Julia Duin

DUIN: Faith shared on Broadway

Perhaps everyone by now has at least heard of Max McLean's production of "Screwtape," the famous play about the letters of a senior devil (Screwtape) to Wormwood, a junior tempter. I am one of 75,000 people who have seen the 90-minute play.

January 21, 2010

Wuerl is early favorite for cardinal’s hat

Although the Vatican's anticipated announcement naming a new contingent of U.S. archbishops to the College of Cardinals likely is months away, observers are already placing their bets on which men will get the coveted red hat.

January 19, 2010

Pro-lifers to protest huge Houston clinic

Protesters are calling it an abortion supercenter: a 78,000-square-foot building just south of Houston that's shaped like a cash register and has a surgical wing on the third floor for second-trimester abortions.

January 18, 2010

Many faiths mobilize for earthquake relief

From Muslims to Mormons, religious groups across the country are opening their hearts and wallets to get food, water, blankets and medical help to millions of Haitians victimized by Tuesday's deadly 7.0 magnitude earthquake.

January 15, 2010

DUIN: Imax re-creates epic pilgrimage

I'd never heard of Ibn Battuta, the famed 14th-century Moroccan lawyer who at the age of 21 wanted to perform the hajj. Instead of a ride in an air-conditioned jet to Saudi Arabia, the trip in 1325 was a hazardous overland trek of 3,000 miles from Tangier to Mecca. Ibn Battuta had to detour via Damascus, where he joined a lengthy camel procession for the final 40-day trip to Mecca.

January 14, 2010

Catholics urged to act on health care bill

American Catholics will receive an insert in their church bulletins at this weekend's Masses asking them to lobby Congress on abortion restrictions in the pending health care bill.

January 13, 2010

Jewish group rips Islamic summit

A major Jewish organization accused several Muslim groups on Monday of using an Islamic summit in Chicago as a platform for extremist and anti-Semitic invective instead of its stated purpose to combat the increasing radicalization of Muslim-American youths.

January 12, 2010

DUIN: Coptic girls being abducted

Ten years ago, I was in Egypt interviewing Coptic Christians who described how persecution by Muslims had become a way of life for them. The situation is worse now because of increased abductions of Coptic girls, who are forced into a sham marriage with a Muslim, raped, forced to convert to Islam and separated for good from their families.

January 7, 2010

DUIN: Religious limits span the globe

Nearly every day I get an e-mail about a campaign on behalf of yet another luckless adherent of an unpopular religion who's languishing in some gulag. If it's not the Baha'is or Christians in Iran, it's the Muslims and the Falun Gong in China.

December 27, 2009

DUIN: Faithful find divine debate on health bill

Does God have an opinion on the Obama health care bill? Most religious groups think so, which may be why 1,950 Jews told Sen. Joe Lieberman to do "tshuvah" -- a Hebrew word meaning repentance -- for filibustering the bill until key provisions on Medicare and a public option were dropped last weekend.

December 24, 2009

Study: Mississippi is ‘most religious’ state

The South has risen again, at least in terms of belief in God.

December 22, 2009

DUIN: ‘Vianney’ examines an obscure saint

How can an ascetic Catholic cleric who survived on one potato a day become the patron saint of the world's priests?

December 20, 2009

DUIN: Roberts kept it interesting

Evangelist Oral Roberts, who died Tuesday, had one big media footprint.

December 17, 2009

Evangelist Oral Roberts dies at 91

Oral Roberts, one of the world's pre-eminent Pentecostal leaders and one of America's top evangelists and educators, died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia. He was 91.

December 16, 2009

Evangelist Oral Roberts dies at age 91

Oral Roberts, one of the world's pre-eminent Pentecostal leaders and one of America's top evangelists and educators, died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia. He was 91.

December 15, 2009

New book traces cleric’s religious revival

"Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community," a new book by The Washington Times' religion editor, Julia Duin, recounts the story of the 20th century's greatest religious revival and of an Episcopal cleric named Graham Pulkingham, without whom the pentecostal-charismatic movement might never have taken hold.

December 13, 2009

DUIN: ‘Mysterious’ puts Darwin on trial

A group of creationists decided they'd choose a creative way to mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday and the 150th anniversary of his most famous book, "On the Origin of Species."

December 13, 2009

DUIN: Faith chief not easy to reach

Not long ago at a meeting of the nation's religion writers in Minneapolis, reporters were seething about a particular no-show.

December 10, 2009

DUIN: Hindu pilgrimage remote, daunting

I like saying I've been to some of the world's best-known pilgrimage spots: Jerusalem, Rome, Medjugorje, Lourdes and Haifa (for the Baha'is). But a letter from a local Hindu minister revealed that I've missed the big kahuna of them all: Mount Kailash.

December 6, 2009

Lesbian elected Episcopal bishop in L.A.

Canon Mary D. Glasspool of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland was elected bishop on Saturday in a close race against a Los Angeles-area Hispanic cleric, making her the Episcopal Church's first openly lesbian bishop.