Monthly Archives: March 1996
NEWS FEATURE: New crop of priests-to-be breaks the stereotype
By Cathleen Falsani — March 13, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service CHICAGO (RNS)-Like many college students, Juan De La Cruz and his buddies live in the balance between work and play. Last year, their teams won the university’s intramural soccer, football and softball championships. Some of them formed a band, recorded a CD and play gigs around town. But after graduation, […]
Methodist bishop served as juror in Kevorkian trial
By Adelle M. Banks — March 13, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-Bishop Donald Ott is accustomed to leading Michigan’s United Methodists, but for the last few weeks, he had a different job: foreman of the jury that acquitted Dr. Jack Kevorkian Friday (March 8) in Pontiac, Mich., of illegally aiding suicides. Ott, who had written about his support of doctor-assisted suicide […]
Christian groups promote prayer, pledges of purity
By RNS Blog Editor — March 13, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-Ever since the 1984 Equal Access Law allowed student-led religious clubs to meet in public schools, prayer meetings have been as legal an extra-curricular activity as pep rallies. And a variety of Christian ministries and evangelical programs have sprung up, each designed to encourage kids to take their faith to […]
TOP STORY: SCHOOLS AND RELIGION: They’re taking their faith to school
By Adelle M. Banks — March 13, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service CONYERS, Ga. (RNS)-It’s 7:45 Monday morning at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., and from the home economics classroom come the sounds of hymns and prayers. Outside, throngs of students pass by with backpacks slung over their shoulders, apparently oblivious that worship is going on within the confines of this […]
COMMENTARY: And on the sixth day, God installed the drywall
By Brendan Kirby — March 13, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Robert Kirby is a Mormon humorist and regular columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune.) (RNS)-I’m building a family room in my basement. Thus far, it’s cost me three months, $5,000, a thumbnail, and every speck of my pride. I’ll bet God didn’t have this much trouble creating the world. Then […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — March 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Ugandan Christian rebels go on killing spree (RNS)-Ugandan rebels seeking to establish a Christian theocracy in the central African nation have reportedly killed dozens of people in recent days, according to the Associated Press and Reuter news agency. Reports from Uganda placed the number of those killed as high as […]
COMMENTARY: Using clerical cloth as cover for espionage
By RNS Blog Editor — March 12, 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 at 71421,1551(at sign)compuserve.com.) (RNS)-My prison ministry has taken me to […]
TOP STORY: ASSISTED SUICIDE
By Carl Anderson — March 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-For many Americans, doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients has only begun to emerge as a high-profile public issue, on a par with abortion and capital punishment. But after two major legal developments this week upholding the”right-to-die,”professional ethicists are concerned that assisted suicide may soon become the law of […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — March 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Rwanda’s children witnessed genocide, survey finds (RNS)-A United Nations survey has revealed that virtually every child in Rwanda witnessed violence in the 1994 genocide that still traumatizes them. The U.N. Children’s Fund surveyed 3,030 children a year after the slaughter and found that 95.5 percent saw violence and one third […]
Federal investigators seek links in burnings of black churches
By Val Walton — March 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS)-Federal officials say they have found no evidence of any widespread conspiracy behind the many suspicious fires that have destroyed black churches across the South recently, although one investigator says some of the fires are “likely connected.” A 19-year-old white volunteer firefighter was arrested Wednesday (March 6) in […]
COMMENTARY: Killing jobs, destroying lives
By RNS Blog Editor — March 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and sociologist at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. His home page on the World Wide Web is at http://www.greeley.com. Or contact him at his e-mail address: agreel(at sign)aol.com. Check RNS Online for a photo of Andrew Greeley.) […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — March 8, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Evangelicals tackle issues of identity, unity (RNS)-The National Association of Evangelicals unveiled an”Evangelical Manifesto”this week, defining beliefs and detailing goals for unity among evangelicals in the coming century. David Melvin, vice president of the Illinois-based organization, said the manifesto aims to define evangelicals at a time when they are often […]
Pakistan blasphemy laws come under fire in Senate panel
By Kim Lawton — March 8, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, which carry a mandatory death sentence, continue to foster a climate of violence and intolerance against Christians and Ahmadiyyah Muslims in the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation, human rights advocates told a Senate panel Wednesday (March 6). At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee […]
TOP STORY: AFTERMATH OF TERROR: `It was important for me to come back here—and soon’
By Elaine Fletcher — March 8, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service JERUSALEM (RNS)-Last week, U.S. rabbinical student David Hoffman accompanied the bodies of two friends and bus bombings victims, Matt Eisenfeld and Sara Duker, home to burial in the United States. Within 24 hours he was on a plane headed back to Israel.”It was important for me to come back here-and […]
COMMENTARY: A squandered opportunity for leadership
By James Rudin — March 8, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-During last October’s Million Man March in Washington, I heard several black Christian ministers suggest that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan had”reformed”and become a”serious leader of Black America.” Any hope for Farrakhan to remake himself into […]
