Source: Los Angeles Times

On December 29, 2000, the Los Angeles Times reported that "American Muslims are slowly but steadily carving their mark on the Islamic world." Although only 3 to 10 million of the 1 billion Muslims in the world live in the United States, academic and religious freedom in America have helped to make them the "most educated, affluent and diverse Muslims in the world [and have] given them an impact greater than their numbers." The flourishing numbers of provocative Islamic thinkers in America "are tackling taboo subjects such as...

Source: The New York Times

On December 17, 2000, The New York Times reported that "when the Rev. Harold E. Quigley retired after almost 20 years at Stevens Memorial United Methodist Church here, he turned to a parishioner, Pat Gannon, and said, 'You know, it's all women now.' Rabbi Carla Freedman of the Jewish Family Congregation, a mile down the road, was thinking the same thing when she was driving around this bucolic hamlet not too long ago. All four houses of worship in South Salem, an upscale northern Westchester community approximately 50 miles from...

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On November 3, 2000, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that a billboard stating "You're waiting for a sign from GOD? This is it! Ordain women" went up on Milwaukee's east side. Leaders of the group say they hope the sign will inform people that papal efforts to silence the debate have not succeeded. The 25th anniversary of the Women's Ordination Conference will be marked with a convention at the Milwaukee Hilton. The conference overlaps a "three-day national Call to Action conference or reform-minded Catholics at the...

Source: The Washington Post

On October 31, 2000, The Washington Post reported that "Texas Baptists dealt a serious blow to the Southern Baptist Convention yesterday, voting to cut off $ 5 million in funds to protest a recent fundamentalist shift in the nation's largest Protestant denomination. Leaders of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, by far the largest of the denomination's state groups, and officials of the Southern Baptist Convention both saw the vote as a moment of truth, a warning that dissatisfaction with the national leadership's attempts...

Source: The Washington Post

On October 19, 2000, The Washington Post reported that, "in the middle of the summer, with the heat bearing down on the sun-baked, dusty gravel path along the C...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On October 10, 2000, the Los Angeles Times reported that "during Barbara Dreher's first year as province director of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 27 elderly nuns died. More important, no young women enrolled to take their place. Those who remained were aging rapidly, and the order lacked the long-term resources to care for them. A mortality study showed that the 350-year-old order was destined to disappear one day without a trace. Dreher's leadership team took drastic action. They sold property and cut living...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On August 12, 2000, the Los Angeles Times reported that while adolescent girls are two times more inactive than boys, for Muslim girls who follow religious laws of modesty, the problem can be even greater. These modesty requirements "eliminate public appearances in swimsuits, shorts, visible sports bras and tank tops. Once girls reach puberty, many choose to cover their hair, legs and arms; the most conservative families insist that the clothing be baggy enough to obscure the figure." Semeen Issa and the Muslim Women's League are...

Source: The Seattle Times

On July 30, 2000, The Seattle Times published an article entitled "Heir apparel? Immigrant Families and Cultural Trappings; Muslim Women Differ on Hijab, but Always Put Accent on Modesty" .

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On July 30, 2000, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that, "Women can become ordained ministers of the Church of God under a provision the governing body of the Pentecostal denomination adopted Saturday at the Trans World Dome...The change in church laws was approved by a show of hands of the majority of the 20,000 members" who recently attended the 68th General Assembly in St. Louis. "The general council of 3,000 ordained ministers had forwarded the measure, said Mary Ruth Stone, church spokeswoman. General Assembly...

Source: The Houston Chronicle

On July 22, 2000, The Houston Chronicle published the article entitled "Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese Remains Firm: No Women Priests." Despite the fact that the national Episcopal church accepted women into the priesthood 26 years ago, the Fort Worth diocese refuses to accept the national mandate. "We will stay and fight for the right to believe what we believe," said the Rev. Canon Charles Hough, a close associate of Fort Worth Episcopal Bishop Jack Iker. "They are asking us to do something we can't do. It's a matter of...

Source: The Financial Times Limited

On July 10, 2000, London's Financial Times Limited published an article about a new American phenomenon: religious revitalism that is increasingly, being led by Baby Boomer women. While events run by the all-male Christian group the Promise Keepers are experiencing their lowest attendance in years, the Women of Faith concert tour is filling up arenas and stadiums throughout the country. A recent event in Atlanta, with five video screens and pulsating lights, was "more rock concert than church sermon, underlining its...

Source: The Kansas City Star

On June 17, 2000, The Kansas City Star published an article entitled, "KC Reform Jews Speak Up for Women."

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

On June 16, 2000, The San Francisco Chronicle published an article entitled, Mass of Their Own; A Group Gathers Monthly in an Oakland Park to Celebrate a Vision of a Catholic Church in which Women are Equal."

Source: The Boston Globe

On June 15, 2000, The Boston Globe published an article on the SBC ban on women pastors. James Merritt, the Georgia pastor who is the newly elected president for the group, defended the ban on women pastors: "The issue is not competence; the issue is God's word. The calling by God to the pastorate is for the male only. I think a lot of these people who say they've been called are mistaken." The convention's stand against female pastors leading congregations was written into the revised Baptist Faith and Message statement. It does...

Source: The Washington Post

On June 15, 2000, The Washington Post reported that Southern Baptist leaders for the 15.8-million member denomination overwhelmingly voted to ban female pastors and change the Baptist Faith and Message Statement at their annual convention, held this year in Orlando, Florida. Although the ban on women pastors has caused the larger controversy outside of the denomination, the change to the Message Statement was the larger controversy within the denomination. In the 150-year history of the Baptist denomination, the Message had only...