Monthly Archives: January 1996
TOP STORY: THE MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian pacifists preach a message of harmony
By Elaine Fletcher — January 16, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service AL KHADER, West Bank (RNS)-When Hussein Ibrahim Issa dreams, he sees a swimming pool between the olive terraces on the hillside below his elementary school. He imagines Muslim, Christian and Jewish children learning together in a harmony of Arabic and Hebrew. And folk dancing is a required subject. Dancing, says […]
COMMENTARY: A coming crisis in juvenile crime
By RNS Blog Editor — January 16, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail: 71421,1551 at compuserve.com.) (RNS)-Though we have been fixated on the […]
Where’s my miracle?
By Brendan Kirby — January 13, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service EDITORS: Robert Kirby is a Christian humorist. (RNS)-Forgive me if I ramble. I’m in a lot of pain right now, physically and spiritually. I had a hernia operation last week and it shook my faith. A few months ago I developed a small abdominal bulge where no bulge had previously […]
Denominational Report
By RNS Blog Editor — January 13, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Following is a collection of news stories compiled from RNS staff, wire and denominational reports). Evangelist: Church should provide certainties, not speculation (RNS)-Liberalism has failed to meet the needs of modern society and transform the secular culture, the Rev. Barbara Brokhoff told the United Methodist Church’s Congress on Evangelism recently.”The […]
School voucher fight in D.C. being watched carefully
By RNS Blog Editor — January 13, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-On the west side of Syracuse, N.Y., a public school and parochial school competed for the area’s students, remembered one resident, Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y. Parents from Roberts Elementary and Most Holy Rosary knocked on their neighbors’ doors to sell the advantages of the competing schools. They worked to […]
Appeals court strikes down Mississippi prayer law
By RNS Blog Editor — January 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-It’s not often that Jay Sekulow of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice and Elliot Mincberg of the liberal advocacy group People For the American Way agree on a school-prayer issue. But both men said Thursday they agreed with a federal appeals court decision this week that dealt […]
Global Religion Report
By RNS Blog Editor — January 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Following is a collection of international religion stories compiled by RNS staff, wire and denominational reports.) Muslims prepare for Ramadan (RNS)-The more than 800 million Muslims around the world are preparing for the start of the holy month of Ramadan, which begins with the sighting of the next new moon, […]
TOP STORY: VATICAN DIPLOMACY: Flynn denies wrongdoing in face of possible reprimand
By RNS Blog Editor — January 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service ROME (RNS)-Raymond Flynn, U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, said Thursday he was doing his job when he fired off a letter to business and religious leaders last spring that said congressional efforts to cut U.S. anti-poverty programs were”mean-spirited”and”immoral.” But a State Department official investigating the matter doesn’t see it that […]
COMMENTARY: Two religions, two geniuses, two accusations of heresy
By James Rudin — January 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-It took 350 years, but Vatican authorities, with prodding from Pope John Paul II, have finally admitted the Inquisition “committed an objective error” in 1633 when it forced the astronomer Galileo Galilei to repudiate his “heretical” teachings, […]
National Religion Report
By RNS Blog Editor — January 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Following is a collection of domestic religion stories compiled from RNS staff, wire and denominational reports). Damaged Oklahoma City church to be rebuilt (RNS)-First United Methodist Church of Oklahoma City, heavily damaged in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building across the street from the sanctuary, […]
NEWS STORY: Four American Baptist churches expelled over gay outreach
By Ira Rifkin — January 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-Four San Francisco Bay-area American Baptist churches have been expelled from their regional jurisdiction because of their outreach to homosexuals. Delegates at a special meeting of American Baptist Churches of the West, one of 34 regional jurisdictions of the 1.5 million-member mainline Protestant American Baptist Churches in the USA, voted […]
A contrast in biblical texts
By RNS Blog Editor — January 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-A comparison of some popular passages in the King James version and Schocken version of the Bible: Genesis 1:3-5 The King James Version: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the […]
TOP STORY: A NEW BIBLE TRANSLATION: In the beginning, there were many different words
By Julia Lieblich — January 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service BOSTON (RNS)-Everett Fox was 21 when he decided to translate the first book of the Hebrew Bible into English, and he approached the project with the audacity of a graduate student undaunted by King James. The grandeur of the 17th-century King James Version-translated by a team of 47 scholars-had made […]
COMMENTARY: King’s legacy and the pursuit of a `relevant ministry’
By RNS Blog Editor — January 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) (RNS)-On Jan. 15, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated his 39th-and last-birthday. Less than three months later, he was assassinated. But […]
SIDEBAR: A theology of peace, in King’s own words
By RNS Blog Editor — January 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-Here are excerpts from the speeches and writing of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., touching on his theological concept of the `beloved community’: “The ultimate aim of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is to foster and create the `beloved community’ in America where brotherhood is a reality. … The […]
