Word: worshipers
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...artists. The Hamas-run municipality in Kalkilya, a West Bank town, banned a poetry and dance festival in July because men and women wouldn't be separated. A mural commissioned for a public park in Nablus was barred by the city engineer because it "constituted idol worship and is not allowed in Islam." And sometimes the conflicts turn ugly. The town's rebirth extends to the culinary arts: Ramallah has 20 top-class restaurants, all better than anything else in the West Bank or Gaza, including five that have opened just in the last six months. But restaurateurs...
...last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was in 1994. Leaders at Willow Creek Community Church, a congregation in the affluent Chicago suburbs where about 15,000 people worship each weekend, said that attendance wasn't great. This year, they decided to try "an experiment in decentralizing the congregation on Christmas morning," says senior pastor Bill Hybels. If you want to sing some carols and share the Christmas peace at Willow Creek on Dec. 25, you'll have to do it alone, out in the church parking lot. "In our community, people-particularly seekers who may not normally attend church...
...Still, that "family values" argument-that this day can be an opportunity for Christian families to worship together at home-carries little weight with some critics. "The church is supposed to be brothers and sisters in Christ-the primary family. These churches are putting the wants and needs of the physical family first, not that spiritual family," says Ben Witherington, a theologian at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky. "Our society is narcissistic enough. We don't need to encourage more me-focused behavior...
...Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds not only demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops but also gave implicit support to the insurgency by calling resistance "a legitimate right," so long as it doesn't involve "terrorism and acts of violence" against civilians, institutions and houses of worship...
Before he arrived in China, the President took some swipes at Beijing. Giving a speech in Japan on what aides call his "freedom agenda" for Asia, he lauded Taiwan for democratic advances and urged mainland China to yield to citizens who want to "worship without state control." The salvo might have been less brazen than when Bill Clinton in 1998 reprimanded then President Jiang Zemin on live TV in Beijing for "the use of force" at Tiananmen Square. But Bush's gesture no doubt delighted his conservative base. After the service, he stood outside the church with his arm around...