a second daily prayer in "repentance," and about half the 60-member body did so. Both the Arizona House and Senate begin their sessions with a prayer and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

"When there's a time set aside to pray and to pledge, if you are a non-believer, don't ask for time to pray," said Smith, of Maricopa. "If you don't love this nation and want to pledge to it, don't say I want to lead this body in the pledge, and stand up there and say, `you know what, instead of pledging, I love England' and (sit) down.

"That's not a pledge, and that wasn't a prayer, it's that simple," Smith said.

Mendez said he was just looking for a way to convey his own feelings like other members do when they take the rotation giving the daily prayer.

"I wanted to find a way to where I could convey some message and take advantage of the opportunity that people have when they offer these prayers," he said. "If my lack of religion doesn't give me the same opportunity to engage in this platform then I feel kind of disenfranchised. So I did want to stand up and offer some kind of thing that represented my view on what's going on."

Wednesday's dust-up over religion comes just days after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide whether an upstate New York town is violating constitutional prohibitions on government sanction of religion by offering prayers to open public meetings. The justices will review an appeals court ruling that held that the upstate New York town of Greece, a Rochester suburb, violated the Constitution by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity.

Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin and Senate President Andy Biggs filed a legal brief agreeing with the town's position.

On Wednesday, Tobin said he had no problem with Mendez's prayer.

"From my perspective I didn't see an issue with Mr. Mendez yesterday," said Tobin, R-Paulden. "I can appreciate what Mr. Smith was saying, but I think all members are responsible for their own prayerful lives and I think the demonstration that we take moments for prayer we all do collectively and in our own hearts."

Rep. Jamescita Peshlakai, who represents a northern Arizona district on the Navajo reservation, did take offense. She said Smith's criticism of another member's faith, or lack of it, was wrong.

"I want to remind the House and my colleagues and everybody here that several of us here are not Christianized. I'm a traditional Navajo, so I stand here every day and participate in prayers," even without personally embracing them, said Peshlakai, D-Cameron. "This is the United States, this is America, and we all represent different people ... and you need to respect that. Your God is no more powerful than my God. We all come from the same creator."

Mendez gave the invocation Tuesday while members of the Secular Coalition for Arizona were in the visitors' gallery. He began his remarks by asking fellow lawmakers not to bow their heads but to instead look around at the other men and women in the room, "sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people of our state."

___

Follow Bob Christie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/APChristie

After learning that his position as a volunteer chaplain for York Regional Police would be "reassessed" if the Geller event went forward, Kaplan rescinded his offer for the Jewish Defense League to use the Chabad @ Flamingo for the May 13 event.

It has been moved to the pro-Israel Toronto Zionist Centre.

As egregious as it is that a police force, in the name of "diversity, equity and inclusion," would threaten a respected rabbi with a long history of community service, it's even more offensive to be that Rabbi Kaplan gave in.

York Regional Police's initial involvement in this event is not because a crime took place, nor because there was any reason to suspect one would. Rather, it was the result of a complaint by one member of the region's Muslim community.

By York Region standards, one person's complaint is cause enough for the police to say that Geller "runs contrary to the values of York Regional Police and the work we do in engaging our communities," according to comments made by diversity officer Ricky Veerappan.

A statement released by York Regional Police on Thursday revealed that Kaplan "was provided with additional information regarding the proposed guest speaker by Inspector Ricky Veerappan," before cancelling the event.

There is no way Kaplan could have accepted the initial invitation for Geller to appear without a solid grasp on what sort of controversy was likely to take form.

A speech by Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa in 2010 was cancelled when student protests threatened Coulter's safety.

Later that year, Mark Steyn was denied a room at the London Convention Centre in London, Ontario when the facility's managers claimed pressure from local Islamic groups.

For Kaplan, however, one Muslim's spastic call to the police and the potential loss of a non-paying job was reason enough to silently tiptoe away from the fallout of embracing free speech.

In doing so, not only did Kaplan give the police license to bully and strong-arm future community leaders over similar circumstances, but he did it to preserve a relationship with the officers that knocked on his door to threaten him in the first place.

I'm so proud to live in a country with such a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

As ioL News points out, Reverend Ecclesia de Lange's 2010 dismissal from the Methodist Church of South Africa came after she wed her wife earlier that same year. The church was in cahoots about taking a stance on same-sex marriage when de Lange informed her congregation that she was planning to wed her partner in 2009, according to Buzzfeed.

The Methodist church has been debating about the issue for 13 years now and still has yet to make a decision.

Lawyers representing the church said that the 43-year-old minister disobeyed a church rule, stating that "no positive steps toward same-sex unions ... be taken pending further determination."

The church believed that de Lange's marriage to her partner was an attempt to impose her views on marriage equality, on the entire church community.

The reverend, who is now divorced, feels that she was unfairly fired from her ministry because she is a lesbian. She took her case to court, after enduring arbitration from the church. On May 21, the High Court of Western Cape accepted her claim, under the pretense that the Methodist Church of South Africa violated South African non-discrimination laws that include sexual orientation.

de Lange recently voiced her frustration with the case via her Facebook page.

"The last two days have been physically and emotionally draining," she wrote. "Listening to the arguments of both counsels were the culmination of three and a half years of anxiety, fear, hard ache and tears. It also highlighted the amazing love and grace that I have experienced from all my supporters, family and friends."

In 2006, same-sex marriage became legal in South Africa, making it the first African country to do so.

Watch a video above of de Lange discussing her case.

The whole mise-en-scene reminded me of something that Johannes de Silentio (one of Kierkegaard's pseudonyms) wrote in the 19th century. He commented that "most people live dejectedly in worldly sorrow and joy."

He wrote that some do not dance at all but "sit along the wall" while others partake in the revelry. But neither is necessarily free from anxiety, frustration and fear.

Concerning the people who do dance widely Johannes de Silentio noted, "One need not look at them when they are up in the air, but only the instant they touch or have touched the ground -- then one recognizes them." For when their feet touch the ground a careful observer can witness their momentary stagger and half-concealed grimace.

While standing in the nightclub that night I imagined what might happen if the music suddenly stopped, the lights went up and the DJ asked us to put down our drinks so that we might be able to really look at each other for an awkward moment.

In many ways it is this event of "turning on the lights" that I argue is one of the roles of the new collective that arises out of the practice of pyrotheology.

The new collective is to be a desert in the Oasis of our lives, a searingly hot and blindingly light space where we can't pretend (to ourselves or anyone else) that everything is, or will be, fine. Where we encounter each other in our beautiful, wondrous, terrifying, human frailty. Not so that we are crushed by the sight, but so that we learn to say "yes" to this vision and to each other in the midst of it.

For it is in saying "amen" to the highs and lows of life that we are able to live fully in both worldly sorrow and joy, touching what Johannes de Silentio called "the sublime in the pedestrian."

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Chicago - When 30,000 people participated in Project Bread's walk to eradicate hunger in Boston on 5 May, there was a group among them that was energised but cautious. Just three weeks after the tragedy at the Boston Marathon, members of Muslims Against Hunger were receiving calls from worried family members urging them not to participate due to fear of backlash.

Project Bread runs community-based meal programs and school nutrition initiatives that assist the hungry in Massachusetts. At their 45th Walk for Hunger this year, the organisation raised around $3 million. It was perfectly in sync with the objectives of Muslims Against Hunger, a grassroots organisation with volunteers in 20 cities that aims to mobilise the community to tackle hunger, poverty and homelessness. Approximately 150 Muslim participants raised over $5,000 for Project Bread.

A young mother of three children, Shazia Tariq from Westborough, Massachusetts was one of the Muslims walking for the cause. She had learned about Muslims Against Hunger through the soup kitchens that they regularly organise. An avid athlete, she had registered for the Project Bread Walk in March and had been training for the gruelling 20 mile trek. But after the horrific attacks on 15 April, her family, like that of many others, was worried that because she wears a headscarf she would be easily identifiable as a Muslim and cautioned she should sit this one out.

