News Articles in Culture Digest

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Aug. 22 could be an ominous date for Israelis and Americans based on its significance this year as one of Islam’s most revered holy days, according to a Princeton professor who says Iran may be planning “cataclysmic events” to prepare the way for Shiite Muslims’ awaited messiah.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Violence on television has a tendency to affect what teenagers consider socially acceptable behavior, as researchers have said for years, but now a study has found a direct correlation between teens who watch wrestling on TV and those who demonstrate violent behaviors.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--As much of the nation reacts to actor Mel Gibson’s recent arrest on drunken driving charges and subsequent derogatory comments about Jews, a Southern Baptist pastor says Gibson’s behavior should not taint the message of the major motion picture he produced two years ago, “The Passion of The Christ.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Congressional action to protect San Diego's Mount Soledad cross now adds one more front to the battle over the monument constructed in 1954 as a tribute to veterans of the Korean War.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--The replacement of religion with secularization in American universities has left students unable to make sense of the world in which they live, a retired history professor from the University of Florida says in a new book.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--About 4 million cans of beer are sold each year at four stores in Whiteclay, Neb., a border town just a few hundred feet outside the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Most of the beer is sold to Indians, and it has caused so much trouble that leaders of the Oglala Sioux tribe are considering a beer blockade.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--The common belief that people who make more money are happier is mostly an illusion, according to a study appearing in the June 30 issue of the journal “Science.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Starting this fall, biology teachers in South Carolina will be instructed to “summarize ways that scientists use data from a variety of sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory,” after the state’s education leaders unanimously voted to amend curriculum standards.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Controversy has escalated in the Episcopal Church after the denomination that three years ago ordained an openly homosexual bishop chose a woman as its national leader -- a move that observers predict could signal a major global split within the larger Anglican Communion.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Potential candidates for the Republican nominee for president in 2008 are stirring quietly -- or not-so-quietly -- to secure the best shot at winning, and several such figures are increasingly willing to connect themselves to evangelicals.