Monthly Archives: January 1997
NEWS FEATURE: Reclusive Ohio doctor’s procedure is a focus in the abortion debate
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion Service DAYTON, Ohio _ Dr. Martin Haskell, owner of the Women’s Med+ Center in the Dayton suburb of Kettering, is a reclusive abortion doctor _ he hasn’t spoken to reporters in years and remains a mystery even in the abortion rights community. But in the public debate over abortion, he’s a lightning […]
American Buddhist activist blends spirituality, social concern
By Ira Rifkin — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service YONKERS, N.Y. _ In a neighborhood whose commanding view of the Hudson River adds natural beauty to an otherwise glum array of boarded buildings and littered streets, a new, American-style Buddhism is blossoming, fed by the bitterness of inner-city grit and the sweetness of chocolate brownies. It’s a Buddhism based […]
NEWS ANALYSIS: Promise Keepers looks to build on success of Stand in the Gap
By Adelle M. Banks — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ When Promise Keepers brought hundreds of thousands of men to the National Mall on Saturday (Oct. 4), it looked like the apex of the seven-year-old evangelical Christian men’s movement. But Bill McCartney, the movement’s founder, has a plan for much more: Free stadium events, regional pastors’ conferences, and […]
NEWS STORY: Persecuted Christians top priority for Christian Coalition
By Ira Rifkin — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The new president of the Christian Coalition Tuesday (Aug. 26) elevated legislation to combat the overseas persecution of Christians to the top of his organization’s list of congressional priorities. Don Hodel, the former Reagan administration official who took over the coalition’s top post in June, said the religious […]
NEWS STORY: Religious leaders launch campaign to link environment, poverty issues
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The Rev. R.T. Conley says that in 1969 he”couldn’t get an audience”to listen to his concerns about a lead-smelting operation in his low-income West Dallas neighborhood. Numerous children _ including two of his own _ were born with cancer and other serious health conditions because of the toxic […]
NEWS STORY: Bishops criticize theologians on women priest issue
By Carl Anderson — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ U.S. Roman Catholic bishops have told American theologians that the church’s teaching barring women from the priesthood has”as much of a claim to definitiveness as one might reasonably expect.” And in light of that finality, the bishops said, the theologians should give the teaching their”internal assent”even if discussion […]
NEWS STORY: Supreme Court rejects Religious Freedom Restoration Act
By Adelle M. Banks — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ To the dismay of many of the country’s religious leaders, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) Wednesday (June 25), saying Congress unconstitutionally usurped power belonging to federal courts and the states when it passed the measure. The 4-year-old law _ supported by a […]
NEWS STORY: Court strikes down clinic `floating bubble zone’
By Kim Lawton — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday (Feb. 19) that abortion protesters may be kept outside a 15-foot”bubble zone”protecting clinic entrances and driveways, but may approach clients and workers on public property outside the zone. In a split opinion, the justices upheld two of three provisions in a federal […]
NEWS STORY: Ralph Reed to leave the Christian Coalition
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Ralph Reed, the boyish-looking executive director who turned the Christian Coalition into the religious right’s preeminent political force, announced Wednesday (April 23) he will leave the organization to form a new campaign consulting firm and to work with charitable groups. In announcing his resignation after more than seven […]
NEWS FEATURE: Making radical changes to keep the unchurched interested
By Kristen Campbell — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service FAIRHOPE, Ala. _ So. You’ve got the family, the job, the house, the cat, the dog, the two-car garage and … what’s the meaning of life again? You’re not quite sure, but you remember, when you were little you sat inside hallowed halls where stained glass filtered the sunlight, and […]
COMMENTARY: Jiang: More American than many Americans
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 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. and a fellow of the Gallup International Institute.) UNDATED _ Henry Luce must be spinning in his grave. To the late […]
COMMENTARY: Yale Five bring diversity debate to private universities
By Diane Winston — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service (Diane Winston is a visiting fellow at the Princeton Center for the Study of American Religion). UNDATED _ Two weeks after the fall semester began, a group of religiously observant Yale undergraduates, likening their dorms to a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah, asked to live off-campus. University officials refused, saying the […]
COMMENTARY: The politics of repentance
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1997
c. 1998 MSNBC on the Internet.) UNDATED _ Many of those present for Bill Clinton’s prayer breakfast repentance were moved. Unlike his August 17 address to the nation, this speech was contrite enough to convince. Of course, many of his spiritual advisers have been counseling Clinton for many months to tell the truth about his […]
NEWS FEATURE: Common Ground: In song, racial ethnic divide is overcome
By William Bole — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WESTMINSTER, Md. _ Kim Nichols recalls when she and her younger sisters, Kellie and Krissy, ventured into a black church one fall Sunday in 1994.”It was a life-changing experience,”said Nichols, 23.”It was joyful. It was overwhelming.” It was the hand-clapping, foot-stomping sounds of gospel music that inspired the Nichols Sisters, […]
NEWS STORY: Nobel winner encouraged by shift in U.S. stance on East Timor
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service BERKELEY, Calif. _ Jose Ramos-Horta, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his work as an East Timor independence activist, says he is encouraged after recent high-level meetings with Clinton administration officials that U.S. policy toward East Timor may be shifting. Ramos-Horta, who shared the coveted prize with Timorese […]