"The cause is very close to my heart," Tariq said. "First as Muslims we believe that feeding our neighbours and feeding the hungry is a crucial part of our faith. Second, as a mother I am always telling my children how blessed they are to have a pantry full of food and this was my chance to put my words into action." She found the resolve to participate and received her family's blessing despite their initial anxieties.

After the Boston tragedy, a representative from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) came to speak to the Muslim community at the Worcester Islamic Center, where Tariq volunteers regularly. After the presentation on civil rights and tips on how to prevent and report backlash, she approached the CAIR Representative, Todd Gallinger, and asked him for his opinion. He reinforced her decision to carry on, calling it the perfect opportunity to dispel stereotypes about Muslim Americans.

"I had already made up my mind," Tariq said. "But when Mr. Gallinger said that this is the perfect time to engage in interfaith activities and showcase all the positive contributions of Muslim Americans, it just solidified my intention. I would not be at peace by not going, especially since I was not afraid, it was just my loved ones that were worried for me."

As she walked and ran the 20 miles with friends from the mosque, Tariq was cautious not to attract attention in any way. When she saw an exhausted eight-year old girl sitting on the sidelines, she felt like helping her over the finish line. But her gut instinct said that this was not the right time or place to be over-friendly as a stranger to the child. Instead Tariq brought the little girl oranges and shared a few words of encouragement. She was pleased to see the girl complete the walk a few feet ahead of her.

Tariq had originally wanted to participate in the Boston Marathon but was dealing with asthma during training season. She had planned to at least go and watch the marathon but was sick in bed on that sad day. As an athlete and a Bostonian, she felt she would be getting the best of both worlds by making the iconic Boston Marathon her first ever full marathon.

The Project Bread walk experience has motivated her to train for the Boston Marathon next year. She believes that when it comes to her personal goals, or encouraging her children in sports or academics, its important to push them, and herself, to achieve more. She feels there is a need to cultivate this enthusiasm in community service as well. When her kids were little, she felt they were keeping her back from volunteering in the community. But now she feels she has to do it for the kids because it can have a much bigger impact on their lives when they see her working for a cause rather than just lecturing them about it.

"When a couple in their 70's can walk hand in hand and an eight-year old can cross the finish line, so can I," Tariq said. "As Muslims, more of us need to get out of our bubble and directly help the needy, and I plan to continue going the extra mile for it."

Kiran Ansari is a writer for publications including the Chicago Tribune, Daily Herald, Halal Consumer and Azizah Magazine. She lives with her husband and two children in the suburbs of Chicago. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 21 May 2013. Copyright permission is granted for publication.

We first do the two-hour drive through the valley, from one end to the other, in a single stretch.

The mountains rise menacingly around us, crumpled into uncomfortable shapes by the vagaries of time. Their multi-coloured frowns scan the barren valley, streaked by salt flats, sand dunes and countless boulders which, it is obvious, have been blown around at some point in the remote past with the very ease in which today's wind transfers dust from one basin to another.

We stand on the lip of a crater half a mile wide and 500 feet deep and try to imagine the day, now enshrined only in the memory of the land itself, when a smouldering cauldron exploded at this very point, scattering its contents with nuclear fervour for miles around.

It's late in the day. The world around us changes colour and shape even as we move through it, still in a hurry, as if there is a destination and a deadline.

I see something move on the tarmac a bit ahead. I slow down.

It's a coyote, young and curious. And daring. It stands in the middle of of the road, right in my path. Like a Sardar on the Grand-Trunk Road, twirling his moustache, scanning the horizon for signs of the next bus. Staring at me. I stop the vehicle. He looks at us questioningly. Unmoving.

We are at an impasse, it appears. He decides to look us over some more. He circles the machine, stares up at us again, as if incredulous at what he sees. He proceeds to circumambulate us relentlessly -- to our delight.

We have some birthday cake with us, the only thing we feel he may not find toxic. We throw a few pieces out of the window. He stops. Looks at us warily. Eats the offering. And resumes his inspection.

We reluctantly drive away. He jogs with us for a short distance, and then disappears into the landscape.

We head for yet another forebodingly named spot on the map: Dante's View.

We follow a serpentine route up the mountains. It takes a dozen miles and considerable groaning on the part of the engine along the incline and hairpins, before we arrive at the top, about 5,500 feet higher than we started in the valley below.

Directly across -- close enough, it appears, for one to reach out and touch it -- and towering another 6,000 feet above us, is Telescope Peak. The sun is perched on it, ready to roll down the other side, out of sight. It is almost six o'clock.

Spread out between us on Dante and the sun atop the Telescope, lies Death Valley.

It sprawls over several miles. To the right, you can see it all the way to the horizon. Much of the full length of the drive we did earlier in the day is visible because the air is crystal clear.

I make my way down a pathway over a promontory jutting over the valley. It rises and falls like a roller coaster until I find myself at the edge.

The Edge. Black jagged teeth of rocks make it easy to clamber over them. I find a nook with a flat surface and sit down to catch my breath.

I close my eyes to relax and savour the cool breeze, a welcome respite from the 85 degree Farenheit we've had in the valley all day. I lean back on the rock behind me. I snuggle by spreading out my elbows and feel the hard cool on both sides.

I open my eyes some time later. I gradually focus them. The sun has disappeared. The brightness is also gone. Only pastels remain.

The cliff-face slopes down in front of me and then, a few feet away, suddenly drops precipitously. But for a sharp edge here and a short ledge there, there is nothing between me and the floor of the valley. Five thousand five hundred feet beneath me. Further, in fact, because I realize that directly below me -- way, way below, on the white sheet of salt that shrouds the valley for miles in every direction -- is Badwater, much touted as the lowest point on land in the Western Hemisphere, at almost 300 feet below sea level.

I notice that I am free of the fright I usually have for heights. I settle back even further in my seat. I look out at the expanse of creation before me.

It's the land where native tribes have lived for 10,000 years. A landscape whose configuration began, according to the experts, 3 million years ago. Since then, the Ice Age arrived and departed. Oceans have come and gone. Rivers have meandered through it, and left only memories behind. Storms and flash-floods and heat -- brutal 135-degree heat -- have visited this land, and continue to do so, since time immemorial.

I have read of God who was in the Beginning and will be in Eternity. But I have no way of visualizing the beginning of creation or its existence into the eternal future. I realize that God who has no beginning and no end is even more unfathomable for me.

But sitting here with Dante, I can get an inkling. Just.

My eyes take in a land that has been around, from my limited perspective, for ever. And will stay around, in the same measure, for ever.

Sitting here in my ancient chair, almost 6,000 feet above the infinitely small cars parked beside the salt flats of Badwater below, I see a creation that remains untouched by anything that shouldn't be here. Sure, there is a roadway down below, but it was delineated no more than 50 years ago. It will crumble in a few years and another one will be built. And yet another. But for how long? It doesn't even pretend to compete with the eternity that surrounds it.

A thousand species of plants and trees thrive, and have done so from the Beginning in this vast desolation. And creatures -- like our coyote -- and lizards and snakes and scorpions and crows and eagles, rule the land.

The Homo sapien is but a mere visitor and is the only one around that has to struggle with the question as to whether he will be in the picture when the next rearrangement of this landscape takes place.

The sculpted mountains, the carved valleys, the shifting dunes, the stoic creatures, all have been around since long before Man. And will remain long after he is gone.

They were around before man invented the wheel, and lit the first fire. Before the pyramids of Egypt were even imagined by a pharaoh. Before Moses came down from Sinai. While Alexander strutted across the globe, and Ashoka surveyed the killing-fields of Kalinga with sad eyes. Even as Jesus overturned the tables of the money-lenders and sent them packing. When Nanak the Teacher walked the earth. Or when Hitler played out his madness.

