Monthly Archives: September 2007
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — September 20, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service GOP Wants Answers About Religious Texts in Prisons WASHINGTON (RNS) A group of conservative House Republicans has sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons seeking information about its effort to ban religious texts from prison libraries. “No matter how well-intentioned, a government project to limit books and other […]
COMMENTARY: Finding Truth in the Page and on the Stage
By Cathleen Falsani — September 20, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Before I was a journalist, I was an actor. Briefly, a semester or so ahead of my debut in the pages of the Wheaton College student newspaper, I became a member of its theater company, a group known simply as “Workout.” The company performed in the Arena Theater, a […]
Jesuits Find a Working Model for Urban Schools
By Daniel Burke — September 20, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service BALTIMORE _ His father and grandfather died. His mother struggled with drug addiction. He didn’t have a bed to sleep in or a coat to wear. His only meals were provided by his elementary school. Arthur Williams couldn’t even imagine going to high school. “I thought I’d probably be out […]
Kathy Griffin Knows What to Do With Jesus; Hollywood Isn’t So Sure
By RNS Blog Editor — September 20, 2007
(UNDATED) Comedian Kathy Griffin has built her entire D-list career on telling A-list Hollywood celebrities _ Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Ryan Seacrest _ to “suck it.” So when she told Jesus to “suck it” after winning an Emmy for her reality show, “My Life on the D-List,” it was meant as just another swipe at […]
RNS Weekly Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — September 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service AME Church Leaders Join Protest of `Jena Six’ Case (RNS) Top leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church have joined protests of the prosecution of six black teenagers in Jena, La., who have been charged with the alleged beating of a white schoolmate. “We in no way condone fighting … […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — September 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service Insurer Rejects UCC Church Because of Gay Stance (RNS) A United Church of Christ congregation’s pro-gay stance puts it “at a higher risk” of litigation and property damage, a leading U.S. church insurer said in refusing to offer coverage to a Michigan congregation. Brotherhood Mutual, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based insurance […]
Photographer Captures Faith on the Side of the Road
By Shona Crabtree — September 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Sam Fentress has spent the past 25 years crisscrossing America’s highways and byways, stopping along the way to snap shots of religious signs in every state except Hawaii. He found everything from John 3:3 on a farm silo in Ohio to “Obey God or Burn” scratched into a rock […]
Some Evangelical Leaders Go Green As Skepticism Lingers
By Adelle M. Banks — September 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When Bishop Harry Jackson saw melting glaciers and devastated forests on a recent trip to Alaska, he decided that global warming should be a higher priority on his list of key issues for evangelicals. “I thought the globe was warming, but I thought that there was a whole lot […]
COMMENTARY: Just Be Quiet
By Tom Ehrich — September 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Whether they say so or not, I think most people come to churches on a spiritual quest. They might see their needs in more functional terms, like wanting friendship, loving good music, making business contacts, or doing the right thing by their children. Or perhaps the “buzz” about a […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — September 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service State Department: Iraq Insurgency Harming Religious Freedom WASHINGTON (RNS) The continuing insurgency in Iraq is “significantly” harming the freedom of worship in that country, the State Department said in its 2007 International Religious Freedom Report. The report, released Friday (Sept. 14), lists Iraq among 22 countries it notes for either […]
Some Moms Say Natural Childbirth Is Labor of Love _ and Faith
By Kristen Campbell — September 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) While Jane Ellen Hannaman labored to bring her son, Weston, into the world last February, she could hear her husband, Ryan, praying. She joined him, she said, in between contractions. And while childbirth entailed “the most intense pain,” Hannaman relied on her faith and eschewed medications designed to ease […]
Churches Weigh Whether to Join Sanctuary Movement
By Nancy Haught — September 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service PORTLAND, Ore. _ Jean Bucciarelli remembers the Sunday last May when someone urged her congregation to become a sanctuary church _ to actively support illegal immigrants who want to stay in this country. “Someone said, `Let’s just do it,”’ she recalls. Some members of Ainsworth United Church of Christ were […]
GUEST COMMENTARY: Carving Out Time for God
By RNS Blog Editor — September 15, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Busy with the worldly demands of our hectic lives, many of us leave the deepest needs of the human heart unattended. For Muslims, the holy month of Ramadan, which began this year on Thursday (Sept. 13), is a time to subjugate the needs of the body to tend to […]
Parents, Kids Tackle Jewish Education Togethe
By RNS Blog Editor — September 15, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio _ The half-dozen young parents sitting in a local coffee shop grew animated as they recounted their experiences as children in Jewish education. Most of their own parents had little interest in going to synagogue but considered it their duty to send their children for religious education. […]
Muslims Say Charity is Pinched by U.S. Oversight
By Kim Lawton — September 15, 2007
c. 2007 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly LOS ANGELES _ Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region is one of the most desolate and dangerous places on earth, as Anwar Khan of Islamic Relief USA knows all too well. His group is one of the few charities working inside Darfur’s teeming refugee camps. For Khan, such work is a […]
