Source: USA TODAY

On February 2, 2001, USA TODAY reported on the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida, which claims to "transport" visitors to the ancient Middle East. Its 15 acres include a replica of the temple of King Herod, a cement copy of the Qumran Caves, where ancient Jews stashed the Dead Sea Scrolls, a palm-tree grove mimicking the Via Dolorosa, the path to Jesus' crucifixion, a Jerusalem City Gate, and "Calvary's Garden Tomb, where [people dressed as ancient Israelites] celebrate the resurrection of Christ." Costumed dramatists tell Old and...

Source: The Washington Post

On February 2, 2001, The Washington Post reported on Bush's "maiden appearance before the annual National Prayer Breakfast," where he spoke about his new faith-based initiative. He "extolled the influence of faith on his life and on the life of the nation" and said that "the days of discriminating against religious institutions simply because they are religious must come to an end." Adopting an inclusive theme, he said that "an American president serves people of every faith and serves some of no faith at all." Although Bush...

Source: .The Houston Chronicle

On February 2, 2001, The Houston Chronicle reported on some more responses to Bush's new faith-based initiative. One leading critic of Bush's plan is the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Another critic, Jim Harrington, of the Austin-based Texas Civil Rights Project, said Bush 'wants to almost constitutionalize religion.'" The program also has many supporters, including Carl Esbeck, a lawyer and director of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom. Esbeck concedes,...

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

On February 1, 2001, The Christian Science Monitor reported that, after preachers prayed in the name of Jesus at Bush's inauguration, many Americans have "made their distress heard in letters to the editor and on op-ed pages of local newspapers." A Boston public-school educator wrote that it would be better to be silent than to offer a prayer that does not include Americans of all religious faiths. Others point to an inconsistency "between the prohibitions against public prayer in the school classroom and at football...

Source: Arizona Business Gazette

On February 1, 2001, the Arizona Business Gazette reported that, "in a precedent-setting move, the Arizona Court of Appeals has expanded the list of prohibited reasons for striking jurors to include their religion. The judges concluded that allowing attorneys to use their peremptory strikes to get rid of Roman Catholics because church leaders oppose the death penalty 'would condition the right to free exercise of religion upon a relinquishment of the right to jury service.'" The judges said, however, that it is still okay to...

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On January 31, 2001, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, is celebrating 100 years. Leonard Chemsak, the congregation's historian, "hopes the yearlong celebration achieves two things: 'We want to celebrate 100 years of tradition but also celebrate the long-standing traditions of our heritage and rite.'... Chemsak, who was baptized at St. Nicholas in 1929, has seen many changes throughout the years. Many of the old traditions seem lost, and families aren'...

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On January 31, 2001, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Ruth Cook of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and some of her neighbors "are fighting to muffle the sound of [church] bells that they say rattles crockery, shakes walls and makes outdoor conversation impossible. She has taken her fight to the Common Council. Cook is leading a lonely fight" in this church-friendly town. Father Bill Olnhausen of St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church and his congregation "have shortened the ringing time and have tried to muffle the...

Source: The Tampa Tribune

On January 31, 2001, The Tampa Tribune reported on the relationship between the two congregations that have been meeting in St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Tampa, Florida, on Sundays since 1992. In the morning Episcopalians "gather to worship with the Rev. Kevin Donlon, a second-generation Irish priest from New York...They are...a typical representation of mainly white, middle-class America." Around noon, "members of Florida's only Ethiopian Orthodox church" begin arriving from as far as Miami and Jacksonville. "Many are...

Source: Star Tribune

On January 29, 2001, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a commentary by Alan Dershowitz on Franklin Graham's dedication of Bush's inauguration to Jesus Christ. Graham's "particularistic and parochial language," claimed Dershowitz, "excluded tens of millions of American Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Unitarians, agnostics and atheists from his blessing...The plain message conveyed by the new administration is that Bush's America is a Christian nation, and that non-Christians are welcome into the tent so long as they agree to...

Source: Africana.com

http://www.africana.com/DailyArticles/index_20010128.htm

On January 28, 2001, Africana.com reported on "a groundbreaking $750,000 research venture called the Boston Healing Landscape Project. Funded by the Ford Foundation...and implemented by the Department of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, the project's main focus will be examining communities of African descent in the Boston area and exploring how people use...

Source: The Denver Post

On January 28, 2001, The Denver Post published an article on the improvement in Jewish-Catholic relations in the past few decades. Rabbi James Rudin thinks that "more good was accomplished in Jewish-Catholic relations in the last 35 years than in the rest of the millennium." He said "most of the movement has come from changes in attitudes by the Roman Catholic Church." There has been "a long line of overtures and apologies made by the Catholic Church in the last three decades of the 20th century." Rudin said such apologies -- for...

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On January 27, 2001, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that "Archbishop Khajag Barsamian of the Armenian Church of America will baptize 24 recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union on Sunday at a service here that also will celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of Armenia's conversion to Christianity. It is a case where new spiritual life also is keeping an ancient ethnic tradition alive. 'It's very difficult to run an ethnic church without ethnics,' said Russell Kashian, chairman of the parish council at St. John...

Source: The Boston Globe

On January 27, 2001, The Boston Globe reported that "Jesus was a popular figure at President Bush's inauguration." The invocation by the Rev. Franklin Graham was closed with a prayer "'in the name of the father, and of the son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit.'" The benediction by the Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell ended with the words, "'We respectfully submit this humble prayer in the name that's above all other names, Jesus the Christ.' Newspapers around the country have been publishing letters from readers offended...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On January 27, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that Isaac J. Canales's "combination of intellect and charisma built his Mission Eben-Ezer Family Church in Carson into a dynamic church of 1,500 members. That demanding but deeply spiritual style of teaching earned him a reputation as a popular professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and one of the most respected Latino theologians in the country." Canales, 51, was appointed president of the Latin American Bible Institute in August 1999. "The institute is...

Source: The Seattle Times