TODAY IN GOD:
RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE
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Sometimes a hug is more than a hug: Female Pakistani minister in hot water for hugging a guy

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Islamic clerics at a radical mosque in Pakistan’s capital have demanded the tourism minister be fired for hugging a foreign man, saying she committed a “great sin.”

Minister of Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar rejected the Taliban-style edict Monday and said her family and friends were concerned for her safety.

Two clerics at Islamabad’s Red Mosque demanded her dismissal Sunday, two days after setting up a court to deliver Islamic justice in a bold challenge to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally who has promised to promote moderate Islam.
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The mosque’s chief cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, threatened last week to stage suicide attacks if authorities tried to raid the mosque.

Photos in the Pakistani media have shown Bakhtiar being helped by a male instructor during a charity parachute jump in France last month to raise money for victims of the devastating October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Another picture shows a woman – apparently Bakhtiar – hugging the instructor.

This was “an illegitimate and forbidden act,” the clerics said in their edict, or fatwa.

“Without any doubt, she has committed a great sin,” the fatwa said. It declared that Muslim women must stay at home and must not venture out uncovered.
FOR THE FULL STORY (AP VIA AZCENTRAL.COM) CLICK HERE

In God they trust: Most docs believe in God
A majority of American doctors believe God or another supernatural being intervenes in patients’ health, a study has found.

And nearly two in five doctors believe religion and spirituality can help prevent bad outcomes such as heart attacks, infections and even death, according to the University of Chicago nationwide survey of 2,000 physicians.

“Most physicians apply medical science while maintaining a belief that God intervenes in patients’ health,” Dr. Farr Curlin and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Religious doctors were more likely than nonreligious doctors to believe this — and to report that patients bring up religious issues.

Dr. Wayne Detmer, an internist at Lawndale Christian Health Center, said all doctors have seen cures of patients “that don’t make sense based on our current understanding of physiology or medicine.”

Detmer recalls one patient, disabled by a neurological condition, who was able to walk again after praying. A pastor, diagnosed with terminal lymphoma, is still alive after 13 years. And a suicidal patient has regained the willingness to live after prayer.

Detmer said he can’t prove God made these patients better. But he notes the Bible says Jesus healed people. “It’s not so much of a stretch to believe He can still do it.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (By my colleague Jim Ritter at the SUN-TIMES) CLICK HERE

Chicago gradma’s Quran translation raises hackles near and far
Laleh Bakhtiar sits in front of her computer hours before dawn, recording verses from her translation of the Quran in a deep, raspy voice.

As she reads, she says “God,” not “Allah.” “Disbeliever,” the translation of the Arabic “kufr,” has been replaced with “ones who are ungrateful.” There’s mention of Jesus and Mary, not the common Islamic renderings Isa and Maryam.

Bakhtiar’s English translation of the Quran, expected to hit bookstores next week, is considered the first solo effort of its kind by a Muslim woman — a grandma from Chicago, at that.

This alone would draw attention. But her non-traditional approach, from one who is not part of the Islamic scholarly establishment and does not speak modern Arabic, has sparked controversy from Belmont Avenue to the Middle East.

A story about Bakhtiar on Dubai-based Alarabiya.net, a Web site associated with widely broadcast Al Arabiya TV network, was the best-read story for two days straight in the Arab world, said Al Arabiya journalist Hayyan Nayouf.

“Many people criticized her and said she didn’t know Arabic so how could she translate the holy book,” Nayouf said. Some raised conspiracy theories that the U.S. government was behind the translation, he said.

Bakhtiar, 68, the child of an Iranian doctor and an American nurse, who was raised Catholic before she converted to Islam, thinks the chatter has gotten far ahead of the substance.

“Hello! Let’s look at this fairly,” she said. “Why raise this before you’ve even seen it? Could you mind waiting?”
FOR THE FULL STORY (CHICAGO TRIBUNE) CLICK HERE

Easter butterfly release: Let there be flight
PLANO, TEXAS – It’s a scientific lesson in metamorphosis coupled with a symbolic message of life renewed.

Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified, entombed and raised from the dead. This Easter afternoon, 650 caterpillars transformed into painted lady butterflies will fill the sky outside Plano’s Custer Road United Methodist Church.

The bright orange, black and white speckled insects will be given to young churchgoers for a synchronized release after the 11:45 a.m. service.

They were shipped to the church as chrysalides, or pupas, from California-based Insect Lore for about $1,000. Orders include detailed instructions: handle them gently and store at around 75 degrees. The order also includes 10 percent more chrysalides than requested because some won’t survive.

Most of the butterflies emerge in a week, their fluttering wings frenetically brushing against the white, pyramid-shaped boxes they’re packaged in.

Debbie Pomponio, director of children’s ministries, said the 7,000-member church released butterflies in 2004, and it was such a big hit, it was decided to do it again.

“It was very successful. Everybody wanted a butterfly,” Ms. Pomponio said. “We had originally gotten them for the children Easter Sunday, but we had parents and grandparents wanting to take them home.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (DALLAS MORNING NEWS) CLICK HERE

Pilgrims Make Trek to ‘Lourdes of America’
CHIMAYO, N.M. — The first pilgrim arrived a week ago, having walked 90 miles from Albuquerque over three days. At dawn on this Holy Saturday, the faithful, the penitent and even just the curious continued to stream into an adobe chapel in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains known as the “Lourdes of America.”

By Easter Sunday, tens of thousands of pilgrims will have visited the small Santuario de Chimayo, a shrine built upon a well of dirt reputed to have healing powers. Most walk for miles along winding two-lane roads in what is probably one of the nation’s largest public displays of devotion during Holy Week. As many as 75,000 pilgrims were reported several years ago. Recent estimates have ranged from 40,000 to 60,000 a year.

Most are Hispanic residents of New Mexico and neighboring Colorado or Mexicans from the nearby states of Coahuila and Chihuahua, whose families have been conducting the pilgrimage for decades.

“We grew up like this,” said Jennie Aragon of Pojoaque, N.M., who walked with her family and her brother and sister-in-law, who live in Delta, Colo. Said her brother, Lawrence Duran: “We do it to thank God. He died on the cross for us. A little sacrifice for Him is not that much.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (WASHINGTON POST) CLICK HERE