Word: secularized
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Among a dozen likely protesters interviewed in Tehran, most of whom were recent university students, the picture that emerged was one of intense dissatisfaction with the theocratic regime, a system forcing its strict religious codes on a progressively more secular youth population. But many of them do not desire regime change or welcome the violence that would surround such a revolution. Many recall that their parents suffered through such chaos in the run-up to the 1979 Islamic revolution (coincidentally fueled by gatherings commemorating the 40-day anniversaries of those killed in street clashes). Nor do today's young protesters...
...parties over the past 30 years has not been encouraging. Ayatullah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) during the 1979 revolution that ended the rule of the Shah, corralling his various supporters into a single organization. Yet Khomeini used the IRP to push out the competing groups - secular and Islamic - that had taken part in the revolution, consolidating the postrevolutionary government under his auspices. Afterward, the IRP, the only official party in Iran during the 1980s, quickly became a vehicle for factional disputes over economic and social policies. Khomeini disbanded it in 1987. (Presidential candidate and former speaker...
...Shas party has been embroiled in a corruption controversy. Two Shas ministers have been convicted on corruption charges in recent years. Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem, explains that some parts of the ultra-Orthodox community tend to disregard secular law, despite a tenacious adherence to the minutest detail of Jewish religious ritual. Says Halevi: "You have a kind of borderless community that in its best expressions maintains international charity efforts that are second to none. But the dark side of this is a mentality that often too easily slides into...
...curse onstage. I arrived at the college-campus-size Orange County church on a Saturday afternoon. After being taught various improv games with the five members of the troupe, none of which involved the Bible or moral lessons, I asked them what the difference was between secular and Christian improv. "We're dirtier," said Jeremy Bryan Barnes. Then he explained why they weren't doing Christian comedy. "When we started, we'd get requests from groups to do jokes about Noah. But it wasn't fun. We'd work too hard to work in Noah...
...when Kevin Roose, author of the excellent new book The Unlikely Disciple, told me that Rick Warren's giant Saddleback Church has its own improv group, for the first time in my life, I felt my calling. I may not be the Woody Allen or Jon Stewart of the secular world, but in the land of the unfunny Christian, the one-joked Jew is king. (See pictures of John 3:16 in pop culture...