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FORT WORTH - The chief executive of American Airlines has apologized after a pilot suggested that non-Christian passengers on a recent flight discuss the faith with Christians. Gerard Arpey said the airline has grounded the pilot with pay while executives investigate the incident. Arpey said he apologized to anyone who was offended by the pilot's comments on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. "Let me assure you that we take this very seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation," Arpey wrote in a letter to Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group that monitors...

Pilots learn to speak with care, but still be themselves By KIRSTEN TAGAMI The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 02/11/04 When he was hired as a Delta Air Lines pilot 18 years ago, Bob Morus got some basic advice about talking on the intercom: speak slowly and avoid jargon or words that might upset passengers, such as "thunderstorm." No one told him not to talk about Jesus. They didn't have to. "That's just common sense," said the 47-year-old Morus. Passengers on an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York were alarmed last weekend when the pilot asked all passengers...

Guess who scored the interview with the Christian airline pilot? On his first flight after a short-term missions trip to Costa Rica, American Airlines captain Roger Findiesen flipped on the Public Address system in the cabin and explained that flight 34 was second in line for takeoff. Then he continued on a personal note. "I just got back from a mission," he said. "You know, they say about half of Americans are Christians. I'd just like the Christians on board to raise their hands." After a pause, he went on. "I want everyone else on board to look around at...

NEW YORK (Talon News) -- A pilot asked passengers on an American Airlines flight to raise their hands if they were Christians, telling them they were "crazy" if they weren't, some of the passengers said Monday. Passenger Jen Dorsey told CNN, "We were just at the beginning of our flight. The pilot came on to greet everyone and give his comments for the morning, and he said he'd recently been on a mission trip, and he'd like all the Christians to please raise their hands." Also speaking on CNN, passenger Karla Austin said the pilot commented, "'If you are a...

Fort Worth-based American Airlines is investigating an unorthodox speech to passengers by an on-duty pilot over the weekend. Many passengers felt the pilot crossed a line when asking Christians on board the flight to identify themselves before the plane took off. Passengers on the cross-country flight from Los Angeles to New York certainly got more than a movie and meal. The pilot, who had just returned from a mission trip to Central America, asked Christians to raise their hands. "I thought (it) was very bizarre," passenger Jen Dorsey said. "And then he said, 'look around and everyone who doesn't have...

<p>NEW YORK — An American Airlines (search) pilot asked Christians on his flight to identify themselves and suggested the non-Christians discuss the faith with them, the airline said.</p> <p>The case was handed over to the airline's personnel department for an investigation, spokesman Tim Wagner (search) said Sunday.</p>

New York-AP -- American Airlines says one of its pilots asked Christians on his flight to identify themselves and discuss their faith with non-Christian passengers. Airline Spokesman Tim Wagner says American Flight 34 was headed from Los Angeles to New York on Friday when the pilot asked Christians on board to raise their hands. The pilot told the airline that he then suggested that other passengers use the flight time to talk to the Christians about their faith, and added that he'd be available for discussion at the end of the flight. While the pilot had just returned to work...

George W. Bush was born into an Episcopal family and raised as a Presbyterian, but he is now a Methodist. Howard Dean was baptized Catholic, and raised as an Episcopalian. He left the church after it opposed a bike trail he was championing, and now he is a Congregationalist, though his kids consider themselves Jewish. Wesley Clark's father was Jewish. As a boy he was Methodist, then decided to become a Baptist. In adulthood he converted to Catholicism, but he recently told Beliefnet .com, "I'm a Catholic, but I go to a Presbyterian church." What other country on earth would...

I read with interest Gregory Korgeski's Dec. 13 counterpoint decrying creationism and fundamentalism. After learning that no "reputable" scientists endorse creationism, I learned that fundamentalists who take their sacred texts literally are dangerous to the well-being of society. These arguments are self-serving in that they admit no evidence to the contrary. In Korgeski's thought, being a creationist makes you disreputable and being a fundamentalist makes you a likely menace to society. I was raised in a church that taught that the Bible was mostly mythology, that there were no miracles, and that evolution was true. Seeing no need for religion,...

After analyzing more than 10,000 personal interviews conducted during 2003, researcher George Barna identified four critical outcomes that emerged from those interactions regarding faith and lifestyle. Millions of Americans Are Spiritually Satisfied – and Confused Contradictions and confusion permeate the spiritual condition of the nation. Studies conducted during 2003 indicate, for instance, that while 84% of adults say their religious faith is very important in their own life, 66% also say that religion is losing influence in the nation. While people are clearly spending less time involved in religious practices such as Bible reading, prayer, and participating in church activities,...

