Word: secularization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...court also helped revive civil society by permitting religious values to compete equally with secular ones. The First Amendment's Establishment Clause was designed not to put religion at a disadvantage, as the court had recently interpreted it, but merely to prevent government from promoting religion. Prohibiting aid to religious schools forces parents to pay once for the public school that does not reflect their values and once for a school that does. But last term Rehnquist correctly held that parents should be able to choose between using a voucher at a religious and at a secular school. This decision...
...Muslim needy. Others, from a distance, flood whole populations with Christian TV and radio, tracts by the tens of thousands and offers of correspondence courses, hoping that a few seeds will take root. In the dozens of Muslim countries that deny "religious worker" visas, ever more Evangelicals take secular jobs to enter less obtrusively. Many show exquisite sensitivity, sharing their Lord only with people whose intimate friendships they have earned...
There is also a small secular culture war about whether these books are good enough to deserve their acclaim, whether they will endure as classics or fade as fads. The charge, which given the mass popularity is typically made rather quietly, is that the stories are formulaic and conventional. The attack came first and most famously from stuffy Yale professor Harold Bloom, keeper of keys to the literary kingdom, who dismissed the first Harry Potter book as thin and derivative in a 2000 article in the Wall Street Journal and has since refused to look at any of the sequels...
...counselor is becoming increasingly common among soon-to-be-marrieds who are in search of wisdom about navigating marital obstacles. Marriage mentoring is a venerable practice that's going mainstream. It has roots in the Roman Catholic Church, has spread to other denominations and is growing in popularity among secular groups. Since the mentoring is done by volunteers, it can provide counseling for those who can't afford a couples therapist. Many like it because the process seems more relaxed. The only expense is a premarital inventory test ($15 or so), which a couple takes to assess the relationship...
...challenge to Pakistan's shaky, secular government is the last thing Musharraf needs, but the mullahs are pushing a showdown. The Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a political bloc of six religious groups, intends to set up a morality police to enforce Islamic virtue, raising cries among human-rights activists against the "Talibanization" of the province. But popular support for the change is evident: even before the law imposing Shari'a was passed, Islamic youths roamed the town of Peshawar tearing down billboards featuring images of unburqa'd women. The religious parties warned Musharraf not to interfere. "We will resist...