 |
|
|
|
|
May 10th, 2013
09:09 PM ET
Uncle: Tamerlan Tsarnaev buried in VirginiaBy Greg Botelho and Paula Newton, CNN (CNN) – The body of one of the two men accused of pulling off the Boston Marathon attack has been buried in rural Virginia - a development that local officials said caught them totally "off guard." Tamerlan Tsarnaev's remains were accepted "by an interfaith coalition in that community - they responded to our calls," his uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of Maryland, told CNN. The body was buried in an unmarked grave in a Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Virginia, according to Tsarni. "My tradition was that of a Muslim, and I have that tradition of burial, and people helped me with that," he said in a phone interview. The death certificate released by Massachusetts authorities indicates that Tsarnaev, whose cause of death was listed as gunshot wounds and "blunt trauma to (his) head and torso," was interred at Al-Barzakh Muslim Cemetery in Doswell, which is about 25 minutes north of Richmond in a rural county of about 30,000 people. While the news came out Friday, Bukhari Abdel-Alim from the Islamic Funeral Services of Richmond said Tsarnaev was actually buried the previous morning. Speaking Friday from the cemetery, which his organization owns, Abdel-Alim said there was "no intention to ... make anybody angry," but that he and others felt obligated to do what "God says to do" by putting Tsarnaev's "body back into the earth."  Tibetans at a protest in Taipei in 2011 display portraits of people who killed themselves by self-immolation.
January 2nd, 2013
07:00 AM ET
My Take: Blood on Chinese hands in Tibetan self-immolations
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN (CNN) –China Daily, an English-language newspaper and a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, last week published an article called “Western Voices Question Tibetan Self-Immolation Acts.” The first of the voices quoted was mine—for a Belief Blog piece I wrote last summer criticizing the Dalai Lama for averting his gaze from the spate of self-immolations protesting Chinese rule in Tibet. "If the Dalai Lama were to speak out unequivocally against these deaths, they would surely stop. So in a very real sense, their blood is on his hands," I wrote in a passage quoted in the Chinese Daily piece. In my post, I wrote of an “epidemic of self-immolations,” noting that from mid-March to mid-July 2011 more than 40 Tibetans had set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Since then, the pace of these protests has accelerated. According to the International Campaign for Tibet, 94 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011, and the pace in November was nearly one a day. 
October 11th, 2012
01:53 PM ET
Letting death happen, is it suicide?By Steve Kastenbaum, CNN (CNN) – Grace Sung Eun Lee is going to die. The 28 year old former bank manager has advanced terminal brain cancer. The once vibrant, athletic woman is now kept alive by machines which she wanted to turn off. However, her devoutly religious parents convinced her that she was effectively committing suicide, and that she would be condemned to hell. So she changed her mind. FULL STORYTibetans at a protest in Taipei in 2011 display portraits of people who killed themselves by self-immolation.
July 12th, 2012
09:28 AM ET
My Take: Dalai Lama should condemn Tibetan self-immolations
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN When the Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Duc immolated himself in Saigon in 1963 to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem, the world took notice. Malcolm Browne’s photograph of the monk becoming a martyr won the Pulitzer Prize, and Diem's Roman Catholic regime fell before the year’s end. Today, Tibet is witnessing an epidemic of self-immolations. In fact, since March 16, 2011, more than 40 Tibetans have followed Thich Quang Duc’s lead, setting themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Westerners react with revulsion to sati, the Hindu practice of widow-burning outlawed by the British in 1829, and of course to Islamist suicide bombers. The New Atheists are right to protest all this killing in the name of God (or the Buddha) – the way believers both prompt violence and justify it in the name of some higher good. So where are the protests against these Tibetan protesters?  Mack Wolford and his father were both serpent handlers who died of snake bites.
June 1st, 2012
09:19 PM ET
Death of snake handling preacher shines light on lethal Appalachian traditionBy Julia Duin, Special to CNN (CNN) – Mack Wolford, one of the most famous Pentecostal serpent handlers in Appalachia, was laid to rest Saturday at a low-key service at his West Virginia church a week after succumbing to a snake bite that made headlines across the nation. Several dozen family, friends and members of Wolford's House of the Lord Jesus church in tiny Matoaka filled the simple hall for the service, which lasted slightly more than an hour. At the request of pastor's widow, Fran Wolford, media were forbidden inside the building.
