Sermons

CAIRO -- Ratcheting up the pressure on followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian authorities in effect have banned tens of thousands of unlicensed clerics from delivering mosque sermons. The ban appears to be aimed at neutralizing imams, or preachers, who have been speaking out -- even if only in allegorical fashion -- against the July 3 coup that deposed Mohamed Morsi , the country's democratically elected Islamist president. Such sermons sometimes take place in unlicensed mosques or small community prayer rooms known as zawiyas . About 55,000 so-called freelance clerics will be affected, said Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa , whose heads the state Ministry of Endowments, which regulates some religious assets and issued the ruling.

UCLA cornerback Fabien Moreau has had a slight limp in practice this week, the result of a left leg injury he suffered against Colorado on Saturday. Coach Jim Mora said that Moreau would play. But cornerback Brandon Sermons is ready should Moreau be unable to play, or gets reinjured. “Hopefully, Fabien heals up and is ready to go,” Sermons said. “I think he will.” Sermons has seen considerable time at cornerback this season, usually in the Bruins' pass defense packages.

You never know where a churchman might find inspiration. For the Rev. Norman Hammer, it was a drive-in theater. Hammer, then the 36-year-old pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, happened to pass an outdoor movie emporium one day in 1949 and was struck with the idea: Why not hold summer church services in such a setting? He figured it would be perfect for the balmy, open spaces of car-happy Southern California. "A lot of people like to head for the beach or mountains on Sunday," he explained later.

CAIRO -- Ratcheting up the pressure on followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian authorities in effect have banned tens of thousands of unlicensed clerics from delivering mosque sermons. The ban appears to be aimed at neutralizing imams, or preachers, who have been speaking out -- even if only in allegorical fashion -- against the July 3 coup that deposed Mohamed Morsi , the country's democratically elected Islamist president. Such sermons sometimes take place in unlicensed mosques or small community prayer rooms known as zawiyas . About 55,000 so-called freelance clerics will be affected, said Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa , whose heads the state Ministry of Endowments, which regulates some religious assets and issued the ruling.

A radical cleric charged with inciting the killing of Jews and other non-Muslims testified Thursday that British security officials had told him his sermons did not break the law. Abu Hamza al Masri, 47, former leader of a mosque attended by alleged Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, said he met several times with British security officials from 1997 to 2000, the period during which prosecutors say he committed the crimes.

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller said Saturday that the high point of his life came when he heard that a 15-minute sermon he taped earlier this month in Moscow would be aired on Soviet television tonight--Christmas Eve. The broadcast by the Garden Grove televangelist will be the first to be shown to the 200 million viewers of state-owned Soviet television on a Christian holiday.

More than 28 hours after the Rev. Chris Sterry started preaching at a church in Whalley, England, he was still in the pulpit, in a bid to get his name into the Guinness Book of World Records. Sterry, 46, passed the existing record of 27 hours and 30 minutes, calling off his marathon sermon after 28 hours and 45 minutes. Parishioners came and went throughout the preaching.

Inspired by a Jewish businessman from Burbank, nearly 200 Christian clergy from throughout Southern California pledged Saturday to preach against anti-Semitism by giving at least one sermon a year on the Holocaust. "We have a moral obligation to make sure it never happens again," said Dr. R. L. Hymers Jr., pastor of the Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle of Hope in downtown Los Angeles and a member of the Committee of Concerned Christians.

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller said Saturday that the "high point" of his life came when he heard that a 15-minute sermon he taped earlier this month in Moscow would be aired on Soviet television tonight--Christmas Eve. The broadcast by the Garden Grove televangelist will be the first of its kind to be shown to the 200 million viewers of state-owned Soviet television on a Christian holiday.

As worshippers fill candlelit churches tonight and Sunday for Christmas services, many will be bringing more than friends and relatives. Many will carry hopes and expectations for a special holiday religious experience, priests and pastors said this week. Some will be looking for a respite from the busyness of the season or their lives. Others may wish to rekindle a memory of a past Christmas or the warmth of community.

