Monthly Archives: January 2007
RNS Weekly Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — January 24, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service Former Salvation Army Leader Named to NAE Post (RNS) The National Association of Evangelicals has chosen a former top official of the Salvation Army to serve as its new executive director. W. Todd Bassett, the former national commander of the Salvation Army, has been a member of the NAE’s Executive […]
Questions and Answers on TM from David Lynch
By RNS Blog Editor — January 24, 2007
c. 2007 Beliefnet (UNDATED) In works such as “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks,” filmmaker David Lynch has explored the darker side of human nature. In his personal life, though, Lynch has found contentment and balance by practicing Transcendental Meditation. Popularized by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Transcendental Meditation involves twice-daily sessions in which practitioners meditate on a […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — January 24, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service Poll Suggests U.S. Must Respect Victories for Religious Parties Abroad WASHINGTON (RNS) A new Gallup Poll of Muslim nations indicates the best way to minimize anti-Western sentiment would be for the United States to recognize electoral victories by religious parties in democratic elections. The 2006 World Poll of countries in […]
Transcendental Meditation Makes a Comeback
By RNS Blog Editor — January 24, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) “TM? Is that still around?” That’s the immediate reaction of many to the mention of Transcendental Meditation. After a bright turn in the psychedelic limelight of the 1960s when it was embraced by celebrities such as the Beatles and Donovan, it seemed to go the way of bell bottoms, […]
The Gospel According to John, Ringo, Paul and George
By RNS Blog Editor — January 24, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Rock music writer Steve Turner grew up in a Christian home in Daventry, England. And like other teenagers who came of age in the 1960s, Turner was a huge Beatles fan. “At that time, Christians weren’t too keen on rock ‘n’ roll music, so people in the church generally […]
COMMENTARY: The Problem of Sandbox Bullying
By Tom Ehrich — January 24, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Not long ago, the “enemy du jour” stalking traditional Christian denominations was “creeping congregationalism.” That meant the tendency of congregations to function independently of traditional denominational standards or structures. Conservatives in the Episcopal Church, for example, lamented the loss of cohesion or what they called “catholicity.” Then the denomination, […]
My Sweet Lord: Revisiting the Beatles and Transcendental Meditation
By RNS Blog Editor — January 24, 2007
RNS offers a special package of four stories as part of its Tuesday report, called My Sweet Lord: Revisiting the Beatles and Transcendental Meditation. The articles included are as follows: The Gospel According to John, Ringo, Paul and George, by Bob Carlton: Forty years after John Lennon made his infamous and often misunderstood comment that […]
RNS Daily Digest: Also transmitting in `c’ category
By RNS Blog Editor — January 23, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service Beloved French Priest Abbe Pierre Dies at 94 PARIS (RNS) Abbe Pierre, a Capuchin monk who became one of France’s most beloved and popular figures, died of a lung infection in Paris Tuesday at the age of 94. The man known simply as Abbe Pierre wore many hats: priest, resistance […]
New Congress Changes Tone of Anti-Abortion Rally
By John Boyle — January 23, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The thousands of anti-abortion advocates who gathered here on Monday (Jan. 22) for the 34th annual March for Life came with a message for the new Democratic Congress: No matter what happened last November, America, they say, still opposes abortion. “I’m always concerned when the Democrats are in […]
Vatican Mulls New Strategy for Chinese Catholics
By RNS Blog Editor — January 23, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ When it comes to addressing the spiritual needs of China’s estimated 12 million Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI knows his options are limited. In recent years, China has shunned nearly every overture the Vatican has made towards restoring diplomatic relations severed more than a half-century ago. When […]
GUEST COMMENTARY: Science, Religion Join Hands When a Child Is Dying
By RNS Blog Editor — January 23, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service PORTLAND, Ore. _ Daniel Kerner checked into a Portland hospital last fall and got stem cells from dead fetuses injected into his brain. He’s the first person in the nation to undergo this procedure, the first patient in a clinical trial that tests every ethical, religious and scientific boundary. He […]
New School Rises Near Site of Amish Killings
By RNS Blog Editor — January 23, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service NICKEL MINES, Pa. _ An Amish one-room schoolhouse is quietly rising here in a field at the end of a private drive behind a row of houses. Half-a-dozen men were working on the construction on a recent afternoon, within walking distance of the site of the school where a gunman […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — January 20, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service Pastor Says Female Professor Was Dismissed Because of Gender (RNS) A pastor and influential blogger has accused Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, of gender discrimination in denying tenure to a female former faculty member at the Fort Worth, Texas, […]
GUEST COLUMN: The Lion and the Lamb Find Common Ground
By RNS Blog Editor — January 20, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) What trumps the most heartfelt of differences? The issue that President Bush and minions in his administration have repeatedly said does not exist or is a figment of the over-reactive, tree-hugging liberal imagination: global warming. In the most unlikely of unlikely coming-togethers _ indeed, pigs are skyborn _ leading […]
At Merton’s Abbey, Silence Speaks Louder Than Words
By Roy Hoffman — January 20, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service TRAPPIST, Ky. _ Like a pale fortress over the scarlet hills, the Abbey of Gethsemani rises at the end of Monk’s Road. Founded in 1848 by French Trappist monks, Gethsemani is now home to about 70 monks who spend their days in work and prayer. It’s also the yearly destination […]
