Secular children show more altruism than religious ones, study finds
Children raised in secular households tend to be more generous and less punitive toward others than children raised in religious ones, according to new research published this month in the journal...
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How religious are Minnesotans?
.mp .chart {margin-bottom:0; height: 450px;} .mp .credit {margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding:0;} .mp .float-left {margin: 0 1em 1em 0;}Friday is Christmas, when Christians celebrate the birth Jesus Christ,...
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Wandering the desert: Author Tom Bissell on separating fact from fiction in...
Photo by Joanna DeGeneresTom BissellFor five years, writer Tom Bissell worked on a novel about the Apostle John, before he resigned himself to the fact that his “half historical, half contemporary”...
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In times of tragedy, why don't the media get atheists' perspective?
Our hearts are filled with grief after the horrific tragedy in Orlando. Keep the victims and their families in your thoughts and prayers.— Rep. Erik Paulsen (@RepErikPaulsen) June 12, 2016The aftermath...
View ArticleHow Eid al-Adha is celebrated — and why some Muslim-Americans were relieved...
As with each important date in the Islamic calendar, Muslims around the world turned their ears last week to hear reports about the sighting of the September crescent moon in anticipation of Eid...
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Chick tracts: Lurid cartoons belong to a 20th-century chapter of the culture...
Andy SturdevantCC/Flickr/Joe CrawfordChick tracts in the wild.Jack T. Chick, the creator of those horrifying evangelical cartoon booklets found for years in the bus stations, laundromats, video arcades...
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Hair-raising haircut underscores our need to talk about Islam
A couple of weeks ago I was having a haircut in a Twin Cities hair salon. The staff was nice enough to accommodate my special need for a private place and a no-man zone during the time I have my...
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As Minnesota congregations become more diverse, churches struggle to find...
Ibrahim HirsiTwenty-six years ago, when Jacqueline Belzer immigrated to the United States, there were only two churches in the Twin Cities that served Catholics who wanted to worship in Spanish.Back...
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Cornerstone of Duluth’s Black community: St. Mark’s AME Church
Natalie HeneghanCourtesy of the Minnesota Historical SocietySt. Mark’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, Duluth, 2001.St. Mark’s African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church has played a central role in...
View ArticleNo scientific evidence that 'thoughts and prayers' have an effect on healing
Susan PerryAfter each mass shooting in the United States, politicians, pundits and the public take to the airwaves and social media to offer their “thoughts and prayers” for the victims. They did so...
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How Mennonites came to Cottonwood County, Minnesota
Elaine E. KroekerBelieving that war and violence are inconsistent with Jesus’s teachings to love one’s enemies, a group of people from Molotschna Colony, Russia — Mennonites of Dutch descent — searched...
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Founded in 1888, St. Peter Claver Church was Minnesota’s first African...
Kathryn R. GoetzFounded in 1888, St. Peter Claver Church was the first African American Catholic Church in Minnesota. The parish was created by St. Paul’s African American Catholic community and an...
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As Easter approaches, thoughts on challenges facing our churches
Chuck SlocumChristians throughout the world number about 2.4 billion, or just over one in three people on Earth; followers of Islam rank second (1.6 billion) followed by Hinduism (1.15 billion).The...
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Church of St. Columba: ‘A high point of modern church architecture in the...
Paul NelsonThe Church of St. Columba in St. Paul’s Hamline-Midway neighborhood is the only Minnesota work by the Chicago architect Francis Barry Byrne. Architectural historian and critic Larry Millett...
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Liberals and conservatives imagine the face of God differently, psychologists...
Susan PerryThe image of God that American Christians hold in their mind looks nothing like the rather stern, bearded old white man painted by Michelangelo (or, for that matter, the one depicted by...
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