Word: church
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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King Wenceslas didn't start Boxing Day, but the Church of England might have. During Advent, Anglican parishes displayed a box into which churchgoers put their monetary donations. On the day after Christmas, the boxes were broken open and their contents distributed among the poor, thus giving rise to the term Boxing Day. Maybe...
...which version is correct? Well, both. Or neither. No one, it seems, is really sure. Both the church boxes and the servant presents definitely existed, although historians disagree on which practice inspired the holiday. But Boxing Day's origins aren't especially important to modern-day Brits - Britain isn't known for its religious fervor, and few people can afford to have servants anymore, anyway. Today's Boxing Day festivities have very little to do with charity. Instead, they revolve around food, football (soccer), visits from friends, food and drinking...
...clashing rhetoric is a symptom of Latin America's ongoing culture wars. For a long time, a virtual feudal domain of conservative Roman Catholicism, the region has also spawned some of the most influential leftist movements on the planet - and ideas that are now in a contest with the Church for dominion over Latin America. The leftist Democratic Revolution Party or PRD has controlled Mexico City since 1997, and passed a wave of other reforms, making the capital into what advocates say is a beacon of social progressiveness. The changes have been possible because of Mexico's federal system, which...
When North Korean authorities caught Jeong Young Sil helping Christians escape to China seven years ago, they did not take her transgression lightly. First, they pulled out her teeth and fingernails to get information about her underground church in the country's northeast. Then, they threw her in prison for four years. "They demanded to know who was helping me and where they were," says Jeong, an evangelist in her 50s now living in South Korea, who uses an alias to protect her family back home. Despite their efforts, the Northern officials could not stop her. After she fled...
...Though the country's constitution does grant freedom of religion to all citizens, North Korean authorities don't seem to pay the idea much heed. The government also monitors other religions - such as Buddhism and Cheondoism, a popular Korean belief system that combines elements of several faiths - but underground churches are particularly feared by authorities because they're estimated to have helped some 20,000 North Koreans defect to China. As a result, the regime routinely imprisons and executes Christian religious leaders who teach their faith without state approval, according to a U.S. State department report. Official figures...