Religion

Lyndale United Church of Christ (lyndaleucc.org) at 31st Street and Aldrich voted on December 7 to sell our building to New Wine Church of St. Paul (newwinechurch.org)! If only it were that easy. A done deal. MORE »

It’s been quite a year in the Twin Cities, and the Daily Planet has been on the scene. With the help of our media partners and our tireless citizen journalists, in 2008 we published over 10,000 articles, blog entries, photos, and event listings. When we saw that the Minnesota Independent had tallied their top ten most-read articles for the year, we were inspired to check the stats and see what articles Daily Planet readers found most fascinating in 2008. MORE »

After being vacant for over a decade, a church in the Cottage Park area of the Jordan neighborhood in Minneapolis is finally opening its doors. The Church of Gethsemane, a non-denominational congregation, bought the building in 2003, but has had difficulty securing funding for renovations. Finally, after a little help from Catalyst Community Partners, a nonprofit group, the congregation was able to have a simple Christmas Eve service in the nearly finished building, and will have an opening ceremony on January 11 at 10:30 a.m., followed by a reception at Urban League in North Minneapolis. MORE »

Sitting in one of the few chairs set up against the wall at DeLaSalle’s homecoming dance, I watch as the large crowd of excited students shrinks into one huddle as Soulja Boy’s Lyrics blast through the loud speakers: “Dis girl gotta donk. She finna shake it all night. Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!” MORE »

Shopping, cleaning, cooking, and plenty of shoveling — the holidays are hard enough without the stress of family conflict. Most families have at least minor disagreements over the holidays, but for some the conflict resides in the religious basis of the holiday itself. MORE »

What is the reason for the season? For some it’s to squabble over when and where people celebrate the birth of the Christian messiah Jesus Christ, and it’s part of the holiday tradition known as the “War on Christmas.” This year the war features a child-molesting Santa Claus, Nazis, gay marriage, Frank Costanza’s Festivus pole and a look back at the most anti-Christian Christmas-bashers in American history: the Puritans. MORE »

Hypnotized by the idea of getting presents from a jolly old man who ate the red and green sugar cookies I decorated for him, the true Catholic spirit of the Advent and Christmas was lost on me as a child.

My parents tried their best to involve me in the more traditional activities: lighting the candles on our Advent wreath, counting down the days until Christ’s birth with an Advent calendar, setting up the nativity scene at our Church. This proved futile. As a young child I could not grasp the significance of the Christmas season any better than I could grasp the meaning of what it meant to be a Catholic. MORE »

If you accept taxpayer money, you have to accept that you’re going to receive public scrutiny. MORE »