Through all the nuclear tests carried out on the other side of the Funeral Mountains in Nevada -- in the name of peace, freedom and democracy. They left nary a mark compared to the scars of infinity on this land. The winds have wafted in news of all gods and goddesses, prophets and saviours, saints and philosophers, and short shrift has been made of them all.

This land IS God.

It is not dependent on tribute, homage or supplication. Or subscription and membership. It boasts no righteousness. This is the eternity where nothing really matters.

Except one thing: that it is.

Back home, we have covered all evidence of the timeless with layers of illusion. We have hidden what really matters under the quilt of cancer-like world-class cities and populated them with infernally complicated machines that ultimately do nothing. With words that say nothing, with actions that achieve nothing, with thoughts that arrive nowhere.

And through all of it, we worry ourselves to death, perennially striving for power and money and promotions and status and beauty and, of course, the last word. But when we ultimately die and fulfill the prophecy of birth, we do so without really having lived at all.

Imagine, this creation that spreads out in front of me in its fullest glory; in its pristine, fierce, colorful, brutal, lifegiving beauty.

A mere century-and-a-half ago -- that is, in the last 150 years of its 3 million years of current existence -- a handful of gold-seekers stumbled through this valley, found it seething hot and inhospitable to their needs.

So, they named it Death Valley. Blind to everything it had represented, it is now damned by humankind as the devil's domain. Ergo, Dante's name on the peak that overlooks it all.

They didn't stop there. Since man could not live in this valley, it was to be condemned eternally. Furnace Creek. Devil's Golf Course. Hell's Gate. Devil's Cornfield...

Hop over the Funeral Mountains, jog south a few miles, and you'll arrive at mankind's most celebrated creation and encapsulation of its credo: Las Vegas!

Its unabashed worship of wealth and man-made beauty. Its unique wedding chapels. Its brand of generosity: "Cash your pay-check with us, and you get a free shot on the slot-machine!"

It's notion of charity: free food and accommodation for those who're willing to gamble their life away.

It's vision of bliss: instant unions and instant freedom from relationships.

Ask any man or woman living it up on the Strip, and you'll be told: This is Life!

This is one view: shaped by human limitations and the incapacity to imagine eternity.

But, if anything, it is when one looks into places like the Death Valley -- deep into its jaws -- that we learn about life. About meaning. About truth. About reality.

And yes, a bit about eternity.

Let's briefly examine these assumptions by first looking to history. There is a common belief that in the past any scientist who dared to challenge religious doctrine was arrested, tortured or even brutally killed by religious authorities. There appears to good evidence to support this idea: The burning at the stake of Dominican friar Giordano Bruno in 1600 for his cosmological views, the house imprisonment of Galileo from 1634 until his death in 1642, the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza in 1656 for teaching the "abominable heresy" of pantheism, to name a few...

These are tragic incidents for which religious establishments must be held responsible. But a detailed investigation reveals that these tragedies are much more nuanced than the simple model of religion vs. science allows. These incidents were generally more about political power and personal ambition at times of change than religious dogma, and much of what we think we know is not wholly true. For instance, the popular image of Galileo brought to trial in chains to face a sadistic Inquisition, where he uttered his defiant statement "but it moves," before being thrown into the papal dungeon, is a dramatic 19th century fabrication. In fact, the pope at that time, Urban VIII, had been a good friend and supporter of Galileo, and reluctantly confronted him not because the Church condemned heliocentrism, but because Galileo publically mocked the pope (and while not minimizing the injustice of Galileo's punishment, one can well imagine that mocking a secular ruler at this time in history would have resulted in a much more severe consequence than being confined to a beautiful Tuscan villa with servants and wealthy visitors).

Incidents of persecution by religious authorities against scientific research are actually quite rare. Over most of its existence, in fact, the Catholic Church was the center of open scientific investigation, supporting mathematicians, physicists, botanists and astronomers. Many people are surprised to learn that, in spite of common belief to the contrary, the Catholic Church did not oppose Darwinism (Christian opposition to Darwinism came in the early 20th century from the newly created sect of Protestant Fundamentalism), knew that the Earth was round as determined by ancient Greek calculations, supported human anatomical dissection and openly accepted geological evidence concluding an age of the Universe which is vastly older than counting days in the Bible. There was no perceived division between theology and science because the Bible was read for wisdom, not scientific facts. The 16th century Italian Cardinal Caesar Baronius made this position clear in his defense of Copernicus, saying, "The Bible teaches us how to go to Heaven, not how the Heavens go."

Judaism too has always supported rational, scientific investigations. Certainly there are ultra-Orthodox communities, as in every religion (and in every institution), that do restrict questioning and seek to silence those who disagree, but these are a tiny fraction of the Jewish population, and do not represent traditional Judaism, which has always urged us to dig below the surface to uncover truth. "Examine the contents, not the bottle," the Talmud advises.

The idea that religion has historically been opposed to science is simply an erroneous and unsupported construct that was created in the late 19th century, primarily as an anti-Catholic polemic. And it is an idea that all (yes, all) knowledgeable historians categorically reject.

Some critics of religion argue, though, that religious beliefs themselves stop science; that for believers "God did it" is the final answer, and so the need to discover natural, measurable causes never arises. This theory has been labeled the "God of the Gaps" and goes something like this: Ancient people saw natural occurrences such as lightening bolts flashing across the sky, and knowing nothing about natural causation, assigned the cause of the lightening to an angry man in the clouds, which was the best explanation that they could up with, given their level of knowledge. And in order to appease this fictional angry man, religions were created. If these ancient civilizations had known that electrical discharges cause lightening, this theory posits, the need for a sky god, which once filled a gap in scientific knowledge, would disappear, along with the religion. But, this theory asserts, these ancient people, like religious people today, were so invested in the need to believe in their imaginary gods and to follow their tribal religion that they refused to consider scientific explanations. And so, this theory concludes, the conflict between religion and science was born and continues.

Last year I saw the "God of the Gaps" theory played out on television. In a debate with a prominent atheist who called religion a "scam," Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly answered, "I'll tell you why [religion's] not a scam, in my opinion: tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that." In response, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart asked noted astronomer Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson to respond to O'Reilly's comment. Dr. Tyson explained that the motion of the tides is caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon, not by supernatural forces. The audience applauded the victory of reason over superstition.

While in its presentation O'Reilly's "tides" comment was not sophisticated theology, I'm sure that he, like all educated adults, knows that the Moon's pull on the Earth causes tides. (And I know the risk of defending O'Reilly and criticizing Stewart on HuffPost...) He wasn't suggesting that God is a cosmic magician who wiggles a finger to make the tides slosh around, but rather that God, as the creative intelligence of the Universe, created a reality that operates according to finely established physical laws, resulting in predictable movements, such as the tides, in which the Moon is a causational component.

God doesn't replace natural phenomena as the cause of an action, but God is the first cause of all action. Natural phenomena, like gravity, are secondary causes. (To be clear, I'm not asserting that God is not active and does not intervene, but the topic of God's involvement can't be addressed in this short format.)

All actions and objects have multiple causes, and we don't need to pick only one. For example, a car operates because a designer conceived it, workers fabricated and assembled it, and the engine operates in accordance with the physical laws of internal combustion. All are necessary, non-conflicting causes. Declaring, "Ford did it" doesn't means that one no longer desires to understand internal combustion and metal fabrication. Quite the contrary. Through the exploration of the workings of the car one can uncover and marvel in the mind of its designer. Conversely, taking apart the engine and understanding the laws behind its mechanical operations doesn't mean that there is no designer.

