Monthly Archives: December 2009
Oral Roberts, called home
By Mark Silk — December 16, 2009
Far be it from me to disagree with my old friend Grant Wacker, our leading historian of Pentecostalism, who told WaPo’s Michelle Boorstein: I’d say if we set aside Billy Graham and Martin Luther King and Falwell in the sense that their influence was religious but also political and social, outside them Roberts was the […]
Oral Roberts, dean of Pentecostal evangelists, dies at 91
By Tracy Gordon — December 16, 2009
(RNS) Oral Roberts, the pioneering TV evangelist and faith healer who became the dean of America’s Pentecostal preachers, died Tuesday (Dec. 15) at the age of 91. He died in Newport Beach, Calif., of complications from pneumonia, his publicist announced. One of the nation’s first television evangelists, as well as the founder of the Tulsa-based […]
Pope says environment as great a threat as terrorism
By Tracy Gordon — December 16, 2009
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Neglect of the natural environment is as great a threat to peace and prosperity as global terrorism, Pope Benedict XVI said in his most extensive ecological statement to date, released by the Vatican on Tuesday (Dec. 15). “If You Want To Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation,” is the title of Benedict’s message for […]
Obama’s Muslim outreach named top religion story of 2009
By Tracy Gordon — December 16, 2009
(RNS) President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world has been ranked by the nation’s religion journalists as the top religion story of the year. The June speech in Cairo, in which the president quoted from the Quran and said America will “never” be at war with Islam, was ranked as the No. 1 religion story […]
Clergy unite on a common message: Thou Shalt Be civil
By Tracy Gordon — December 16, 2009
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) It’s gotten ugly out there in the public square — on television, at public meetings, on the Internet. Whether it’s health care reform specifically, or politics generally, people seem to demonize each other, shout each other down and gleefully circulate vicious e-mail messages distorting the other side. So much so that Christian, […]
Tuesday’s roundup
By Kevin Eckstrom — December 15, 2009
The District of Columbia is poised today to join five other U.S. jurisdictions to allow same-sex marriage. The mayor’s signature and a congressional review are still necessary, but even opponents say that battle is all but lost. On the other side of the world, the Guardian newspaper takes a hard look at Uganda’s proposed anti-gay […]
For Daly, focus on family is personal crusade
By Tracy Gordon — December 15, 2009
(RNS) Despite his busy schedule as president of Colorado megaministry Focus on the Family, Jim Daly makes it a priority to leave the office in time to arrive home by 6 p.m. to spend time with his wife and two young sons. But, as a recent conversation with his 9-year-old demonstrated, he confesses that the […]
COMMENTARY: More than just sex
By Tom Ehrich — December 15, 2009
(RNS) When I heard that the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles had elected a lesbian as assistant bishop, my reaction was, “Here we go again.” I knew the anti-gay lobby would kick into overdrive with dire warnings about violating “biblical principles” and offending the Anglican Communion. I knew partisans on the other side would celebrate […]
Religion and the Supreme Court
By Mark Silk — December 15, 2009
Dahlia Lithwick’s piece on Slate last week, “Articles of Faith: Why Americans can’t talk about religion and the Supreme Court,” has its premise wrong, in my view. We generally don’t talk much about religion and the Supreme Court. We talk about the need for race and gender diversity on the court in brave, sweeping pronouncements: […]
What’s up, David Brooks?
By Mark Silk — December 15, 2009
I finished reading my morning David Brooks in the hard-copy NYT at the breakfast table with the pleasurable annoyance that here was something to blog myself into a high dudgeon about. Having devoted himself to portraying Barack Obama as the consummate Niebuhrian cold war liberal in his Nobel Prize speech, Brooks ended with these paragraphs: […]
Archbishop of Canterbury condemns Uganda’s anti-gay law
By Tracy Gordon — December 15, 2009
(RNS) After weeks of intense pressure from Episcopal gay rights groups, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has condemned the “shocking severity” of proposed anti-gay laws in Uganda. The spiritual leader of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion also said that “I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what […]
Churches rally in Copenhagen for climate protection
By Tracy Gordon — December 15, 2009
COPENHAGEN (RNS/ENI) Bells pealed as a warning on climate change on Sunday (Dec. 13) as the Archbishop of Canterbury told a packed church service that humanity can only show love to all by making the earth a secure home. Archbishop Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the 77 million-memberAnglican Communion, preached the main sermon before […]
Accused parents say son’s faith-healing death was no crime
By Tracy Gordon — December 15, 2009
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Two parents charged with criminally negligent homicide in the faith-healing death of their teenage son will ask a judge to dismiss the charges because they followed the advice of state child welfare workers. Attorneys for the couple, Jeff and Marci Beagley, also contend state law on parental responsibility in children’s health care […]
Author takes faith, but not himself, seriously
By Tracy Gordon — December 15, 2009
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Author Donald Miller’s best-selling 2003 memoir, “Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality,” is being made into a movie and he’s on the phone with his director. “That explosion and the sex scene?” he says into his cell phone. “I still want those in there.” He’s kidding. “Blue Like Jazz” won’t […]
Monday’s roundup
By Daniel Burke — December 14, 2009
White House Chief of Staff Emanuel lit the National Menorah and President Obama extended Hanukkah greetings to Jews: extra points for offering a Hebrew version. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church urged “prayer and discernment” after the election of a lesbian as bishop in Los Angeles. An ELCA synod in Iowa has voted to […]
