Take a good look at my picture on the right: if you saw me walking around in New York City I look just like any other girl wearing an H&M shirt, Blackberry in one hand and Starbucks coffee in the other, right?
Would you guess that I’m a Muslim — born and raised? Maybe not. But I am. And as of late, I’ve had to defend my religion more times than I can count.
This is the typical dialogue I encounter when people find out I’m Muslim:
Person: “You’re a Moz-lem?”
Me: “Yes! I am.” (I smile hard, to seem friendly and maybe overcompensate for any stereotypes said person has about “Moz-lems” — it doesn’t usually work.)
Person: “But,…

Now we’d like to complicate the story just a bit more by telling you what happened next…

THE WRINKLE

Jason takes a deep breath and tells the man that he’d be willing to buy him some hot food and call to make sure he gets taken to a shelter that night.

The homeless man says that the shelters are more dangerous than the streets and that he doesn’t want to lie to him: what he needs is some money so he can buy a cheap bottle of whiskey that will help keep him warm during the cold winter night.

Time for you to decide again. What’s the right thing for Jason to do now?

Is it always wrong for unmarried people to have sex? Do you think sex toys are acceptable for use within marriage? Is it ever OK to use contraception?
Do I have your attention now?
For more than five years the Pure Sex, Pure Love column has asked Busted Halo readers for opinions about the intersection between faith and decisions about love and sex. When I met Kelsy Burke, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh who is writing her doctoral dissertation on Christians, the internet and discussions of sex, I was thrilled that someone in the academy was taking these conversations of faith and sexuality as seriously as I do. I immediately began thinking about how she and I could team up to share her research with…

The grand prize voting week for Busted Halo’s first “Don’t Forget Your Halo” summer photo contest was truly an adventure. The competition was far fiercer than any of us at BH HQ ever could’ve dreamed! Click here to find out the category winners and see all the images!

Few of us are ever faced with making the sort of life-or-death decisions we routinely hear about in the news. Fortunately, most of us are spared from navigating the complex ethical terrain that headline-making cases sometime raise. And yet there are decisions we face everyday that — whether we realize it or not — have very real moral implications.
In Busted Halo’s Moral Dilemmas feature, we hope not only to raise some of these issues for our readers, but also to engage you in helping to resolve them. After going through the story of Jason Pascal that follows, please tell us through a one-question quiz, linked to at the bottom of the page, what you think is the “right thing to do.”
Already…

“You sure you want to drive out there?” an 82-year-old farmer warns when I stop to ask for directions on a dusty, rutted road in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. “Ahead are the Gullah islands,” he says, shaking his head. “They’re a peculiar people with mighty mysterious ways.”
As I voyage over a gauntlet of bridges and down winding, sun-dappled back roads, past lazy pastures and homespun ma-and-pa stores, decades peel back as St. Helena Island, the center for Gullah culture, emerges through a gauze of saltwater marshes.
The descendants of African slaves, the Gullah today live mostly on the remote barrier islands of South Carolina and Georgia. Neglected during…

In this video, Giselle interviews Brother William Becerra, of Casa del Migrante in Tijuana, a shelter for deported immigrants.  Br. William shares his thoughts and experiences about the immigration issue from the other side of the border.
In video one, Giselle discusses the incident that forced her to look at the immigration issue.
In video two, Giselle prepares for her departure to Mexico where she will reunite with her husband and continue to video blog about their life together and strive to break down stereotypes about illegal immigrants and their families.
In video three, Giselle reunites with her husband, Roberto, and interviews him about growing up in Mexico and how and why he came to live in the United…

The other day I was reading in Acts 8 about Philip the Evangelist, my namesake, along with some study bible commentary on his history. Even though I was named after him, I have never read these passages before. I finally did because recently I began using a plan to read through the entire Bible in a year. 
I’ve led Bible studies, attended college-level classes on scripture, and heard hundreds of sermons about Bible passages. But until now I’ve never read it all — only the “popular bits.” Of course, I’d heard a sermon or two about Philip’s meeting a eunuch on the road to Gaza and baptizing him, but until now I’d never read about the rest of his travels or learned about…

The phone call is dead, say tech-savvy social commentators. With the increasing popularity of text messaging, who needs to actually talk to someone anymore?
While text messaging may be an immediate and direct form of communication, good for flirty messages and quick hellos, I’m wondering if those instant, impersonal communiqués are hurting our dating lives and hindering our relationship formation.
Let’s be clear: I send and receive text messages. In fact, just as I typed that last sentence, a text pinged in from my husband to let me know that he’d be home in 20 minutes. That’s fine. I’m not anti-text, but I think it’s time to think critically about the pros and cons of…

The 62nd Annual Emmy Awards are being held this Sunday, August 29th. Glee has been nominated for a total of 19 Emmy awards. Ian Brennan, co-creator of Glee, has been personally nominated for 2 awards as producer and writer. The following is Ian Brennan’s acceptance speech at the 17th Annual Catholics in Media Awards at which the Fox Television show was honored.