To assert that religion is inherently in conflict with science is, I believe, to deeply misunderstand both. One can certainly question God's existence and qualities, and a vast amount has been written on this, but we must recognize that the belief in a Creator -- who goes by many names over many traditions -- does not contradict natural explanations, and the Bible is not, and historically has not been, seen by most religious leaders, thinkers and followers as a replacement for science. We need not choose between religion and science, faith and reason, because both are needed for a full experience of life.

As a rabbi I fully agree with Pope John Paul II, who wrote in his 1998 encyclical, "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth." To me, the majestic 13.7 billion year journey from the explosive beginning of our Universe, to the coalescence of matter into spinning galaxies, to the fits and starts of life as it struggled toward consciousness, is the greatest story ever told. In addition, I find personal and communal growth in my religious practice, and I find my purpose and my life in my relationship with, and contemplation of, the eternal loving God.

A wedding between two members of one of the largest Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in the world attracted 25,000 guests on Tuesday, The Independent reported.

The groom is 18-year-old Shalom Rokeach, the grandson of the Chief Rabbi of the Hasidic Belz Rebbe community. Because Rokeach is the only male grandchild, it is assumed that he will succeed his grandfather as leader of Belz Rebbe.

The bride is 19-year-old Hannah Batya Penet, who is also a member of Belz Rebbe.

Hasidic Jews from around the world descended on Jerusalem to witness the event, which lasted until dawn. Per tradition, the bride's face was covered by a veil throughout the ceremony. The ceremony also included ritual dancing and vows recited under a chuppah.

According to The Daily Mail, Belz Rebbe has its roots in a 14th century Polish town of the same name. The community was officially founded in 1817, and currently includes about 7,000 families around the world.

Watch a video of the wedding above, posted to YouTube Wednesday. You can see the bride in the video below:

As huge as this wedding was, it is dwarfed by the nuptials of V.N. Sudhakaran and N. Sathyalakshmi, who hosted 150,000 guests on their Big Day in India in 1995.

Click through the slideshow below to see photos from Tuesday's Belz wedding.

Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Weddings on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

In his first major speech on the subject, Francis demanded Thursday that financial and political leaders reform the global financial system to make it more ethical and concerned for the common good. He said: "Money has to serve, not to rule!"

It's a message Francis delivered on many occasions when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, and it's one that was frequently stressed by retired Pope Benedict XVI.

Francis, who has made clear the poor are his priority, made the comments as he greeted his first group of new ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Reddit user metamelomai found what is probably the greatest contribution to religious art since the Sistine Chapel ceiling in a church in downtown Nashville.

Click photo to enlarge. Story continues below

The Huffington Post contacted the Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville and confirmed that the Richard Simmons "trinity" is in fact on display outside the fellowship room, because it won first prize in an art show held by the church.

In a phone interview, a representative of the church told HuffPost that the church buys the winning piece of art in the contest, which has taken place every year since 1998. However, while the intricately shaded drawing is church property, the representative said that the artist is not a member of the congregation.

The Downtown Presbyterian Church holds its art show every year with an accompanying theme. According to the the blog of of Nashville's Twist Art Gallery, the 2011 contest theme was "Compassion Fatigue."

But wherever Richard Simmons is concerned, fatigue isn't a factor. Nor is lack of compassion. Reddit user GooseSlayer explained his adoration for the fitness guru:

"Richard Simmons is a saint if I have ever seen one. He supports people (mostly women) spirituality and emotionally while trying to help them achieve the physical goals they have set. He is nothing but encouraging and positive unless he is in tears with the women. He is a man of pure love. He is the Bob Ross of fitness."

Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam, is having a major comeback since al-Shabab, an armed militant Islamic group, was pushed out of Somalia's capital in August 2011. The Sunni insurgents had banned Sufis from gathering and prevented them from worshipping. Sufi sheiks, or elders, were attacked, graves of their saints were desecrated and rituals and celebrations became rare or secretly performed.

Beyond the circle of worshippers are dozens of women, some of them so moved that they are crying. Nearby is the grave of a Sufi saint where the worshippers go to pray to show reverence. Free food, including toasted coffee beans fried in oil, is distributed in wooden containers.

"With Allah's wish, we are here free and worshipping today," said Sheik Abdullahi Osman, a 72-year-old Sufi cleric, who has beads dangling from his neck. Sufis in Mogadishu spend hours feasting, praying, and invoking Allah's name. Traditionally Sufis used sticks to protect their shrines but now it's common to see a guard with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder in this seaside capital.

"There's no choice other than defending ourselves and our faith," said Mohamed Ahmed, an armed Sufi follower guarding the gathering. The arrivals were being checked and other guards stood outside a gate.

Ruqiya Hussein, a veiled woman, traveled from an al-Shabab-held town 90 kilometers (55 miles) away to get to a place of worship.

"I am thrilled to see my sheiks come back to lead us again," she said, squeezing her henna-tattooed fingers before she joined a group of women swaying and chanting rhymes.

Sufis were known for spreading Islam across Somalia through peaceful teaching and practicing tolerance toward other faiths. Some Sufis hope that their style finds fertile ground in a nation recovering from the wounds of extremism and war.

"Unlike others we don't kill or harass people. Instead, we provide examples of how to live." said, Sheik Abdirizaq Aden, the regional leader of the faith.

Al-Shabab, a group of al-Qaida-linked militants that seeks to instill an ultra-conservative brand of Islam across Somalia, controlled Mogadishu from roughly 2007 to 2011. The group still dominates most of south-central Somalia but has seen its territory reduced after military pushes by African Union and Somali forces.

The Sufis in the capital now feel free to practice their faith. In central Somalia, after the graves of sheiks were desecrated and killings occurred, Sufis used weapons to kick militants out of some key towns. The conflict in that part of the Horn of Africa nation persists.

Somalia fell into chaos in 1991 when warlords overthrew longtime dictator Siad Barre and turned on each other. Two decades of violence followed, but the capital and some other towns have seen strong security gains during the last 18 months that have allowed businesses and even sports leagues to thrive.

But since officiating the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton two years ago, an event watched by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, the dean of London's Westminster Abbey has used his newfound exposure to his advantage.

In the United States for a three-city tour over the past week to fundraise for the abbey, and promote the famed London tourist attraction and its unique relationship to the royal family, Hall visited The Huffington Post's New York office to discuss the popular royal couple, his relationship to the monarchy, and his views on the Anglican church on both sides of the Atlantic.

"There's certainly something about the couple strikes a chord and attracts people. You could say it's the height of celebrity culture, but I think there's something deeper," said Hall, who became dean in 2006 after serving as chief education officer of the Church of England and, prior to that, working in various positions promoting Anglican educational services and in church assignments in London and North West England.

"There's a certain mystique of the monarchy, and of course, a religious underlying and significance to it. But the renewal of it with a new generation of people has really put a new spotlight on it. We symbolize the closeness -- in the English sense understanding -- of church and state."

The church gets millions of visitors every year who come to see its historic Gothic architecture and learn about its role in British history. Dozens of kings and queens have been crowned in the abbey, which also has hosted 16 royal weddings and is the burial site for several monarchs and famed citizens. The abbey, which is part of the Church of England but operates separately for the most part, has a $15 million yearly budget and is financed almost entirely by admission costs and fundraising by groups such as the New York-based American Fund for Westminster Abbey. Hall visited there this week, in addition to Chicago, and will head to Washington next.

The church staff reports to the monarchy, instead of the local bishop like other London churches, and in addition to at least four daily worship services, Westminster regularly hosts events for the royals. On June 4, Hall will host Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh and royal family members for a service to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the queen's coronation. The unique relationship to the royal family also means Hall for the most part has stayed clear of church controversies such as infighting over the ordination of women bishops.

This is your third visit to the U.S. to promote the church. What brings you back?