WASHINGTON Forty years ago today, as the world mourned the assassination of an American president, the passing of the 20th century's most influential Christian writer was hardly noticed: Clive Staples Lewis, professor of English literature at Oxford and Cambridge, died on Nov. 22, 1963. In his ability to nurture the faithful, as well as seduce the skeptic, C. S. Lewis had no peer. Lewis was an atheist for much of his adult life, an experience that may have helped immunize him from the religious cliché, the reluctance to ask hard questions, the self-righteousness of the zealot. "Mr. Lewis possesses the...

<p>Our nation's self-anointed arbiters of public morality love to point their fingers at San Francisco and "the '60s." And many of us have gotten all too comfortable in this role as the hedonists and heretics of an otherwise God- fearing nation. OK, we're not perfect, and neither were those wild times, but can't the pundits of piety find another decade to bash and a new city to trash?</p>

It started 4,000 years ago, and only advanced religious scholars of a certain age, marital status and gender were privy to its mysteries. Then a former insurance agent from Brooklyn named Feivel Gruberger saw the light (and the opportunities) and turned the kabbala, an archaic, mystical branch of Judaism, into a global movement with 25 study centers and countless famous disciples who chug expensive water in the name of enlightenment. Gruberger, who renamed himself Philip Berg and is known as Rav Berg, founded the Kabbalah Centre in the U.S. more than 30 years ago. Converts emerge almost daily. From Mick...

TAMPA - It's been on Mary Norris Vincent's mind for quite some time. ``What is the purpose of my life?'' she wonders. ``I'm like a lot of people. We try this, we try that, and we're still not happy.'' The 65-year-old Sun City Center grandmother figures it's never too late to seek the answer to that timeless question. So last weekend, she joined tens of thousands of Americans beginning a 40-day program of group discussion, worship, study and service to find her purpose and put it to work. Nationwide, members of some 5,000 churches - including nearly 40 in this...

Buddhist Monk Completes Seven-Year Run Fri Sep 19, 1:49 PM ET By KENJI HALL, Associated Press Writer TOKYO - A Buddhist priest dubbed the "marathon monk" has completed an ancient running ritual in the remote Japanese mountains that took seven years and covered a distance equivalent to a trip round the globe, wearing only a flowing white robe and flimsy straw sandals. The 44-year-old monk, Genshin Fujinami, returned Thursday from his 24,800-mile spiritual journey in the Hiei mountains, a range of five peaks that rise above the ancient capital of Kyoto. Dressed in his handmade sandals and robe, with a...

We walked trouble's brooding, windswept hills And we loved and we laughed the pain away At the end of the journey, when our last song is sung Will you meet me in Heaven someday? Johnny Cash wrote those lyrics many years ago for his wife, June Carter. The song is entitled "Meet Me In Heaven" and it testifies to the irreplaceable bond of love, trust, and devotion that was shared by the couple throughout their 35-year marriage. "We've seen the secret things revealed by God/ And we heard what the angels had to say/ Should you go first, or if...

Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith With the Poor Clares is the latest in that dreary genre of books written by self-absorbed Baby Boomers wanting to fill us in on mid-life crisis they're suffering. After decades of turning their backs on the things their Eisenhower-era parents held dear, many boomers have begun to turn back to those old institutions in a frantic attempt to achieve some inner fulfillment. It's not surprising to see the generation that believes it discovered sex now now deluding itself to think it's the first to suffer a crisis of faith in its autumn years. Kristin Ohlson...

Searching for faithBy Steven Martinovichweb posted August 18, 2003Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith with the Poor Clares is the latest in that dreary genre of books that sees self-absorbed Baby Boomers suffer a mid-life crisis and feel the need to write about it. After decades of turning their backs on the things that their Eisenhower-era parents held dear, many have begun to turn back to those old institutions in a frantic attempt to achieve some inner fulfillment. For the generation that believes they discovered sex, it's not surprising they also suffer the delusion that they're the first to suffer a...

[Laura Schlessinger] Dr. Laura Renounces Jewish Orthodoxy Item 3999 • Posted: 08/13/2003 • Weblogged by Religion News Blog http://www.religionnewsblog.com/archives/00003999.html Forward, Aug. 15, 2003 http://www.forward.com/ By LISA KEYS, FORWARD STAFF With 12 million Americans tuning in daily, controversial syndicated radio- show host Laura Schlessinger — known to all as "Dr. Laura" — is arguably the best-known Orthodox Jew in the United States. Rather, she was. In a little-noticed pronouncement, Schlessinger — who very publicly converted to Judaism five years ago — opened her radio show, "The Dr. Laura Schlessinger Program," with the revelation that she will no longer practice Judaism. Although...

Outspoken radio host "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger, one of the country's most visible Orthodox Jews, has renounced her religion. "I felt that I was putting out a tremendous amount toward that mission, that end, and not feeling return," she said on her syndicated show. Apparently, Jews just didn't send enough fan mail, reports the Forward. "By and large the faxes from Christians have been very loving, very supportive," Schlessinger said. "From my own religion, I have either gotten nothing...or two of the nastiest letters I have gotten in a long time"...