A few weeks ago, when we learned Glee would receive this award, the other creators of the show and I sort of looked at each other and said, “Wait, really?” Our first thoughts were that, a) Catholics in Media had not seen our show, or that b) my dad, himself a former Paulist, had bribed them. Then at a certain point we all just sort of shrugged and thought, “we’ll…

A few months following the September 11 attacks in New York City, Eboo Patel—like countless other Americans—visited ground zero and prayed in memory of those who were murdered. Nearly a decade later Patel—a Muslim-American who is the founder of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) —now sees that prayerful moment through a different lens. “It’s a little bit shocking” he says “for me to think that my prayers, because they happen to be in Arabic, would have been unwelcome by some people.” His reconsideration of that memory was catalyzed by the current controversy surrounding the proposed construction of the Cordoba House Islamic cultural center near ground zero.

Patel’s interest in interfaith relations has its roots in his experience working and living at several Catholic Worker houses during his college years. He went on to obtain a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. Since then he founded IFYC, a Chicago-based institution dedicated to building the global interfaith youth movement. Named by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009, Patel is also a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships as well as the author of the award-winning book Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation and a Washington Post blog “The Faith Divide.”

As the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mother Teresa of Calcutta on August 26, 2010 approaches, David Van Biema — former chief religion writer at TIME and the author and editor of TIME Mother Teresa: The Life and Works of a Modern Saint — sat down to discuss the life and legacy one of the most iconic human beings of the 20th Century.

My last column, about gossip, seems to have struck a nerve and inspired a lot of discussion. Since I assume that for every reader who leaves a comment or writes an email, another bunch have that same issue but don’t say anything, I decided to devote another column to the subject, highlighting questions and comments some of you raised.
Several readers asked variations on a very important question: Yes, but is this gossip…? followed by some scenario. Let me start by reiterating something: there are situations in which it’s appropriate to talk with someone about a third person. Deciding which situations those are is where we must use discernment.
Here’s what reader Frances said by email…

In this video, Miguel talks about how his family found aid and support through positive experiences with church and social programs and how it influenced him to eventually work in a helping profession himself.
In video 2, Miguel talks about racial tension and his experiences growing up as an undocumented hispanic in a small town in the United States.
In video 1, Miguel, an immigrant from Mexico who migrated illegally with his family when he was young, speaks about how he had to hide his undocumented status from those he was closest to growing up.…

Nearly 60 years after its birth, rock and roll remains American music’s most successful illegitimate offspring, with everyone from Bo Diddley and Little Richard to Bill Haley and Ike Turner having stepped forward to position themselves in the delivery room and no one really knowing who deserves to sign the birth certificate. Rock’s mother has never been much disputed, however. That distinction belongs to Wanda Jackson, the “Queen of Rockabilly” who came roaring out of Oklahoma in 1956 as a big-voiced teenager and quickly learned to throw elbows with the boys who were just starting to build rock and roll into a worldwide phenomenon. Though she never reached the level of success of…

The Bible may advocate the idea that the man is the head of the household, but how does this generation of Hispanic-American singles view this concept? Where does this leave women who make more money than their husbands? Are we mistaking typical Latin “machismo” for church teaching? My Cuban mother once told me it would be my duty to iron my husband’s shirts, if and when I got married. Really? My “duty”?
In a fast-paced world where even Brooks Brothers — one of the oldest American clothing institutions — has responded by manufacturing non-iron shirts, should we adapt as well? And more importantly, how does upholding these gender roles help or hurt us?
To answer these…

August 15 is the feast of the Assumption. According to Catholic tradition, at the end of Mary’s earthly life, she was assumed body and soul into heaven. In the spirit of the day, this article looks at a form of prayer traditionally associated with Mary.
Many people find comfort in praying a daily rosary. No matter what else changes in their lives, that circle of beads is a regular, dependable, soothing part of their normal routine.
I am not one of those people.
It’s not that I dislike the rosary. On the contrary, it’s been the catalyst for some of the most powerful spiritual experiences of my adult life. But though I’ve tried to make it part of my regular routine, somehow I can never quite keep it going. That could…

In this video, Miguel talks about racial tension and his experiences growing up as an undocumented hispanic in a small town in the United States.
In video 1, Miguel, an immigrant from Mexico who migrated illegally with his family when he was young, speaks about how he had to hide his undocumented status from those he was closest to growing up.…

The great challenge for Christian leadership is to help people go beyond fears of difference and experience diversity as God’s way of bringing about new creation, said the Rev. Virgilio P. Elizondo.
Elizondo has been recognized by Time magazine as one of the leading spiritual innovators in the U.S. for developing a Christian theology within the context of the Mexican immigrant experience.
He is professor of pastoral and Hispanic theology at the University of Notre Dame and also serves a parish in San Antonio, Texas. In 2007 he received the Community of Christ International Peace Award for his advocacy on behalf of justice and inclusion for immigrants.
Among his books are The Future Is Mestizo, Galilean…

With the success of our Spiritual Seekers Camino pilgrimage, we decided to explore expanding the offerings of Busted Halo-themed travel for young adults. In partnership with Franciscan Spirit Tours this summer we accompanied college students from the University of Memphis on a service trip to Peru. The volunteers spent a week clearing a space to install a water purification system inside Ciudad de los Niños, a Franciscan-run orphanage for 300 children in Lima. They also took the time to film their project and discuss how the trip affected them physically, emotionally and, of course, spiritually.
How You Can Help
Ciudad de los Niños has been run for over 50 years by the Capuchin Franciscans and it sustains…