Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On January 23, 2002, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that "leaders of more than 20 faiths and denominations in the St. Louis region will gather tonight to reflect on the call to peace found in their respective scriptures... Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Sikh and Ba'hai leaders will enter the sanctuary of the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica and individually read from their scripture about peace... Archbishop Justin Rigali, past chairman of the Cabinet of the Interfaith Partnership of Metropolitan St....

Source: The Washington Post

On January 23, 2002, The Washington Post reported that "seven years after the Air Force's top-ranked female fighter pilot began a one-woman crusade, the Defense Department yesterday dropped its requirement that female military personnel in Saudi Arabia put on black, head-to-toe gowns when leaving their base... Lt. Col. Martha McSally had sued Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over the dress code. She contended that the policy on abayas, a form of head-to-toe gown similar to the burqa worn by many women in Afghanistan,...

Source: The Boston Globe

On January 22, 2002, The Boston Globe reported that "in one of the more unusual experiments in Jewish-Christian relations, Hebrew College has moved onto land that was part of the campus of Andover Newton Theological School, and the two institutions are now trying to figure out how to become more than just neighbors... Administrators and faculty members say that over the seven years that they have been preparing for this relationship, new, more complex concerns have emerged as they try to move past the niceties of interfaith dialogue...

Source: The Houston Chronicle

On January 19, 2002, The Houston Chronicle featured an article on "the new Our Lady of Lavang, a Catholic church with touches of Vietnamese lore... The tallest of its multitiered, pagoda-like red roofs is topped by a cross - a symbol of the parishioners' faith. But the dragons perched on the edges of the roof and the 27-foot painted window of the Lady of Lavang are reminders of the homeland that many parishioners abandoned to begin new lives in the United States... Finishing touches are still being added to the 1,100-seat...

Source: Deseret News

On January 19, 2002, The Deseret News reported that "some 100 Utahns count themselves members of the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers... Members from congregations in Salt Lake, Ogden, Logan and Moab gathered at Salt Lake's First Congregational Church recently in their 'Midwinter Gathering,' their largest annual meeting. Author Michael Luick-Thrams from Germany talked about his book, Out of Hitler's Reach, which tells how a Quaker school in Iowa became a hostel for dissenting Germans."

Source: Los Angeles Times

On January 18, 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported that "a late-night rampage through a Mormon church in Moorpark [CA] is being investigated as a hate crime after someone scrawled graffiti on the pulpit, set fire to a scripture book and desecrated a painting depicting the Second Coming of Jesus Christ... Leaders of the 350-member congregation known as the 1st Ward, across the street from Moorpark College, said they were 'distressed and confused' by the incident, the first vandalism of any kind at the 15-year-old building......

Source: Rocky Mountain News

On January 18, 2002, the Rocky Mountain News reported that "vandals wrecked offices and sprayed gay slurs on the walls of an Arapahoe County house of worship Thursday in what church officials called a hate crime... Michael Hayes, a gay minister of music at the Columbine United Church... said he was the likely target of slurs written with red and green marker pens on the walls... The church's senior pastor, the Rev. Stephen Poos-Benson, may have been the target of one slur, which was written outside his office door. Poos-Benson...

Source: The Boston Globe

On January 16, 2002, The Boston Globe reported that "religious and civil rights leaders who battled each other over President Bush's faith-based initiative in 2001 said yesterday they had reached consensus on a number of ways government and the private sector could aid religious charities without violating the US Constitution's separation of church and state... The 33-person group, with members ranging across the political spectrum from the American Civil Liberties Union to Evangelicals for Social Action, agreed that government...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On January 16, 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported that "two Los Angeles officials Tuesday sought to reconsider a $30,000 fee waiver granted to the Nation of Islam for use of the Convention Center, following a challenge by the Anti-Defamation League... Under city policy, a waiver can be granted if the event is beneficial to the community... The event, called Saviors Day 2002, has an anti-gang focus, with workshops on community organizing, gang intervention and family relationships, said Tony Muhammad, western regional...

Source: Newsday

On January 15, 2002, Newsday reported that "after Sept. 11, many turned to God for comfort and hope. Prayer took on greater significance. But two religious leaders have come under attack by their own brethren for praying in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks... Rev. David Benke is president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's Atlantic District... and is pastor of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Brooklyn... Benke participated in 'A Prayer Service for America' at Yankee Stadium with politicians, celebrities and representatives from...

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0115/p2s2-ussc.html

On January 15, 2002 The Christian Science Monitor featured the article "Tides of support buoy a city's displaced Muslims." The article reported, "Here in Columbus, Ohio, a displaced Islamic school has found an unusual new home - a Congregational church. For the next several months, nearly 130 young Muslims will learn about the Koran and the prophet Muhammad in the same place where...

Source: The Boston Globe

On January 14, 2002, The Boston Globe featured "American Dream," an editorial about America's search for meaning. "Considered a sacred object in [Native American] culture, the web-like dream catcher - which is supposed to hang above a baby's cradle to trap nightmares and let good dreams into the soul - has become a staple in mall trinket stores... But while this popularization of the spiritual can be written off as the co-opting and secularizing of a belief system, it is, at its heart, a search for meaning... Our society is a...

Source: The Deseret News

On January 14, 2002, The Deseret News reported that "three meeting houses of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were evacuated Sunday following separate bomb threats." The incidents are being investigated by Sandy, Utah Police Lt. Kevin Thacker. "In each incident, a male with a young sounding voice called to express his dislike for the LDS Church and then said there was an explosive device in the building, Thacker said. In each case, the meeting house was evacuated and closed for the day while police went through each...

Source: The New York Times

On January 10, 2002, The New York Times reported that "in a case widely seen as the first legal challenge to the constitutionality of President Bush's religion-based initiative, a federal court in Wisconsin has ordered the state to stop giving money to a drug and alcohol addiction program that relied heavily on Christian spirituality in its approach to treatment... Faith Works has received nearly $1 million from Wisconsin, much of it during the tenure of [former] Gov. Tommy G. Thompson... In a decision made public late Tuesday,...

Source: Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000001664jan07.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dnation

On January 7, 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported that in Wisconsin, "a state representative from... West Salem is leading a drive to yank funding for Witch's $32,500-a-year post, saying taxpayers 'shouldn't be forced to accept this hocus-pocus.' Two other lawmakers have joined him in outrage; one...