Faith

Rita Swan's 16-month-old son, Matthew, was dying of meningitis in the family's Michigan home in 1977. Swan never called a doctor. Instead, as Matthew screamed in pain, Swan and her husband, then Christian Scientists, who eschew medical help, summoned church healers to pray over the boy. He was sick, they said, because the Swans lacked sufficient faith in God. When nothing changed, maternal instinct overwhelmed piety, and Swan rushed Matthew to...

As people across the region gather to worship this weekend, many will utter prayers of thanks that their church, temple or tabernacle is still standing. They are luckier than many worshippers in the South. There, burned-out shells are all that's left of more than 40 black and multiracial churches destroyed by arson. These outrages have prompted many acts of goodness. Volunteers are clearing away debris and sharing their churches. Architects and engineers are offering their services.

First of six parts.   Joseph Davis was born a few weeks before Thanksgiving in 1972, better off than most. His father worked in a chocolate factory. His mother counseled troubled kids and drug addicts. In his crayon-colored memories, he conjures a happy boyhood in Germantown. He cannot say exactly when or why his parents broke up. All he knows is that the corrosive aftermath splattered him with hurt. Even so, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. His mother raised him to play by the rules.

George W. Dunham's Sept. 15 response to the imaginary outrage of evolution theory is the usual denial and fall-back on accepted authority. He starts out by seeing a need for a counter opinion, then tries to discredit opinion in general. He seems to be trying to make out that his faith is fact and that everyone else's fact is faith. The purpose of any theory in science is to account for what is observed, using what information is then available. Even an incomplete theory is deemed better than none.

With those words recently on Facebook, Anne Rice delivered a wake-up call for organized religion. The question is whether it will be recognized as such. "I remain committed to Christ as always," she wrote, "but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. " The author, famed for her vampire novels, made a much-publicized return to the Catholicism of her youth after years of calling herself an atheist.

Like many atheists, Stuart Burgh (letters, April 17) reveals an almost complete ignorance of Christianity and faith. Only a person unaware of the Reformation would cite the King James Bible as authority for the Roman Catholic Church, as this was the translation of King James I, a bitter enemy of Catholicism. And "Sunday" derives from the Germanic goddess of the sun, Sunna, not Ra, an Egyptian god. Also, the so-called "gospel" of Judas is rejected by Christians due to its having been written centuries after the death of Jesus, while the New Testament canon was completed by 100 A.D. (And Judas admitted his guilt in Christ's death by committing suicide.

If Faith Whittlesey's telephone could talk. A congressional subcommittee wondered this week why Lt. Col. Oliver North was on the line about the same time Swiss banks were being used to launder Iran-contra money. Not to worry, said Ambassador Whittlesey, the U.S. envoy to Switzerland, who has been in Washington being grilled about how she raised private funds for the embassy. The calls were "purely personal. " But it was another call - this one from Bern - that raised other concerns.

A year ago, propelled into action by a wave of killings, an association of church ushers started spending one hour, one night a week on some of the city's most dangerous corners, calling for peace. Since then, the violence has subsided somewhat - so far this year, there have been 11 homicides in Chester, compared with 27 in all of 1993. But violence is only one symptom of a lost sense of community that continues to trouble the ushers. "My heart goes out for the people, the young people especially," said Willie Rawls, president of the Chester Ushers Association and one of the organizers of the vigils.

THE DEATH OF a 7-month-old child of a Northeast Philadelphia couple who believe in faith-healing instead of medical attention has been ruled a homicide by the medical examiner. Brandon Scott Schaible, the son of Herbert and Catherine Schaible, died in the family's Rhawnhurst home April 18 at 8:35 p.m. from bacterial pneumonia and dehydration, according to the autopsy report. The infant began displaying difficulty breathing, irritability and decreased appetite three days before his death, the report said.

