Word: reformer
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...UC’s value to students lies not only in the once-in-a-while concessions it extracts from University Hall, but also in the entertainment it provides (i.e. the debate it promotes and the celebrity status it can grant to certain leaders). Whether pushing for calendar reform or a student endowment, the UC’s new chief shouldn’t slink into the shadows of presidential duty. He must embrace the campus-wide spotlight that is the UC presidency...
...women and their male supporters to remedy the situation, and the gains they have made. In particular, it credits Arab novelists and filmmakers for publicizing women's suffering and offering models of hope. But in its conclusion, "Towards the Rise" recognizes the huge obstacles that remain. Unwilling to leave reform to government or Islamic leaders, the report calls for a "widespread and effective movement of struggle in Arab civil society" - a social revolution, really - to advance women's rights...
...Conservatism is Judiasm?s third-largest branch, with some 1,600 rabbis worldwide. It is poised theologically between the liberalism of Reform Judaism and the (small-c) conservatism of Orthodoxy. On the upside, today?s decision reaffirmed Conservatism?s de facto position as America?s Jewish center, minding Jewish law but sensitive to shifts (in this case, toward greater tolerance) in the national social mainstream. On the downside, it also suggested once again that the center may not hold, and Conservatism itself may be increasingly split down the middle. As soon as the votes were taken, three members...
...Conservatism is actually in a classic American centrist bind. Since 1991 Reform Judaism has allowed gay rabbis and same-sex commitment ceremonies, a position probably slightly to the left of the Episcopal Church of the USA. Orthodoxy, on the other hand, regards homosexuality as deviant, and gay Orthodox Jews are as closeted as they are in, say, the Southern Baptist Convention. Until today Conservatism followed Orthodoxy?s legal lead, based in part on the biblical injunction that ?You shall not lie with a man as with a woman.? But many Conservative congregations have openly gay members, and pro-gay-rights...
...this a satisfactory balance? It?s hard to tell. Conservatism?s numbers have been shrinking steadily for over a decade, as more liberal members have moved into the Reform camp and members of so-called ?conservadox? congregations have become simply Orthodox. One religious body that will no doubt be watching closely is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). Last June the Presbyterians? National Assembly came up with a position of near-Talmudic complexity: it maintained language on ordination requiring "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness." At the same time, it granted local...