Word: secularation
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...shore up his personal standing at the expense of rivals, just as Saddam did. Vice President Adel Abdel-Mahdi, a prominent Shi'ite, has openly criticized the centralization of power in the Prime Minister's office. "We don't want another dictator in Baghdad," says Maysoon al-Damluji, a secular Member of Parliament. "It worries us all that [Maliki] is beginning to behave like a tyrant...
...Miller and his colleagues presented findings from two controlled trials in which patients underwent drug treatment. Some of the patients received spiritual guidance as part of the treatment - learning such practices as prayer, meditation and service to others, all of which are central to 12-step programs. Others received secular psychotherapy. Because of the enduring popularity of AA and similar programs that involve a spiritual component, Miller and his team expected the patients in the spiritual group to do better than those in the secular group. They were wrong - at least in the short term...
While both groups eventually benefited relatively equally from their treatment - abusing substances on fewer days - it took longer to see improvement among those in the spiritual group. What's more, those who received spiritual guidance reported being significantly more anxious and depressed after four months than those who got secular help. Those problems abated at about the eight-month point, but because substance abusers are at high risk for suicide, some worry that it may not be a good idea to put them through demanding spiritual calisthenics in the early months of their recovery. (Read a 2007 TIME cover story...
...latest book, Great Awakening: 7 Ways to Change the World, Wallis lays out the challenges facing the new president, and explains how people of faith and their secular allies can come together to find solutions. In a new introduction written after the presidential election, he appeals to fellow "misfits," those who "are not satisfied with shallow answers or the easy faith of our time or the partisan reductions of faith to ideology and culture wars." Wallis talked to TIME about Rick Warren, the ongoing culture wars, and praying for the Obamas. (See the 25 most influential Evangelicals in America...
...Sadr's movement once enjoyed among Iraq's Shi'ites seems to have declined too as Iraqis appear to grow increasingly weary of sectarian politics. A recent poll published by the National Media Center, which is funded by the Iraqi government, said 42% of Iraqis hoped to see secular candidates win in the coming provincial elections (31% said they wanted candidates from religious parties to take seats...