THE NORTHEAST Philadelphia "faith-healing" couple whose 2-year-old son died after they failed to seek medical treatment for the child were charged yesterday with third-degree murder in the death of another of their children. Herbert and Catherine Schaible were also charged with involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy and child-endangerment in the April 18 death of their 7-month-old son, Brandon. Authorities said that the infant began to show signs of distress three days before he died of bacterial pneumonia at the family's Rhawnhurst home, and that the couple told detectives they did not seek medical treatment for him. The Schaibles are on probation after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of their 2-year-old son, Kent.

Catherine and Herbert Schaible, the Philadelphia faith-healing couple convicted once of manslaughter for allowing their sick toddler to die, were charged Wednesday with third-degree murder in the death of another son, infant Brandon. Both defendants were originally held without bail, but the defense objected and at 2 a.m., the judge lowered it to $250,000. As of late Thursday morning, they had yet to post it. The Rhawnhurst couple declined to comment as they turned themselves in, accompanied by their attorneys, Wednesday afternoon at Police Headquarters.

Despite the number of cooks in the kitchen, preparations to create a Shabbat dinner were moving smoothly. That's no small feat, and this was no small event - not just because the Mangels are a family with eight children, ages 3 to 19. At least eight guests were coming over, half of the children were returning from schools in three states to spend the weekend in Cherry Hill, and their parents - Rabbi Mendel "Mendy" Mangel, 45, and Dinie Mangel, 40,...

The series so far: The 12 inmates of Mod 3 and their six dogs, who were rescued from area shelters, have been living together since late October. The first few weeks were difficult. One of the dogs, Heath, quickly grew aggressive and had to leave. He was replaced by Peanut Chew, a white pit bull who had been confined to a basement for a year. And Mike and Ike got into a fight when their inmates disobeyed the rules to keep them apart. Third of six parts. Plastic chairs clattered into place around the long table in the small prison library.

HERBERT AND Catherine Schaible don't object to the city providing their seven surviving children with immunizations and other medical care, their attorneys said in court yesterday. The Rhawnhurst couple are being investigated for the April death of their 8-month-old son, Brandon. The child died at home after becoming ill days earlier with breathing problems and diarrhea. Instead of calling a doctor, the parents prayed for their son, just as they did in 2009 when another son died.

First of six parts.   Joseph Davis was born a few weeks before Thanksgiving in 1972, better off than most. His father worked in a chocolate factory. His mother counseled troubled kids and drug addicts. In his crayon-colored memories, he conjures a happy boyhood in Germantown. He cannot say exactly when or why his parents broke up. All he knows is that the corrosive aftermath splattered him with hurt. Even so, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. His mother raised him to play by the rules.

Some think I have a cushy job. After all, what could be easier than teaching the founding religion at a faith-based institution? Actually, it's more complicated than that. Because I am an academic, my task is more rigorous than merely reviewing the ideals of our religion, and because I embrace the Christian virtues of truth, accuracy, and fairness, I must engage my students with the complete story of our faith. This includes Christianity's glorious chapters when it has made positive contributions to humanity, but also the darker episodes when our religion is linked to some of history's most violent and barbaric events.

Rita Swan's 16-month-old son, Matthew, was dying of meningitis in the family's Michigan home in 1977. Swan never called a doctor. Instead, as Matthew screamed in pain, Swan and her husband, then Christian Scientists, who eschew medical help, summoned church healers to pray over the boy. He was sick, they said, because the Swans lacked sufficient faith in God. When nothing changed, maternal instinct overwhelmed piety, and Swan rushed Matthew to...

BOSTON - The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon appear to have been motivated by their religious faith but do not seem connected to any Muslim terrorist groups, U.S. officials said Monday after interrogating the severely wounded younger man. He was charged with federal crimes that could bring the death penalty. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was charged in his hospital room with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill. He was accused of joining with his older brother Tamerlan - now dead - in setting off the pressure-cooker bombs that killed three people and wounded more than 200 a week ago. The brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia who had been living in the U.S. for about a decade, practiced Islam.