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Municipal laws cannot preempt federal immigration law, court rules.

…or How Not to Choose One

A Bloggingheads video on the week in religion…

Brothers and sisters, keep your hands on your wallets.

Sarah Palin did an about-face on the “hopey-changey thing” last week in Jacksonville when, as the headliner for the Evening of Hope, she and the other speakers on the program promoted lots of change—of the religious right kind.

Artist and theologian Mary Button went to Kenya for a Youth Peace Summit, made banners and signs with kids from all over Africa, bought a skirt that commemorated Barack Obama’s election, and came home to create a series of paintings on her experience.

The Gainesville event might be the final culmination of the age of hijackers, where a small group’s manipulation of a powerful vehicle has far-reaching disastrous effects. Only in this case, the vehicle is the Qur’an, not an airplane. And the manipulation need only be virtual. Never has book burning been so effective without even occurring. Symbolic actions on the internet and their consequences in the real world now occur almost simultaneously. And the threat of a symbolic gesture and an actual one become one and the same.

What was the spiritual harvest of the month of fasting, prayer, deep reflection, and discipline?

Last week the nation (and much of the world) watched Terry Jones, pastor of a minuscule Florida congregation, threaten to burn copies of the Qur’an on September 11, abruptly change his mind. But while much of the media attention to this story has actually revolved around, well, the media attention itself, this is a good time to ask ourselves what it means, historically and symbolically, to burn a holy book. And what does book burning have to do with the crucifixion?