Charles Honey
Charles Honey is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Charles Honey
Sexuality Is About Spirituality, Pastor Says
By Charles Honey — February 13, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ About halfway through his new book, “Sex God,” the Rev. Rob Bell recalls a scene of exquisite torture at a middle school dance. He was 12, lined up with all the boys on one side of the cafeteria while all the girls were lined up on […]
Some Say It’s Time for Reformed Churches to Reunite
By Charles Honey — December 9, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ The two sisters grew up worshipping in the same church. Today, they feel like they still are, even though they are in different denominations. So, Patricia Roek and Lynda Barendse-Witte ask, why not reunite the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) with the Reformed Church in America (RCA), […]
Jews Create New Torah Scroll, One Letter at a Time
By Charles Honey — November 21, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ Jeanne Moss put her tentative hand to the quill pen, just above the surer hand of Neil Yerman. Then Yerman gently guided her as she wrote the Hebrew letter resch _ her contribution to a new Torah. “OK now, to the right, gently,” Yerman said, as […]
Book Shows Evangelicals are `Extraordinarily Normal’
By Charles Honey — November 11, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ If you want to serve me, Dave and Veronica Commire heard God saying, paint this guy’s house. So the couple rounded up about 15 of their church friends and beautified the home of a neighbor who had lost a son and was angry at God. Telling […]
Domestic Missionaries Aim to Save Dying Churches
By Charles Honey — August 11, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service WAYLAND, Mich. _ The remains of 18 soldiers and civilian contractors were scattered across a farmer’s field in Afghanistan, lying amid the wreckage of a helicopter crashed by a sandstorm. The Rev. Tim Mattison’s chopper had narrowly escaped the same fate. Now, having returned to the scene to recover the […]
Christian Reformed Church Approves Women Clergy _ Sort Of
By Charles Honey — June 20, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ It was supposed to be a spirit-filled compromise but, to the Rev. Thea Leunk, it just felt like a loss. The pastor of Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church here felt sad after the denomination’s Synod approved removing the word “male” as a qualification for ministers on […]
Christian Reformed Church to Vote on Women’s Role in Church
By Charles Honey — June 13, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ As 188 delegates gather for the Christian Reformed Church Synod, Karen Norris wishes she were one of them. But Norris, of Grand Rapids, cannot be part of the annual conference because she is not yet ordained _ and because she is a woman. That could change […]
Dominican Sisters Joyfully Preach Through Art
By Charles Honey — February 15, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ She grew up at the foot of the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico, photographing friends and flowers with a Brownie camera. “I was very close to the earth, and I loved nature,” recalls Sister Orlanda Leyba, a photographer and Dominican nun. “I was always the one […]
COMMENTARY: A Gulf Coast Like a Buddhist Sand Painting Swept Away
By Charles Honey — September 10, 2005
c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Tibetan Buddhists turn life’s impermanence into art. Over the course of several days, they create complex, colorful sand paintings called mandalas, forming an intricate diagram of the enlightened mind and an ideal world. Then, they sweep the sand away and pour it in a river, to acknowledge the transience […]
COMMENTARY: No New Monuments to the Ten Commandments
By Charles Honey — August 25, 2005
c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Like most Americans, I like monuments. They’re big, they’re solid and they last. Mount Rushmore is ridiculously massive, but it is spectacularly American and looks great on a postcard. But do I really want to see a monument of the Ten Commandments springing up on every courthouse and state […]
COMMENTARY: Ten Commandments Belong in Our Lives, Not on Public Squares
By Charles Honey — August 20, 2005
c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Like most Americans, I like monuments. They’re big, they’re solid and they last. Mount Rushmore is ridiculously massive, but it is spectacularly American and looks great on a postcard. But do I really want to see a monument of the Ten Commandments springing up on every courthouse and state […]
NEWS STORY: Massive Launch of New Bible Targets Young Market
By Charles Honey — February 11, 2005
c. 2005 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ Even over latte at a coffeehouse, Andrew Apsite keeps God’s word close at hand. At the downtown Urban Mill, the 18-year-old reaches into his backpack and pulls out “The Message Remix,” a modern-language paraphrase of the Bible. “When I don’t know how to deal with something, […]
NEWS FEATURE: Billionaire Shares Wisdom Gleaned From Faith and Business
By Charles Honey — August 19, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ Rich DeVos knows the odds are stacked against his getting into heaven. He is well aware of Jesus’ teaching that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. He learned this […]
NEWS FEATURE: Billionaire Shares Wisdom Gleaned From Faith and Business
By Charles Honey — August 19, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ Rich DeVos knows the odds are stacked against his getting into heaven. He is well aware of Jesus’ teaching that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. He learned this […]
NEWS FEATURE: Think Tank Seeks to Blend Conservative Theology, Free Enterprise
By Charles Honey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ An African bishop sees hope for his country’s future in the ideas bubbling out of a Grand Rapids think tank. Bishop Bernard Njoroge Kariuki, who oversees half a million Episcopal Church members in Kenya, recently spent a weekend in Florida with 26 seminarians and clergy from […]