I came here in 2011 and again in 2012. It seems to me that fundraising isn't the main thing, to me it's more "friend-raising." The abbey has a huge number of American visitors, which is wonderful, and I think it's important to reach out reciprocally. It began in 2010, when St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue invited me to come give the prizes at their commencement at the end of the year, but I couldn't come that year. So I came back in 2011, and made some time for a small vacation and we realized that there is this growing interest in America in the abbey because of the wedding.

In the U.S., we don't have a state church, or a church such as Westminster Abbey that has the role of serving the monarchy. How do you balance running a church while being available to the queen and welcoming millions of tourists?

Because the abbey is such a visited place, we have a real opportunity there to ensure they are understanding the religious character of the building they are visiting so they are not just visiting an attraction. We have a fundamental question: How do we balance our life as a religious community between our purpose of worshipping the almighty God and, on the other hand, welcoming visitors and trying to make them pilgrims to a degree as much as we can?

The connection with the monarchy has gone back to the beginning. Westminster Palace, next to the abbey, was originally where Edward the Confessor lived in the 11th century. Westminster became the center of rule in the Kingdom from that time on. William the Conqueror was crowned in Westminster Abbey in 1066 and every monarch who has been crowned has had the coronation ceremony since then there.

Is there a regular congregation?

We see between 200 and 1,200 regular worshippers each day, but our focus is not on building a congregation in the traditional sense.

You have been dean for seven years and a priest for many more, but interest in your work has peaked since the royal wedding. Does that bother you?

No. It goes deeper than celebrity, I think. Of course, there is at the heart of the monarchy the monarch herself, who is one of the best-known figures in the world and one of the longest serving, so many people know of the queen. But this new generation is fascinating to people. The story of Catherine Middleton getting to know Prince William and them coming into each others' life is itself majestic and legendary. But for me it was wonderful that at the heart of the wedding was not just celebrity or splendor but a deep, central core of a couple coming together in the presence of God, and asking for God's gift of love and commitment throughout their lives.

There's also a baby on the way for the couple. Will you a play a role when he or she is born?

There is no expectation that I will be involved in the baptism. I imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury will be the one to pour the water and pray for the child's baptism, but where that will happen I don't know yet. All we are doing for the moment is praying for the pregnancy and birth to go well, and that the child is born safe and well. And when he or she is born, we will ring a full peal of the church bells, which lasts more than three hours.

The Episcopal church here is part of the Anglican communion, as is the Church of England, but the church here is also different. It has ordained gay bishops, blesses same-sex unions and has approved ordaining transgender priests. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is a woman. Meanwhile, the Church of England recently voted against allowing women bishops. What's your impression of Episcopalians?

What is predominant in my mind is the similarities we have in the communion around the world. There are clear similarities and also different issues people are engaged with. We have clear traditions of worship and the focus on hymns and prayer, and you feel that wherever you go.

For me, the experience of preaching on a couple of occasions at St. Thomas in New York and St. James in Chicago this week showed me a tradition of worship with which I am extremely familiar. You simply feel that we are one.

We live in a complex and difficult world and we engage with the world as we see and we want to share the gospel with the world in which we are. That may lead us to take different views about some marginal issues from Anglicans in other parts of the world. But on the core issues of belief in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and God's revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, we are the same.

I am glad that we wrestle publicly with issues, and I'm glad that with that we have this community that keeps us together. I long for the unity and reconciliation of all Christians so we can give a more powerful, united message to the world of God's love in Christ. I certainly don't want to see the Anglican Communion broken up. Nobody does.

What was your reaction to the votes against women bishops in the Church of England?

The ordination of women to the episcopacy is something the great majority of people in the Church of England want. It completes a process, which seems to have been right, to include women in the leadership. We have very much to be thankful for from women deacons and priests, and there will be women bishops. My guess is that there were as many people surprised as I was by the outcome of the vote. It was a very small number of people in the House of Laity who voted against it. This issue will be re-addressed and there has been a speedy process of getting people together to find ways through this dilemma. Exactly how this will work, I don't know, and I have not been involved personally. I hope it can be resolved quickly.

There's also a relatively new archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. What's your relationship to him and his predecessor, Archbishop Rowan Williams?

Rowan Williams was one of the finest archbishops one can imagine. His deep spiritual life, his absolute devotion to God, his extraordinary learning and breadth of knowledge, and his power of interpretation, there are things we have benefited enormously from at Westminster Abbey. Justin Welby brings a new perspective and new experience to the extraordinary task of being the archbishop of Canterbury. I didn't know Justin Welby very well, and I have met him now a few times. He is an extraordinarily gifted communicator, he has a very strong faith and a very hopeful outlook. His experience in finance and the oil industry is probably also a great blessing to us in the church. We shall look forward to seeing how he brings to bear those many gifts on the future of the church.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The scrawling explained his rationale for his part in the deadly explosion, sources said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly wrote that his actions were retaliations for the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims," the note said, according to CBS' sources who were granted anonymity.

The report would seem to add credence to a Washington Post story last month which cited anonymous "U.S. officials" who said Tsarnaev provided a similar rationale for the bombing when he was interrogated from his hospital bed.

In his reaction to the Post's story, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald noted that similar reasons have been given by other Muslims who have attempted or carried out recent attacks in America:

In the last several years, there have been four other serious attempted or successful attacks on US soil by Muslims, and in every case, they emphatically all say the same thing: that they were motivated by the continuous, horrific violence brought by the US and its allies to the Muslim world - violence which routinely kills and oppresses innocent men, women and children:

Greenwald lists attempted "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, attempted New York City subway bomber Najibullah Zazi and Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan as examples.

"If the United States does not get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, Shahzad said during his guilty plea. "We will be attacking [the] U.S."

Responding to a question from a viewer, Robertson said that married men "have a tendency to wander" and it is the spurned wife's job to focus on the positive and make sure the home is so enticing, he doesn't want to stray.

"I've been trying to forgive my husband for cheating on me," the viewer writes. "We have gone to counseling, but I just can't seem to forgive, nor can I trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again?"

While Robertson's co-host hedged on the question, calling forgiveness "difficult" and spousal infidelity "one of the ultimate betrayals," Robertson got right to the point.

"Here's the secret," the famous evangelical said. "Stop talking the cheating. He cheated on you, well, he's a man."

The wife needs to focus on the reasons she married her spouse, he continued.

"Does he provide a home for you to live in," Robertson said. 'Does he provide food for you to eat? Does he provide clothes for you to wear? Is he nice to the children... Is he handsome?"

Robertson also offered a little advice on the "tendency of man."

"Recognize also, like it or not, males have a tendency to wander a little bit," Robertson said. "What you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn't want to wander" or give in to the "salacious" magazine pictures and Internet filled with porn.

This is certainly not Robertson's first foray into anecdotal marital counseling, however.

In January, Robertson told viewers that "awful-looking" women can cause marriages to lose their spark.

"It just isn't something to just lie there, 'Well, I'm married to him so he's got to take me slatternly looking,'" he said. "You've got to fix yourself up, look pretty."

Similarly, in 2010 the host advised a woman complaining about her husband's flirtatious ways not to "hassle him about it" and just make herself as attractive as possible.

He also once told a husband upset that his wife didn't respect him that he could always just "become a Muslim and you could beat her."

(h/t Right Wing Watch)

Click through this slideshow for Pat Robertson's Greatest Hits
 

This week, Jews all over the world will be celebrating the festival of Shavuot. Like Passover and Sukkot (The Feast of Tabernacles), Shavuot is one of our three main pilgrimage festivals. Our religious imaginations conjure up images of thousands of pilgrims from all over ancient Israel bringing their offerings to Jerusalem. We can hear the bleating of goats, smell the baskets of freshly harvested grain, hear the voices of families calling out to one another in the crowd. These holidays were ancient agricultural festivals, moments in the year when our community rose up in gratitude for the harvest. We rose up with the most basic human emotions: gratitude for food we received and hope for continued food abundance.