As a child, L.A. Archbishop Jose Horacio Gomez traveled back and forth across the border from his home in Monterrey, Mexico, to his uncle's in San Antonio, Texas. He made the trip so often that he hardly distinguished between Mexico and the United States. "It was easy to cross in those times," says Gomez, now 61, who became a citizen in his mid-40s. "I guess my first impression was that people could live in both countries at the same time. " When he talks about the border, he slips into the Spanish slang of his childhood.

They were damaged goods a year ago, with a new coaching staff coming in. Defensive backs Anthony Jefferson and Brandon Sermons had little opportunity to make an initial impression. Jefferson was still recovering from a back surgery that forced him to sit out the 2011 season. Sermons had seen limited duty after suffering a broken leg that wiped his 2010 season. Both are making an impression this spring. "They are putting themselves in position to show who they were coming out of high school," said secondary coach Demetrice Martin . "Both of them were pretty highly recruited guys.

When in pain, pray. When you worry, worship. When in grief, share it in your small group. The Facebook post, sent in the early morning hours Friday by famed pastor Rick Warren, was short on words but deep in meaning. Since the suicide of his son a week earlier, the pastor of Orange County's sprawling Saddleback Church is indeed sharing his grief. But his “small group” includes not only his parishioners, but nearly a million Twitter followers as well as those who read his Facebook page.

Re "President Obama doesn't have a 'pastor problem,'" Perspective, April 4 Thanks to Robin Abcarian for her excellent analysis of the sermon preached on Easter Sunday at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington with President Obama in attendance. She is so right about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former longtime pastor, not being "entirely wrong" in condemning America for its poor treatment of minorities. He wasn't off message; he simply spoke to the American culture that he knew so well.

WASHINGTON - An evangelical minister who was asked to give the benediction at President Obama's inauguration ceremony pulled out of the event Thursday after a controversy about comments he made against homosexuality in the 1990s. On Tuesday, the presidential inaugural committee announced that it had invited the Rev. Louie Giglio, head pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, to participate in the Jan. 21 ceremony. Soon afterward, the liberal website ThinkProgress posted excerpts and an audio file of a sermon Giglio gave in the mid-1990s, in which he criticizes homosexuality as profoundly antithetical to Christianity.

WASHINGTON -- On the Sunday morning TV news shows, surrogates for President Obama and Mitt Romney were duking it out over healthcare, Medicare and whether their ads are getting too nasty. Both candidates, meanwhile, were at worship with their families. The Obamas walked from the White House and across Lafayette Park on Sunday morning to attend a service at St. John's Episcopal Church, where they heard a message about working together despite political division. Delivering the sermon was Rev. Michael Angell, who mentioned the shooting at the Family Research Council building in Washington.

Alarmed that Earvin (Magic) Johnson's "safe sex" message will promote promiscuity, the Rev. John Nix-McReynolds, pastor of one of Orange County's largest black churches, Sunday preached an unusually explicit sermon on AIDS, exhorting the congregation to practice chastity. Black preachers around the nation have been moved to break their silence on the delicate issue ever since the basketball legend's disclosure earlier this month that he is infected with the AIDS virus.

Inspired by a Jewish businessman from Burbank, nearly 200 Christian clergymen from throughout Southern California pledged Saturday to preach against the dangers of anti-Semitism and to give at least one sermon a year on the Holocaust. "We have a moral obligation to make sure it never happens again," said the Rev. R.L. Hymers Jr., pastor of the Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle of Hope in downtown Los Angeles and a member of the Committee of Concerned Christians.

A North Carolina pastor may have thought he was simply addressing his local flock when he suggested that gays and lesbians be rounded up and held behind electrified fences until they die off. Now, he's finding himself under fire across the country. The sermon, captured on a video camera and posted Monday on YouTube, has gone viral: In the last 24 hours, it's been viewed more than  282,500 times and has been covered in blogs, in newspapers and by TV stations from coast to coast.

Yep, that was George Regas in that photo — the man in the purple ecclesiastical robe and handcuffs. The rector emeritus of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena chose to get busted this month outside the downtown federal building protesting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few days earlier, scores of mostly conservative ministers across the country had deliberately defied the IRS ban on candidate endorsements by tax-exempt churches. Regas had tripped that wire inadvertently seven years ago, with a sermon that caught the IRS' ear and could have cost All Saints its tax exemption.