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A few days ago a co-worker told me he met someone who hated me. "No, I don't think 'hate' is the right word," the co-worker said. "I think 'loathe' would be better." Apparently this man who "loathes" me doesn't like some of the stories I write, particularly those on one specific faith. He told my co-worker that whenever I write a "pro" story, he posts an "anti" comment online. I was a little unsettled when I first heard this. Some of the most ...

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Bill Reichart has reposted an excerpt from a column on his blog, Ministry Best Practices, asking readers how their church treats "visitors." The post originally appeared in August at Godvertiser.com The column is ultimately about how churches and members treat "visitors," or first-time attenders, but what I found most interesting were the reasons people gave for not returning for a second visit. Among the reasons: no welcome from the parking lot to the pews; people in the pews held on to their ...

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From the Salvation Army: The Salvation Army bells will start ringing this Monday, November 16th at more than 30 locations across Linn County.  This year's campaign target is $640,000 - an increase of more than 9% over last year's goal.  Nearly half of the operating support for The Army's programs and services is generated through this annual holiday fundraising drive.   Volunteer bell ringers are crucial to the success of this campagin.  View opportunities and sign up to help online at tsacedarrapids.org. ...

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CEDAR RAPIDS — The Rev. David O’Connor donned a hard hat and safety harness before stepping into a lift and being raised 40 feet into the air. With students from All Saints Catholic School standing close-by Thursday morning, O’Connor read a short prayer and blessed the cross which adorns the new addition at All Saints Church, 720 29th St. SE, in Cedar Rapids. The 10-minute ceremony — completed just after Mass and attended by students from All Saints school as well as ...

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"No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice — in this world and the next." -- President Obama, during memorial service at Fort Hood, Texas

"I knew that some people would be fishing in such filthy water to blame us, to blame our religion, to blame our loyalty to this country. That is wrong, we are not like that." -- Imam Taha Tawil, Mother Mosque of North America, on reaction by some to Thursday's shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that the act was driven by the accused shooter's relationship with Islam.

IOWA CITY — Ten-year-old Olivia “Livee” Kellicut’s life has been filled with some pretty frightening numbers. She’s had hundreds of shots, 50 spinal taps and four central lines used to target medication to her bloodstream, all in less than six years. There have been numerous chemotherapy treatments — the heavy, intense seven-day treatments her mom calls “the big guns” — and a bone-marrow transplant. Livee is a four-time cancer survivor, diagnosed at 4 ½ with acute myeloid leukemia, and is back in ...

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"It's not about being strong, it's about not being weak." - Roberta Ogden-Kellicut, mother of 10-year-old Olivia Kellicut, whose leukemia has come out of remission for a fifth time.

IOWA CITY — Daoud Nassar’s message is simple: “We refuse to be enemies.” Nassar, 39, is a Palestinian Christian and founder of Tent of Nations, a farm and camp he hopes will educate Palestinians, Israelis and others about peace and working together.  “Instead of teaching how we should have peace, we are learning by doing,” Nassar said Wednesday. “Peace should grow from the ground, in the people, it can’t be dictated. People need to live it to believe it.” Nassar is in Iowa ...

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Four semis filled with food -- enough to feed 1,600 families for a week -- will arrive in Cedar Rapids Saturday morning for free distribution to the community. The trucks are being supplied by the national group, Feed the Children. Families interested in picking up food must have a voucher and can get one at Mission of Hope, CrossRoads Ministry or Helping Hands Ministry. There is no income limit for families to participate. The trucks will be at First Lutheran Church, 1000 Third ...

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I just sat, moments ago, and watched as one co-worker in the newsroom was being berated on the telephone by someone who was calling for classified advertising, which had closed for an hour because of a company meeting. Not knowing where to direct the call, the co-worker transferred her to the newsroom receptionist, who was also berated and belittled before being cursed at and hung up on. Too many times we hear of people being upset with customer service or with a ...

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My view from the pew: I've recently expanded my database in the Twitterverse, following more notable faith and political leaders for a broader sense of what is happening in various arenas. Last week I started following the Rev. Rick Warren, author of "A Purpose Driven Life" and the pastor who delivered the invocation at President Obama's inauguration. Today he tweeted something that brought back an old memory and what could very well have been the reason I felt somewhat intimidated by members ...

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The conservative group Conservapedia has launched an effort to "take the liberal bias out of the Bible" by using more powerful conservative terms fixing what they say is the "biggest distortion" in modern Bible translations. The effort, the Conservative Bible Project, was started to correct what Conservapedia says are three sources of recurring errors in conveying biblical meaning: lack of precision in the original language; lack of precision on modern language; and translation bias in converting the original language to a ...

