Religion

I didn't have a very strong religious upbringing, though it didn't start out that way. My mother was a regular churchgoer and took me with her every Sunday. My father was an agnostic who never set foot near a church, but he didn't interfere with my mother's wishes, so I went to Sunday school and learned the stories in the Bible. Then one day, it was announced that we were to have a revival. We were all going to be saved. That conjured up images of angels, and I was very excited at the thought that I would have wings and be able to fly, but when I said I wanted to go, my mother said I was too young.

In response to questions about part-time Newport-Mesa resident and pro golfer Tiger Woods, who recently admitted to having extramarital affairs, Fox News commentator Brit Hume had this to say: “He’s said to be a Buddhist; I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.

As members of the Newport-Mesa-Irvine Interfaith Council Board of Directors, we are appalled at the implied violence found in the graffiti attack on St. Thomas More Roman Catholic Church in Irvine on Jan. 11. A graffiti attack and the implied violence on one religion is an attack on all religions. The freedom of religion, the right to worship or not worship, is a right of all Americans, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. We affirm our continued support of our Catholic brothers and sisters in Orange County in the Newport-Mesa-Irvine congregations and are especially sorry that such an event took place right here within our three-city community.

Noaki Schwartz No matter how often Crystal Bujol read the Bible as a girl, she never found what she was looking for. So her mother, an assistant pastor, took it upon herself to spin the tales and in her telling gave Bujol a connection to her religion. "Where is God's wife or sister?" Bujol said, recalling how she felt reading the Bible as a child. "I wanted to talk to God about ... when he was going to have a daughter." Years later, as a minister, Rev. Bujol found that other women also craved this same need to belong and see themselves in their religion.

Change. Does anyone really like it? I know our readers really don't. Since we made changes to our features section the first part of this month, I've received several calls and e-mails complaining about the decision to move the Faith page from Page 2 to deeper inside the paper. The message of the callers was that we had relegated religion to a less-than-important topic with our actions. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, let's talk about the feature that we placed on Page 2 on Saturdays instead of Faith.

Alex Coolman As a child, Crystal Bujol liked to read the Bible, but it was a book that always left her with the same question: 'Where is God's wife?' Women, as far as Bujol could tell, didn't play a very prominent role in the Christianity of her parents. For that matter, it didn't seem to Bujol, who is black, that the men who were at the core of the religion were much like her either. 'All the Sunday schools ... had a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus,' Bujol said.

Hearing the word "respect," one might be reminded of the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who never got any. But, in the real world, callous lack of respect contributes powerfully to inter-ethnic and inter-religious violence and death. I recently received two e-mails that demonstrated how disrespect poisons relations between religions. An extremist Israeli rabbi described non-Jews as "donkeys" whose purpose is to serve Jews. A radical Islamic cleric in Syria characterized Jews as "pigs and monkeys.

Last week, the Episcopal Church for the first time elected a woman bishop as its leader, potentially triggering a fight with the worldwide Anglican Church. This is not the first time the Episcopal Church has been in the news for such "progressive" decisions, nor is it the only one that struggles with its place in contemporary society. How should religious leaders ? not to mention the faithful ? balance progress with tradition? Change is inevitable ? except from vending machines.

We have several new faces and several changes to announce. Today, we begin a new era at the Daily Pilot with the addition of our new front-page columnist Lolita Harper. Titled Thinking Allowed, Harper's column will bring a fresh voice and perspective to our news pages with a purely local tinge, from the sandy beaches to the shops of South Coast Plaza. Her column will run Monday, Wednesday and Friday, on topics from schools to crime, as well as her old stomping grounds at Costa Mesa City Hall.

TONY DODERO Back when I started in this business, telephones and U.S. mail were the main lines of communication to the newsroom. Going through the mail was a tumultuous affair. Stacks upon stacks of press releases and letters would be piled up on the desk of nearly every editor and reporter. Letter openers and paper cuts were common. If you used the word mouse, most people thought it was just a rodent loose in the mail stack on your desk, not a computer tool.