When Israelites lived in the highlands of Canaan, the bounty of food was a sign we were doing fine in our relationship with God, that we were keeping our end of the covenant with the One who took us out of Egypt. The festivals celebrated agricultural bounty as a sign of the enduring covenantal relationship. But in exile after 70 CE, Judaism changed. The festivals lost their connection to land and food. Today, Jews learn that Sukkot celebrates traveling in the desert in huts, but we do not learn about the harvest at the start of the rainy season. We learn that Passover is the celebration of leaving Egypt, but we do not learn about lambing season and preparation for the spring harvest. We learn that Shavuot is the celebration of the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai, not about the first fruits and barley harvest of the spring.

In her book "Scripture, Culture and Agriculture," Ellen F. Davis describes agrarianism as "a way of thinking and ordering life in community that is based on health of the land and of living creatures." She argues persuasively that the Hebrew Bible is, at its heart, agrarian literature; it is the story of a particular people who live in a particular fragile ecosystem and who struggle to maintain intimacy with God through their care of local, family-held lands that produce food over generations.

In the midst of our global ecological crisis, Jews -- and indeed all people who hold the Hebrew Scriptures as canon -- must turn our attention to the deep connection among Judaism, agriculture and healthy communities. Today, I want to turn to the Book of Ruth, traditionally read on Shavuot. Here, we find a story of reconnection with land that is, perhaps, the very Torah we need to receive this year.

Ruth tells the story of a family swept off its fields in Israel by famine. When they flee to Moab for food, the men in the family die of illness. Years later, when the famine lifts, Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth, a Moabite, return to Naomi's village of origin. They return during the barley harvest.

Too poor to afford food, Ruth goes to glean barley in the field of a wealthy farmer named Boaz. Boaz turns out to be a close relative of Naomi's late husband, and he is therefore a family redeemer who can marry Ruth. Often overlooked as part of his role, Boaz is also the person who can reclaim the land Naomi's family had to sell in the famine (see Leviticus 25:23-28 for laws on relatives redeeming land for each other). In marrying each other and reacquiring the family's land, Boaz and Ruth reunite the land with its family.

Boaz and Ruth are the great-grandparents of King David, from whose line, tradition says, will come the messianic age. The reuniting of a family with its land, the rejoining of an individual with his own food production, the sense of belonging and membership in land community -- these are the tenets of an agrarian mindset. In agrarian language, the remembering of people and land -- literally becoming members again of each other -- is the seed of our collective redemption.

In an ideal agrarian mindset, families care for land because their children and the land itself depend on it. Davis points out that this concept of generational family landholding is "nahala" in Biblical Hebrew. Boaz uses the word nahala when he describes redeeming the fields for Naomi.

But in our time, all over the world, small farmers are losing and have lost their land, their nahalot. Large corporations and poor government policies have broken the local economies of family landholdings. We, like Naomi's family, have become vulnerable to famine caused not only by climate change, but also by poor policies that allow concentration of food production in the hands of multinational food corporations and a shockingly small number of crops. Like Naomi's family, millions of people worldwide are losing their family farms and land. Like Naomi's family, millions will be environmental refugees.

Those of us whose families haven't been farmers for generations are divorced from our local food systems, sent into a strange world of food that comes in plastic, where we do not feel connected to our soil, our farms, our seasons, our droughts. We live in a society where it is now possible for a child to tell a teacher friend of mine, "I don't eat food that comes from dirt."

The story of Ruth is a story of home, family and land, and the relationship among these three life-sustaining concepts. It is a story that says health, well-being and, ultimately, collective redemption will come from home, family and land being part of a sacred system where each feeds the others. This is the heart of an agrarian Torah.

This Shavuot, what will your pilgrimage to Jerusalem be? How will you connect to the season and harvest? Consider joining a CSA and shopping at farmers' markets this summer to support your local farms. Or donating to an organization that supports food justice, indigenous rights and land stewardship. Ask your legislators and congressmen to support food policy that protects small farmers and puts limits on big agrobusiness. And go outside in your neighborhood to see what is growing. Call the land you live on home, and not just a house. Play Boaz and Ruth to your own life and reunite with the land.

ON Scripture -- The Torah is a weekly Jewish scriptural commentary, produced in collaboration with Odyssey Networks and Hebrew College. Thought leaders from the United States and beyond offer their insights into the weekly Torah portion and contemporary social, political, and spiritual life.

(RNS) The Rev. Morris G. Henderson wasn’t sure what do with a vacant city block of land behind his 31st Street Baptist Church in Richmond, Va. The church had purchased the plots, but didn’t have the funding to build a planned family life center.

Then, he had a vision.

“Why not build a garden and people can learn to be self-sufficient and we can grow food?” Henderson said.

With an 80-year-old congregant heading the project, the congregation planted its first garden in 2008: watermelons, tomatoes, okra, squash, strawberries and blueberries.

By the second year, even after the gardening chief had passed away, congregants were getting guidance from the Virginia Cooperative Extension; this year, the church has at least two dozen raised beds, with the bulk of the harvest used for the church’s Monday-Friday soup kitchen.

The nutrition program serves at least 70, rising to 250 people in the summer when kids don’t have access to school lunch programs, Henderson said. Extras are available for congregants, food program participants and the community, for a donation. A flower garden provides pollination for the plants and flowers for the sanctuary.

Henderson’s congregation is one of a growing number throughout the country that are raising fruits and vegetables for soup kitchens and food pantries in what are often called food justice programs; in some synagogues they’re known as mitzvah gardens.

The gardens serve a multifold purpose. In addition to providing fresh food to those who might not otherwise have access, the gardens are educational tools; they increase awareness of land sustainability; they teach congregants about farming and remind them of religious imperatives to care for the land.

One of the largest is at Chicago’s KAM Isaiah Israel synagogue, with a food program that supports gardens in its own yard as well as in that of two churches just blocks away.

The food program began in 2009 when Robert Nevel, the synagogue’s social justice coordinator, and a group of volunteers ripped out much of the synagogue’s lawn to create the Star of David vegetable garden in the shape of a six-pointed Star of David, with produce grown in each 30-square-foot point.

The congregation has since planted a second vegetable garden and an herb garden on other sides of its 1923 building, which sits directly across the street from the Hyde Park home of the nation’s gardeners-in-chief, President and Michelle Obama.

In 2011, with a grant from the community group One Chicago, One Nation, KAM helped Kenwood United Church of Christ establish its garden, and last year assisted St. Paul and the Redeemer Episcopal Church in creating one.

“We think of all the gardens in the neighborhood as one farm for purposes of plant rotation and harvesting,” Nevel said. “Together, we remain a network for the harvesting and distribution of the food.”

The produce is distributed to six different hot-meal programs, four of them affiliated with houses of worship and all of them within a mile and a half of KAM, Nevel said.

Through the combined 5,000-square-foot-plus gardens, KAM’s food justice and sustainability program last year donated — within an hour or two of harvest — 4,500 pounds of produce. This year’s plantings include six or seven varieties of tomatoes, collards, kale, chard, squash, okra, lettuces, carrots, peas, pole and bush beans, radishes, herbs, onions, cucumbers and peppers.

“We are probably the sole source of fresh food for four or five months of the year for a significant number of people in Chicago,” Nevel says.

At Chicago’s Living Room Cafe, a nonprofit that provides dinners twice weekly and breakfast on weekends, chef Royal Green calls the produce a “big plus.”

“They’re saving us a lot of money; it’s fresh and it’s more nutritious” than canned goods that otherwise would be used, he said.

Citing a line from Leviticus 25, “for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and settlers with me,” Nevel said, “The synagogue doesn’t own that land, the church doesn’t own that land, no one really owns it; we need to be stewards of the land.”

Nan Onest, the pastoral associate at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in Cedar Lake, Ind., which began its garden last year, makes similar comments.

