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Culture Wars
September 06 2011 By virtueonline NEW YORK: Clergy prayer ban at 9/11 event faulted

Evelyn Erskine, a Bloomberg spokeswoman, said the program was designed in coordination with 9/11 families and included readings that were "spiritual and personal in nature." Six moments of silence were planned for personal reflection and prayer. Police and fire chaplains who work with the 9/11 families will attend.

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September 02 2011 By virtueonline The Church's Moment in the Unraveling of the West

While out-of-wedlock births continue to rise, more and more people are simply not having children at all, leading to depopulation of the West on a scale unprecedented. Add to this the radical redefinition of marriage and family to include same-sex couples and the future of the natural family-an institution essential to a healthy society-only promises to worsen.

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August 30 2011 By virtueonline Why are there more divorces in the Bible Belt?

This is not just an exercise in comparative fidelity. There are real social consequences for the high levels of divorce, especially for women and children:

...Divorce still pushes more women into poverty than men and affects their children, since children are still more likely to live with their mothers (75%) than their fathers (25%), according to the same U.S. Census report.

Some other findings:

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August 27 2011 By virtueonline Chautauqua Hosts Religious Left

Schori and Robinson both represent the extreme left in old-line Protestant circles, touting sexual liberation and political correctness. Campolo has a more dynamic history. Based on "Red-Letter" Christianity, which derives political liberalism from the Sermon on the Mount, he has been a faithful ally of Democratic politicians. Of late Campolo has aligned strongly with the post-modern and usually theologically vague Emergent Church movement.

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August 25 2011 By virtueonline Cohabitation: Largest Threat to Children

While 27% of children experienced a parental divorce if they were born in the late 1970s, only 23% of those born 20 years later live through a divorce. (However, that's triple the 8% divorce rate of kids born in Britain or France, and shatters 1 million U.S. kids annually.)

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August 23 2011 By virtueonline Fighting divorce could save government billions: divorce-reform advocates

The costs of divorce, and efforts to reform divorce law, were the subject of a recent Washington Times article, where it was reported that on average a divorce costs a couple $2,500, up front. But that doesn't take into account the costs of government support for single-parent families, which the Times reports can cost anywhere from $20-30,000/year.

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August 20 2011 By virtueonline Setting the Record Straight: Bachmann, Schaeffer and the Christian Right

I became even more apprehensive about this merger between religion and politics in the wake of George W. Bush's reign, given the extent to which his administration cozied up to the Christian Right and vice versa. That uneasiness was not lessened one iota by Barack Obama's ascension to the Oval Office, which was met with ecstasy by the Christian Left.

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August 19 2011 By virtueonline Wiccan Holidays Added to Vanderbilt Calendar

Wiccans (or in the case of women, witches) practice a form of paganism. Some followers of the three Abrahamic religions -- Christianity, Judaism and Islam -- don't consider Wiccans to practice a mainstream religion. An Episcopal priest, Glyn Lorraine Ruppe Melnyk of Malvern, Pa.,, outraged followers of that mainline Protestant denomination when she revealed seven years ago that she was a Wiccan/witch.

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August 18 2011 By virtueonline Evangelicals and the Gay Moral Revolution

The liberal churches and denominations have an easy way out of this predicament. They simply accommodate themselves to the new moral reality. By now the pattern is clear: These churches debate the issue, with conservatives arguing to retain the older morality and liberals arguing that the church must adapt to the new one. Eventually, the liberals win and the conservatives lose. Next, the denomination ordains openly gay candidates or decides to bless same-sex unions.

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August 15 2011 By virtueonline The Separation of Gay Church and State

On August 8, 2011, our LGBTQIA Office circulated its own list of gay-friendly churches. The taxpayer-funded endorsements went out to the following five churches:

1. St. Jude's Metropolitan Community Church
19 N. 26th Street, Wilmington, NC 28405
Telephone: 910-762-5833
http://www.stjudesmcc.org/
e-mail: stjudes@bellsouth.net

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