Monthly Archives: June 2009
How to help udders
By Francis X. Rocca — June 24, 2009
The Wall Street Journal reports that a community of Hare Krishnas in West Virginia makes it possible to adopt a cow, and thereby save it from slaughter, for as little as $51 a month, photos and updates included. But as the image at left indicates, many of the group’s neighbors have other ideas about the […]
New Issue of RIN!
By Mark Silk — June 24, 2009
The latest issue of Religion in the News is now on line, for those of you who can’t wait for your hard copy. The cover story is Jerome Chanes’ look at how the Madoff scandal played in the Jewish press–and why it’s been such a huge disgrace in the Jewish world. In the Catholic world, […]
Confidence in Religion
By Mark Silk — June 24, 2009
According to a new Gallup poll, confidence in religion is up four points over the past year, with 52 percent of Americans now expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in “the church or organized religion.” The big winner in Gallup’s annual institutional confidence sweepstakes is the presidency, which shot up from […]
Reviving the SBC
By Mark Silk — June 24, 2009
One of the guilty pleasures I discovered during my turn in the South was following the Southern Baptist Convention, that huge grumpy quasi-denomination that once bestrode the region like a colossus. It’s fallen on hardish times of late, what with baptisms down and membership aging. To gin up institutional revival, SBC president Johnny Hunt last […]
Southern Baptists meet to combat membership malaise
By Tracy Gordon — June 24, 2009
(UNDATED) Southern Baptists opened their annual meeting Tuesday (June 23) with calls to turn around plummeting baptism rates, even as researchers warned that the nation’s largest Protestant body could lose half its size by mid-century. “I really do believe that we need revival in the Southern Baptist Convention,” said SBC President Johnny Hunt, a pastor […]
Catholic hospitals, labor unions reach accord
By Tracy Gordon — June 24, 2009
WASHINGTON (RNS) After years of rancorous disputes at Catholic hospitals, labor leaders and Catholic officials reached an agreement Monday (June 22) on principles for unionizing healthcare workers. The 16-page “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions,” is a result of a three-way, two-year-long dialogue among the U.S. […]
Catholic nun, evangelical to lead Presbyterian seminaries
By Tracy Gordon — June 24, 2009
(RNS) Two seminaries in the Presbyterian Church (USA) have branched out to find new leaders, with one appointing a Catholic nun as dean and the other naming a prominent evangelical as president. When Sister Elizabeth Liebert takes over as dean of San Francisco Theological Seminary on June 30, she will become the first Catholic nun […]
South Korean churches urge food aid for North Korea
By Tracy Gordon — June 24, 2009
TOKYO (RNS/ENI) A South Korean group of churches is urging its member congregations and organizations to join a campaign to give North Korean children milk and bread “without any precondition.” The National Council of Churches in Korea said it would mobilize its churches for “urgent support to people in North Korea in the situation of […]
A key to the new Anglican church
By Daniel Burke — June 23, 2009
The new Anglican Church in North America, which is holding its inaugural meeting down in Texas this week, approved its constitution yesterday. It looks to be an unsurprisingly orthodox document, affirming age-old tenets (a la the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571). It also sets up a local option for female priests. The real key […]
“A Christian Lady”
By Daniel Burke — June 23, 2009
The WaPo has a nice obit on Emma Daniel Gray, a devout Christian who cleaned the White House for 24 years. When she came to the president’s chair, the Post reports, “she would pause, cleaning materials in hand, and say quick prayer.” Gray, a member of Holy Trinity Worship Center International in the District, liked […]
Inside Scientology
By Daniel Burke — June 23, 2009
In case you missed it, the St. Pete Times has published a voluminous three-part series on Scientology and how its current leaders came to power. It’s fascinating reading so far, but I confess I’m still working through it. Here’s a juicy nugget about how Scientologists “lobbied” the IRS to get a non-profit designation: “Overwhelm the […]
`Stoning’ film sends message about Islam, but which message?
By Tracy Gordon — June 23, 2009
(UNDATED) While chaotic post-election demonstrations threaten to tarnish the image of Iran and its hard-line Islamic government, Hollywood filmmakers are releasing a drama they hope will send an opposite message about Islam itself. Centered around the stoning of a woman unjustly accused of adultery, the graphic and stomach-turning violence in “The Stoning of Soraya M.” […]
Does God answer prayers to do someone ill?
By Tracy Gordon — June 23, 2009
(UNDATED) Ever since Pastor Wiley Drake declared not once, but three times, on national radio that he was praying for the death of President Obama, he has been trying to clarify. Yes, he really does want God to smite Obama. No, it’s not a partisan prayer. Yes, it’s in the Bible, he says, and no, […]
COMMENTARY: To everything there is a season
By Tom Ehrich — June 23, 2009
NEW YORK — Fresh blueberries — local, affordable, not trucked in from 3,000 miles away — have hit the shops and street vendors. Life just got better. It feels magical. Just days ago, these blue morsels were absent, then the season changed, and now they are here. Next, we hope, will come the magic of […]
The Niebuhrian
By Mark Silk — June 23, 2009
There’s been a fair amount of div. school-type talk linking Barack Obama to Reinhold Niebuhr, the great political theologian of post-World War II America whose star has of late been in the ascendant. And indeed, Obama (unlike many a politician who once upon a time invoked him–e.g. Jimmy Carter) seems to have actually read and […]