“Some of the key principles of Catholic social teaching speak to importance of caring for God’s creations,” she said, also noting that its food program deals with “proper use of the land, food distribution justice issues and human dignity issues all at once.”

The congregation, which donates its harvest through its own ministry for shut-ins, as well as to a local soup kitchen, food bank and a home for unwed mothers, more than doubled its garden from 1,300 square feet last year, which yielded 1,000 pounds of produce, to 3,000 square feet this year. The number of volunteers also has tripled from about a dozen to 35.

“It’s been an amazing experience,” says Anita Torok, the garden’s organizer. “Some like the spiritual solitude of seeing the plants grow and working with soil. Some like the family experience; a grandmother brings her grandchild and they hunt for the food to harvest. Some like the sense of purpose they’re involved with a good cause.”

Organizers at all the gardens say it’s not just congregants who volunteer to do the farming, but members of the larger community.

“The thing I feel most proud of about the garden is that a true marker and measure of a buy-in by our community is we have no fence around our garden. People watch it and keep us from being robbed blind,” Henderson, of Richmond, said. “The community has allowed us to keep our garden for the needy.”

(RNS) A German family seeking asylum in the U.S. so they can home-school their children lost their appeal in federal court on Tuesday (May 14), but their lawyers say they’re prepared to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.

The German government persecuted the Romeike family for their faith, said Mike Donnelly, a lawyer with the Home School Legal Defense Association, a religious organization that is representing the Romeike family.

“It is treating people who home-school for religious or philosophical reasons differently,” he added.

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees. The U.S. grants safe haven to people who have a well-founded fear of persecution, but not necessarily to those under governments with laws that simply differ from those in the U.S., Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote in the court’s decision.

“The German authorities have not singled out the Romeikes in particular or homeschoolers in general for persecution,” he wrote for the three-judge panel in the case, Uwe Romeike v. Eric Holder, Jr.

Uwe Romeike said in an email on Wednesday that his family began home schooling to protect their children from bullying and teachings they didn’t agree with.

“As we were confronted with opposition to our choice we began to feel more and more that our faith required us to homeschool our children,” he said.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike moved their five children to Tennessee (a sixth child has since been born) in 2008 to escape thousands of dollars in fines and increasing pressure from local police and education officials to enroll their children in school. All German parents are required by law to send their children to a state-recognized school, whether public or private.

The Romeikes are evangelical Christians, and say they should be allowed to keep their children home to teach them Christian values. Before they left Germany, the police forcibly escorted the older Romeike children to school one day. Other German families have lost custody of their children because they persist in home schooling.

An immigration judge in Tennessee granted the Romeikes’ bid in 2010, but the Board of Immigration Appeals tossed that ruling in 2012, arguing that religious home-schoolers don’t face any special consequences that aren’t applied to other families whose children don’t attend school.

The 2012 decision sparked an outpouring of support for the Romeike family among conservative U.S. Christians. More than 120,000 people signed an online petition urging President Obama to let the family stay. Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck described the case as evidence of crumbling religious freedom.

The Romeikes’ legal team plans to request an en banc hearing, which would present the case before the 6th Circuit’s entire 15-judge panel. Approval for such a hearing is unlikely, Donnelly said, adding that the Romeikes are already preparing to fight for asylum in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former Defense Intelligence Agency adviser Morwari Zafar made the comments at a pre-trial hearing for Brig. Gen. Jeffery Sinclair. A court-martial for the former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne is set to begin June 25 on charges that include forcible sodomy, indecent acts, violating orders and adultery.

Among the orders Sinclair is accused of violating is a prohibition against U.S. troops in Afghanistan possessing pornography.

Called as a witness by prosecutors, Zafar's eyes widened when a prosecutor showed her printed photos investigators pulled from Sinclair's hard drive.

"They would be absolutely offensive to Afghans in general," said Zafar, who was born in the country and is now earning a doctorate in anthropology. "Pornography is illegal in Afghanistan."

The military pornography ban, and a similar order barring possessing alcohol, are in place in an attempt to keep soldiers and Marines from offending the socially conservative country where U.S. troops have been stationed since 2001.

Lawyers for Sinclair asked a military judge this week to drop the charge against the general, arguing this week the military porn ban violates his First Amendment rights to free speech.

On cross-examination, Zafar agreed with defense lawyer Richard Scheff that pornography is available for sale in some Afghan markets and on the Internet, despite its illegal status in the country.

The defense has not provided an explanation for how pornography got on Sinclair's personal computer. He has not yet entered a plea on any of the charges he faces.

Earlier in the case, military lawyers for Sinclair suggested in court that someone else could have downloaded the images, possibly even the female aide he is charged with assaulting.

This week, new civilian lawyers added to the defense team made the constitutional argument without directly saying the pornography had been stored on the computer by their client. Additionally, there was no evidence any Afghan ever saw the images or had the opportunity to be offended, Scheff said.

Sinclair's former commander in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. James Huggins, testified Tuesday that he issued the order to "maintain good order and discipline."

"It is against the stated policy because of the cultural sensitivity of the Afghan people," Huggins said, adding that if anyone had found the images it would have hurt Sinclair's effectiveness.

Sinclair was deputy commander in charge of logistics and support for the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan last spring before being relieved during the criminal investigation. He has been on special assignment at Fort Bragg since May 2012.

A 27-year Army veteran and married father of two, Sinclair faces life in prison if convicted on the sexual assault charge.

A female captain who worked for Sinclair on deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq says she carried on a three-year sexual relationship with Sinclair. Adultery is a crime under military law, and the admission could end her career.

She testified at the evidentiary hearing last year that she repeatedly tried to break off the affair but that on two occasions after they had argued he exposed himself and physically forced her to perform oral sex. The woman says the general also threatened to kill her and her family if she told anyone about their relationship.

The Associated Press does not publicly identify victims of alleged sexual assaults.

Two other female officers who served with Sinclair also testified that they had given the general nude photos at his request.

Military judge Col. James Pohl agreed Tuesday to a request to drop a charge that Sinclair violated an order by possessing alcohol while in Afghanistan. An unopened bottle of scotch was found in his quarters – a gift defense lawyers said came from a top Pentagon official on a goodwill visit.

Pohl also granted a defense motion to compel testimony from former Fort Brag commander Gen. Dan Allyn and current base commander Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Colt.

Sinclair's legal team alleges that high-ranking Pentagon officials may have placed improper pressure on Allyn to refer charges against Sinclair as the military struggles to deal with a string of embarrassing sex scandals.

It was not immediately clear when Allyn and Colt will be available to testify. Officials said both aren't on the base this week.

___

Follow Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker at twitter.com/mbieseck.

TORONTO (RNS) A new national study shows that while Canada remains overwhelmingly Christian, Canadians are turning their backs on organized religion in ever greater numbers.

Results from the 2011 National Household Survey show that more than two-thirds of Canadians, or some 22 million people, said they were affiliated with a Christian denomination.

At 12.7 million, Roman Catholics were the largest single Christian group, representing 38 percent of Canadians; the second largest was the United Church, representing about 6 percent; while Anglicans were third, representing about 5 percent of the population.

Observers noted that among the survey’s most striking findings is that one in four Canadians, or 7.8 million people, reported they had no religious affiliation at all. That was up sharply from 16.5 percent from the 2001 census, and 12 percent in 1991.

The Canadian trend seems to mirror but even exceed levels of non-affiliation in the United States. A 2012 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life pegged the ratio of religiously unaffiliated Americans at just under 20 percent.

But Pew also has found that more than one-quarter of American adults (28 percent) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion — or no religion at all.

The Canadian study showed that just more than 7 percent of the country was Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, an increase from 5 percent a decade earlier.

The Muslim population exceeded the 1 million mark, according to the survey, almost doubling in size for the third consecutive decade, and recording the biggest increase in growth of any religion, at 60 percent since 2001.

