The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/religion/page/3/)
Following the terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, a community vigil will be hosted on Monday from 5 – 6 p.m at the Muslim Chaplaincy in Ho Plaza. At the meanwhile, Cornellians have been coping with the tragedy through group prayer and discussion of issues that lead to the attack.
Christians at Cornell and across the world this month observe the season of Lent — a religious tradition that calls upon adherents to re-embrace their faith through commemoration of the 40 days that Jesus spent fasting in the Judean Desert following His baptism. Lent is a solemn season, and an important time for Christians to examine their own religiosity and the state of the church more broadly. This Lent, at least at a glance, the church appears troubled and on the defensive. The unfortunate truth is that Christian churches, like most religious institutions in the United States, have been a diminishing feature of public life for some time. The Pew Research Center notes that 20 percent of Americans are “religiously unaffiliated,” a number that has increased by five percent over the last five years.
After sitting for my senior portrait, each step I took as I emerged from Willard Straight felt suddenly significant — as though each was one closer to my youth’s looming end. I felt an unfamiliar urge for quiet contemplation and reflection. Sage Chapel seemed to beckon, so I obliged. The pilgrimage to Sage quickly became a part of my routine; five daily minutes in a sanctuary with a Bible seems to keep me spiritually satiated. I don’t consider myself religious, but I do, however, find solace in the words of radicals — people who dare to challenge the status quo and evangelize our collective imagination.
Telliel’s talk was part two of a three-part series hosted by the Near Eastern Studies department in its search for a new assistant professor.
Student Assembly on Thursday called on Cornell to consider hiring its first Hindu and Muslim chaplains and to require faculty to reschedule exams when more than three are scheduled within two days.
Following a number of reported incidents of bias against religious minorities at Cornell, organizations such as Cornell United Religious Work have vowed to provide solidarity and support to students.
My mother has a way of using gifts to assign required reading. She marks the inside sleeve with the month and year in which the task was handed down, and a little note reminding me who gave it. There’s a small mountain of these books out there, if you can find them. It’s really not an unreasonable tactic, and certainly not one that I resent. Coercion is, after all, the most direct thruway to the part of my brain with buttons and levers for doing things.
It has been many months since the end of Ramadan, the holy month of Islam. Here in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, expats who compose almost 90 percent of the population are left in despair as they face 120 degrees Fahrenheit heat, restaurants closed until 7 p.m. and roads filled with hasty drivers. During this month in which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset in accordance with one of the five pillars of Islam, misunderstandings between Muslims and non-Muslims widen. Some Muslims get annoyed at some non-Muslims who disrespect their fasting by eating in front of them. Other non-Muslims are displeased by the fact that they are not to eat in public during Ramadan.
Kruse ended with a discussion of the growing division among Evangelical Protestants over the election. After a recording of Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women surfaced this past month, many prominent Evangelical leaders who stood with Trump have rescinded their support.
The phrase “Rest in Peace” (Latin: Requiescat in pace) has been a fixture on Christian gravestones since the 18th century. Its meaning is apparent; let the soul of the person buried here find peace in death. Three words, easily said and seemingly innocuous, yet they have profound implications. There can be no rest without work; the notion of resting in death implies that life is some sort of toil. Then there is the peace aspect of the thing.