Wolford's own dad was a serpent handler who died from a snake bite in 1983.
April 20th, 2012
05:00 PM ET
My Take: In tears of grief, lines between faiths seem to blur
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN (CNN)–I saw a 16-year-old girl buried Thursday. At the prayer service, her younger brother, weeping, choked on his words. Her younger sister told us not to be sad. Her father said, “I believe in God, I believe in God, I believe in God,” perhaps because he was no longer so sure, or maybe just for emphasis. Her mother said that parents are not supposed to bury their children, and then she did. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories  As Christians celebrate Good Friday, Pastor Kerry Shook explores how Jesus spent his last days on Earth.
April 6th, 2012
12:29 PM ET
My Take: If I had only a month to live
By Kerry Shook, Special to CNN (CNN) - Jimmy Dowden, a church member, approached me after church one Sunday with some sad news. He said his cancer had returned, and the doctors told him he had only six to 10 weeks to live. Though as a pastor, I’ve faced crises like this, it is always difficult and painful. Filled with compassion, I immediately told him that my wife, Chris, and I, along with our whole Woodlands Church, would be praying for him. His response might come as a surprise to some. “That’s fine," he said, "but really I need to pray for you and the church. I’m praying for you that you won’t be distracted by life.”  Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, left, is accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians.
March 19th, 2012
10:31 AM ET
My Take: It takes a nation to make a massacre
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN We now know the name of the man accused of leaving his combat unit in Afghanistan's Kandahar Province on March 11, walking into two Afghan villages and murdering 16 innocent people, including 9 children. The narratives we are supposed to follow here are clear, and each absolves the rest of us of any sin. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was mentally unstable and went off the deep end. Or perhaps he was a cold-blooded killer all along. Either way, he deserves to be separated from the rest of us by life in prison, or worse. But why is this 38-year-old husband and father of two sitting today in solitary confinement at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas? I do not know. I suspect, however, that the answer is more complicated than the simple stories we tell ourselves in these circumstances.
February 18th, 2012
10:00 PM ET
Facing death, a top pastor rethinks what it means to be ChristianEditor's Note: The short film accompanying this story, called "My Garden," comes from EdsStory.com. CNN.com is premiering the latest installment in the "Ed's Story" series. By Dan Merica, CNN Washington (CNN) – Ed Dobson is not afraid of dying. It’s the getting there that really scares him. A former pastor, onetime Christian Right operative and an icon among religious leaders, Dobson has Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. When he was diagnosed, doctors gave him 3 to 5 years to live. That was 11 years ago. “I am a tad happy to be talking to you right now,” joked Dobson, whose voice has deteriorated since his preaching days, in a phone interview. Speaking with him feels like being exposed to a brief moment of clarity. He speaks slowly, but with an understated confidence and authority.
February 18th, 2012
05:38 PM ET
My Take: Houston funeral brings world inside black church
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN Whitney Houston gave a lot of gifts to the world. She gave us the best rendition ever of "The Star-Spangled Banner." She gave us “I Will Always Love You.” But Saturday at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, where as a girl she sang in the choir, she gave us a church service — a chance for people of all races to see what church looks like inside the community that gave Houston (and us) her voice. “There are more stars here than the Grammys,” said Houston’s music director, Rickey Minor, and the service did feature pop star Stevie Wonder and music mogul Clive Davis, among others. But so much of popular music started in the black church, and today the black church talked back. CNN's Belief Blog – all the faith angles to the day's top stories In other words, this was an unapologetically Christian service, replete with references to salvation and “amazing grace,” where even the pop stars were transformed into gospel singers. People crossed themselves. They raised their hands to heaven. And the congregation kept shouting back: “Yes!” and “That’s it!” and “Praise the Lord!” |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke and Eric Marrapodi with daily contributions from CNN's worldwide newsgathering team and frequent posts from religion scholar and author Stephen Prothero.  |
|
|
|
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertise with us | About us | Help | Advertising Practices
Editor's note: Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "
Pastor Kerry Shook and his wife, Chris, founded Woodlands Church near Houston. They are the authors of the New York Times bestseller 