Muslims now represent 3.2 percent of Canada’s population, nudging up from the 2 percent recorded in 2001. Immigration has largely fueled the increase, with the largest share of Muslims coming from Pakistan over the past five years, according to Statistics Canada.

Hindus made up 1.5 percent of the population (up 51 percent); and Sikhs 1.4 percent (a rise of 54 percent).

Both Christians and Jews declined as a share of the population.

Officials in Ottawa stressed that the NHS results, which also examined trends in immigration and ethnic diversity, could be unreliable. Because it was a voluntary survey, it is “subject to potentially higher non-response error than those derived from the census long form,” Statistics Canada cautioned.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government abolished the long-form census in 2010 as too intrusive.

Reginald Bibby, a sociologist at the University of Lethbridge and one of Canada’s foremost trackers and interpreters of religious trends, said the NHS findings “do not point to the demise of religion in Canada. But the findings document the tendency of Canadians to reflect the pattern of people across the planet in variously embracing or rejecting religion.”

The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee voted out legislation that could make North Carolina the eighth state to ban use of foreign laws, WRAL.com reports. The bill advanced only after the committee tweaked the language to apply only to family law and child custody issues and not to disputes involving the business community.

State Rep. Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) told WRAL.com that he does not know of any instances of foreign law being used in his state's courts but that a statute is needed to prevent it from happening.

North Carolina's move comes a week after the Republican-controlled Missouri state Legislature advanced a similar bill.

The text of the North Carolina legislation does not specifically mention the Islamic legal code known as Sharia, although it would be covered, to avoid a potential court challenge for singling out one religion. An Oklahoma ban that specified Sharia was blocked as likely to be found unconstitutional by a federal court last year.

The kinds of cases covered by the North Carolina bill was narrowed due to concerns that the broader legislation could have caused issues for local companies that do business internationally and have contracts with foreign companies, according to WRAL.com. A similar argument was made unsuccessfully during the Missouri House debate last week.

Foreign law bans have become popular with conservative lawmakers in recent years. Seven states -- Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee -- have passed such bans, according to data compiled by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Pew noted that another 24 states have considered similar bills.

The North Carolina Legislature has taken on a host of conservative proposals in recent weeks, including an unsuccessful bill last month that would opened the door to an official state religion.

"I suppose since instituting an official state religion failed, passing anti-Sharia law legislation is the next best thing," state Democratic Party spokesman Micah Beasley told The Huffington Post. "It's unfortunate that North Carolina Republican leaders continue to waste taxpayers' resources with fringe policy proposals such as this. North Carolinians deserve a legislature focused on jobs, not potentially unconstitutional power grabs."

(RNS) News that scientists had for the first time recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos prompted dire warnings from religious leaders who say the research crosses a moral red line and could lead to designer babies.

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, point man for the U.S. Catholic bishops on bioethical issues, said Wednesday (May 15) that “this means of making embryos for research will be taken up by those who want to produce cloned children as ’copies’ of other people.”

Human cloning “treats human beings as products,” O’Malley said on behalf of the bishops, “manufactured to order to suit other people’s wishes. … A technical advance in human cloning is not progress for humanity but its opposite.”

Critics argue there are other ethical techniques for creating stem cells that may help cure illnesses like Parkinson’s disease and diabetes and that the alternatives do not require cloning human embryos or destroying them. The most popular alternative is harvesting adult stem cells from the same patient.

“Given that science has passed cloning by for stem cell production, this announcement seems simply a justification for making clones, and makes reproductive cloning and birth of human clones more likely,” said David Prentice of the Family Research Council.

The cloning breakthrough was accomplished by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University and was announced Wednesday in the journal Cell. It followed 15 years of failed experiments and the infamous case of fraud when a South Korean biologist falsely claimed to have cloned human embryos.

To achieve their breakthrough, researchers had to refine techniques that had been used on monkey embryos: This time they were able to take DNA from a human patient and splice it into a human egg that had its DNA removed. The egg then grew into an early-stage embryo whose stem cells — a virtual genetic copy of the original patient — were then harvested.

Many Christian experts, especially Catholic bioethicists who believe life begins at conception, object to the destruction of human embryos for any purpose.

But they also say the new technique could lead to the cloning of replica human beings because it is similar to the process used to produce the cloned sheep named Dolly in 1996. That technique has since been used to clone a dozen other animal species.

The lead researcher on the team, Shoukhrat Mitalipov, said he does not believe the new technique could lead to cloned babies, in part because scientists have not yet been able to do that with cloned monkey embryos. The cloned primate embryos do not develop sufficiently to implant into the uterine wall.

But others say the innovation opens the door to human cloning scenarios that were once confined to the realm of science fiction.

“The reasons why primate-cloned embryos won’t implant are probably just technical barriers,” William Hurlbut, a consulting professor at Stanford University and former member of George W. Bush’s Presidential Council on Bioethics, told Christianity Today. “Science is clever at figuring out what goes wrong and fixing it.”

Hurlbut, who has worked with Mitalipov on developing ethically acceptable adult stem cell techniques, said the breakthrough will “mark the beginning of a whole new chapter of moral scientific controversy.”

The son of the Rev. Billy Graham as well as leaders of Z Street, a conservative Jewish organization, have said they believe they were pressed by the IRS for more information because they advocated for conservative causes.

In a letter Tuesday to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the Rev. Franklin Graham said charities built by his father may have received extra scrutiny from the IRS because they advocated against gay marriage and the elder Graham appeared in ads urging support for candidates who oppose abortion.

"I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence – or justifiable," Franklin Graham wrote. "I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. This is morally wrong and unethical – indeed some would call it `un-American.'"

Franklin Graham said his Boone, N.C.-based charity Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which is based in Charlotte, received IRS notices last September that their 2010 activities would be reviewed.

In the letter to Obama and Biden, Graham noted that the evangelistic association named for his father waded into a North Carolina election by running full-page newspaper advertisements urging support for a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Both Franklin Graham and the 94-year-old Billy Graham supported Republican nominee Mitt Romney in last year's presidential election. Billy Graham also appeared in national newspaper ads and newspaper ads in Ohio urging voters to back candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles, oppose gay marriage and abortion, and defend religious freedoms.

After the November election, Franklin Graham said, the two organizations received official notices that they continued to qualify for exemption from federal income taxes.

Members of Z Street, a group based in Merion Station, Pa., filed suit in 2010 after its application for tax-exempt status stalled. The group's president, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, told Fox News that she believes her organization – it advocates a staunch, pro-Israel position – was scrutinized in a way similar to tea party groups that the IRS has now acknowledged were inappropriately targeted.

In its suit, Z Street says it was told by the IRS that it was "scrutinizing" groups connected with Israel and that its case was being referred to a special IRS unit. Z Street's application for status as a tax-exempt, 501 (c) 3 organization has not yet been approved. A hearing on its suit is scheduled for July 2 in U.S. District Court in Washington.

Lowenthal said she believes Z Street was targeted because of her group's views on Israel.

"We knew that this is classic viewpoint discrimination," she said.

Dean Patterson, a spokesman for the IRS, said he could not comment on either Z Street or Franklin Graham's claims.

"Federal law prohibits the IRS from discussing specific tax payers," Patterson said.

___

Associated Press writer Emery Dalesio in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

Bisutti told host Alicia Menendez that while her husband never asked her to stop modeling, she did feel that her flirtatious model persona hurt his feelings.

"He did not [ask me to stop modeling], he was very supportive. He just prayed, and his prayers have been answered," Bisutti said.

She also said that God spoke to her during her modeling career, telling her to leave the industry because she "wasn't being the right kind of role model."

Watch the video above to learn more, then click here to see the full segment on HuffPost Live.

Click through the slideshow below to see photos of Bisutti over the years.

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