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After months of will-they-or-won’t-they, the French government has banned face-cloaking veils such as the Muslim niqab and burqa (check Religion News Service for the distinctions). The law will go into effect in six months, assuming it gets the final stamp of approval this month from France’s Constitutional Council and doesn’t get challenged before the European…

Outreach magazine has come out with its list of America’s largest and fastest-growing churches. More than one million Americans attend the top 100 largest churches (at 384 worship sites). About half of these churches identify themselves as “nondenominational.” The top five: 1. Lakewood Church, Houston, Texas, Joel Osteen, (43,500) 2. North Point Community Church, Alpharetta, Ga.,…

It’s the week between Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the fasting Day of Atonement. This period of introspection, called the Days of Awe, includes another observance for ultra-Orthodox Jews (also known as Hasidic or Haredi Jews): sacrificing chickens. This kaparot ceremony (also spelled kaparos and several other ways) has caused a lot of…

Despite the “rifts amid mourning,” we’ve survived another Sept. 11 anniversary — and some of us, including four of my friends and a new baby, even celebrated birthdays. As this New York Times story about 9/11 birthdays notes, this timing is more problematic than “Pearl Harbor birthdays” used to be, because our generation’s calamity is…
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