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With a Muslim insurgency threatening to destabilize Thailand’s south, armed soldiers have begun shadowing the area’s Buddhist monks as they make their daily rounds begging for alms. “With its barbed wire, sandbag bunker and armed guard, Wat Lak Muang in Thailand’s strife-torn deep south looks more like a military outpost than a typical Buddhist temple,”…

Chicago’s Playboy Club of the 1960s was nothing like the new NBC prime-time drama, says former Playboy Bunny Marilyn Miller. But she may not have much to worry about — the show is unlikely to be around for long. It got off to a very rocky start, tanking in the ratings and prompting a boycott of advertisers…

“It is often pointed out, contrary to what most people expect, that there is a positive correlation between being pro-life and supporting the death penalty,” writes Dr. Richard Land in the Washington Post‘s “On Faith” section. “Conversely, there is also a positive correlation between being pro-choice and being against the death penalty.” Dr. Land is…

British stand-up comic and talk-show host Frank Skinner has never been politically correct. But now he’s done it. He’s come out of the closet. He’s dared to defy the establishment and reveal that, yes, the rumors are true. He can’t deny it any longer. He’s tired of hiding. He’s … a Christian. “By outing himself…

Already annoyed by ads with the goddess Lakshmi in skimpy swimwear and a disk jockey who called the holy Ganges River a junkyard, Australian Hindus are irked by a play pitting Hitler versus the god Ganesh. “Ganesh Versus the Third Reich” is a comedy scheduled for the  Melbourne Festival. News of its storyline has caused consternation…

You might call it a relic of the 1950s, a souvenir of the Eisenhower years, back when America had just defeated the Nazis and was faced with the threat of Communism. Those were “Leave It to Beaver,” “Father Knows Best,” “Ozzie and Harriet” days — back when everybody went to church and kids always had a…

A group of German protesters plan to yell and make other noise outside the Pope’s bedroom on this weekend when he visits Berlin. Pope Benedict XVI will be flying into the German capital for a four-day visit starting Thursday. Thousands of  Catholic faithful are streaming into the city to attend a papal mass expected to draw 70,000. However, the…

The Southern Baptists are considering changing their name. “The announcement from Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright of a presidential task force to study the prospect of changing the convention’s name sparked a lively debate during the SBC Executive Committee meeting Sept. 19 in Nashville, Tenn.,” writes Mark Kelly with the Baptist Press news service.…

With his elderly father suffering from the confusion that comes with too many old-age ailments, Steven Travers felt the two of them still needed to have a heart-to-heart talk. But he feared it would not be easy. “I girded myself,” Travers writes in an extremely personal column in the San Francisco-area Marin Independent Journal. “Would he understand?…

The statue of a bare-breasted woman has been uncovered in a Bristol, England, church where John Wesley preached. Art experts removed a piece of 17th century armor consisting of a breastplate and backplate so that “she now stands – as they believe the artist intended – with her green frock pulled down and a red shawl…

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