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CEDAR FALLS -- "Relics, Statues, Rosaries and Other Objects" will be the topic of a lecture hosted by the University of Northern Iowa at 7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 8, at St. Stephen's Catholic Student Center, 1019 W. 23rd St., Cedar Falls.  Robert Orsi, professor of religion at Northwestern University, will deliver the lecture.  The event is free and open to the public.  Orsi, a noted historian of American Catholicism, is the first holder of the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic ...

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CEDAR RAPIDS – The definition of an “emergent church” and how that definition will affect the church’s future is top on Presbyterian’s minds across the country, the church’s national leader said Friday during a stop in Cedar Rapids. The Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, moderator of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. general assembly, said much of the church still follows the structure of the 1950s and 1960s, “and that structure is collapsing. We need to address that change.” Reyes-Chow was in Cedar Rapids and Iowa ...

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A young pastor of a small Georgia Baptist church was shot and killed Tuesday when he failed to respond to questions from plainclothes officers about a passenger in his car. Jonathan Paul Ayers, 28, was a husband and father-to-be. News reports state that he had "dropped a woman off at a store in downtown Toccoa, which is about 90 miles northeast of Atlanta," and that woman was the subject of a drug investigation. A video released to CNN by an Atlanta convenience store ...

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Elie Lowenfeld, third from right, stands with a group of flood recovery volunteers in Cedar Rapids. Lowenfeld made three trips to Cedar Rapids from New York in the last year, and has founded the Jewish Disaster Response Corps based on his experience. One of the first things Elie Lowenfeld noticed in his six weeks as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Cedar Rapids last year was that many — if not most — of the groups volunteering with flood recovery had a basis ...

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The nation's largest Lutheran denomination, with more than 4 million members, voted last month to expand its policies regarding gay clergy in the pulpit. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which had long allowed celibate gay men and women to be ordained as pastors, voted to allow gay and lesbian men and women in committed relationships be ordained and serve as pastors in its churches. No congregation is bound by the policies and each can make its own decision, but by ...

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A Cedar Rapids man who put his career on hold for 11 months to help his city clean up after a devastating flood will be honored by the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church on Sunday. Curt Liscum, 55, a partner with Benchmark Roof and Pavement Consultants in Cedar Rapids, was given paid leave by his employer in October to work 20 hours a week as program manager for the United Methodist Church’s flood recovery team. By March, Liscum ...

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I admit it, I sometimes tend to look at things at face value. Although I know I should, I don't always look for the deeper meaning or the hidden implications of some things. They are what they are. For a few weeks I've failed to see the religious issues at play in the YouTube viral video JK Wedding Dance, where the to-be-wed couple and their entourage dance down the aisle to Chris Brown's "Forever." At first glance I thought, "That's pretty cool. ...

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The Islamic holy month of Ramadan -- in which Muslims spend their daylight hours in abstinence -- begins on Friday. One of the first things many non-Muslims think of when they hear Ramadan is the daylong fasting from food. What they may not realize is that Muslims fast from all things pleasurable between dawn and dusk: smokers don't smoke, they don't swear or speak ill of anyone, there is no intimacy. Ramadan is also a time of introspection -- as the community ...

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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams suggested this week that the Episcopal Church may have to take a secondary role in the Anglican Communion after adopting a series of pro-gay measures, including the vote to allow gay bishops and blessings for same-sex marriages. The Episcopal Church voted on the measures earlier this month during its General Convention in Anaheim, Calif. Williams said "very serious anxieties have already been expressed" about the pro-gay resolution approved by the Episcopal Church, and that because the vote ...

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Just days after Jimmy Carter announced he was severing ties with the Southern Baptist Convention because of their treatment of women, the church has accused the former president of seeking headlines for "political advantage" and said it's not the first time he's left the church. Roger Oldham, a spokesman for the convention, told a Toronto newspaper earlier this week that Carter has left the church about four times and that his claims that the church subjugated women are a "far cry" ...

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Former President Jimmy Carter has apparently left the Southern Baptist Church after more than 60 years as a member, citing a difference in opinion over the treatment of women. In an essay in The Age, Carter said that forcing women to be subservient to men "costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities."

A "large majority" of Episcopal bishops, priests and lay delegates, gathered in California this week for the church's triennial General Convention, voted to lift a three-year-old moratorium on consecrating gay and lesbian bishops. The move was surprising as many had warned that the ban was necessary to preserve unity in the wider Anglican Communion. More than 70 percent of delegates at the convention voted to lift the ban, asserting that "God has called and may call" gays and lesbians in lifelong committed ...

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