Monthly Archives: December 2007
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — December 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service Students’ spiritual interests increase on campus, even without worship (RNS) Though college students’ attendance at worship services declines, their interest in spiritual matters grows during their time on campus, a new UCLA study shows. UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute compared the views of students who were freshmen in the fall […]
Book looks to bring Muslim holiday to the mainstream
By Tom Feran — December 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ The biggest holiday of the Muslim year, Eid al-Adha, begins on Dec. 19 (Wednesday) this year. Its proximity to Christmas happens only once every three decades because Muslims use a lunar calendar. For Ohio author Asma Mobin-Uddin, it’s a sweet coincidence that might bring wider interest and readership […]
2007 was a quiet harbinger of significant things to come
By Kein Eckstrom — December 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) History books are full of dates that mark seminal events: 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door and launched the Protestant Reformation; or 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Those boldface dates are preceded by less prominent but nonetheless decisive times: 1516, when […]
COMMENTARY: The breathtaking thing that God is doing
By Tom Ehrich — December 19, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) A friend sent me a clever electronic Christmas card. I clicked on a Web link and saw a drawing: a pleasing bungalow nestled in a quiet nighttime yard. By clicking on elements of the drawing, I could add fire through the window, a tree covered with twinkling candles, dog […]
Huckabee Merges Religion, Politics in Christmas Ad
By Adelle M. Banks — December 19, 2007
GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, has continued his merger of religion and politics with a new TV ad that reminds people that the Christmas season is about Christ. “At this time of year, sometimes it’s nice to … just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth […]
Oh little town of … Nazareth?
By Francis X. Rocca — December 19, 2007
This year’s nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square will show the baby Jesus not in the traditional Bethlehem manger but in His father’s carpenter shop in Nazareth. For some reason, the designers decided to use the Gospel of Matthew as their source this time around, rather than the more popular version of the story in […]
Episcopal Bishop: Yep, We’re Gone
By Daniel Burke — December 18, 2007
Earlier this month, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent a letter to San Joaquin bishop John-David Schofield, asking if he and his dioceses had officially abandoned the Episcopal Church. Today, Episcopal News Service, has his reply. In a pastoral letter intended to be read December 16 in the congregations of the Episcopal Diocese of […]
Mormon Problem Persists
By rvineis — December 18, 2007
Stuart Rothenberg agrees with the notion that Romney’s speech did little to sway evangelicals. He feels that the speech did not bridge the fundamental gap that causes evangelical objections of Mormonism. “Given that evangelicals see Mormonism as deceptive and an attempt to pass itself off as a form of Christianity, one speech about tolerance and […]
What Really Matters?
By Mark Silk — December 18, 2007
I agree, Reid, that it’s a must watch. I’m reminded of a trip I took to South Carolina exactly 20 years ago, when I was briefly covering Jack Kemp’s run for the Republican presidential nomination for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. There we were at the Greenville Rotary Club, and Kemp began his speech by wishing […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — December 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service Immigration reform advocates seek cooler candidate rhetoric (RNS) Christian leaders called on presidential candidates Monday (Dec. 17) to reduce harsh rhetoric about immigration reform and to develop workable solutions instead. “The debate is very divisive and, unfortunately, our presidential candidates are allowing themselves to be … co-opted into the divisiveness […]
We Three Kings of Orient Are … mostly unknown
By Benedicta Cipolla — December 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) They came. They saw. They gifted. That’s about all we know of the foreign visitors who traveled to Bethlehem to see the infant Jesus. The scene ingrained in the public imagination _ a stately procession of three kings in turbans, crowns, elaborate capes and fancy slippers, with an entourage […]
Some churches conflicted over Kwanzaa
By Adelle M. Banks — December 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Come each December, high atop the choir loft of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas sit the traditional three purple and one pink Advent candles for several Sundays. But as the month comes to a close, another candelabra appears when the Kwanzaa kinara _ with its seven […]
Books trace real and imagined history of Christmas
By Cecile Holmes — December 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The origins of the first Christmas are complicated. Establishing their historical authenticity is probably impossible, but then, that’s not the real point of Christmas, according to the authors of three new books on the holiday. In “The First Christmas,” leading scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan explore […]
Churches push `Advent Conspiracy’ to teach real giving
By Nancy Haught — December 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service PORTLAND, Ore. _ The Christmas contradiction gives Pastor Rick McKinley a headache. Americans will spend about $475 billion this year on gifts, decorations and parties that many won’t even remember next year. They will run themselves ragged _ shopping, wrapping and celebrating. And some won’t pay off their Christmas debt […]
Barcelona nativity scenes feature an unusual visitor
By Margaret Bernstein — December 18, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service BARCELONA, Spain _ The Virgin Mary. The three kings. A few wayward sheep. These are the figures one expects to find in a traditional Christmas nativity scene. But a smartly dressed peasant squatting behind a rock with his rear-end exposed? Not so much. And yet statuettes of “El Caganer,” or […]
