Beliefs
COMMENTARY: Rabin: A martyr in his grave cannot lead anyone to peace
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (UNDATED) Has anything really changed since Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated last Nov. 4 in Tel Aviv? Decide for yourself as you consider what has happened during the past year. At her husband’s funeral, Leah […]
COMMENTARY: God works in mysterious ways
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (UNDATED) Aron Lustiger, the son of Polish-Jewish parents, was born in France 70 years ago. Today, he is Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris. William Joseph Walsh, the son of Irish-Catholic parents, was born […]
COMMENTARY: A new big brother wields censor’s scissors
By Mark J. Seitz — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Eds: Matt Zoller Seitz writes for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.) (UNDATED) A while back, a friend told me he’d become a fan of the edgy, offbeat character actor Harvey Keitel. I urged him to rent “Bad Lieutenant,” a 1992 urban drama starring Keitel as a cop who’s fallen so […]
NEWS FEATURE: BROTHERS IN MUSIC: Singers discover interfaith album strikes sour note
By Chris Smith — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service UNDATED _ When two top artists in contemporary Christian music decided to do an album and concert tour together, they thought they were simply celebrating their shared faith and an admiration for each others’ music. But Michael Card is an evangelical Protestant and John Michael Talbot is a Roman Catholic. […]
TOP STORY: THE CHANGING NATURE OF FAITH: In New York, a church council opens its doors to all Christ
By Chris Smith — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service ALBANY, N.Y. _ In mid-December, members of the New York State Council of Churches will gather for an unusual service: They will celebrate their going out of business. Beginning next year, the council of mainline Protestant and Orthodox denominations will reorganize as a larger New York State Community of Churches […]
TOP STORY: HOW TO DIE: Doctors divided over how and when to help people die
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service PORTLAND, Ore. _ Why should physicians help terminally ill patients end their lives? Here in Oregon the question is already out of date. For the past two years, the question here has been when _ and how. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review right-to-die cases from […]
COMMENTARY: South Carolina flag flap shows the power of symbols
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ In his effort to remove the Confederate flag from atop the South Carolina state capitol, Gov. David Beasley has discovered what any religious leader could have told him: Symbols are often more powerful than words […]
COMMENTARY: Here comes the father of the bride
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ My shoulders tightened up; my breathing became rapid and shallow. The muscles in my neck grew tense; my stomach churned. The roof of my mouth became parched. And my entire body shook as if it […]
COMMENTARY: Twilight falls on a candidate and an era
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Bob Dole’s losing effort to win the presidency reminds me of a dour seminary dean I once knew who abandoned the security of campus life and tried unsuccessfully to lead a congregation. The congregation is my metaphor for the 260 million people in America today. The seminary is the […]
COMMENTARY: Honor your father and mother: Protect them from cults
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (UNDATED) Eighteen years ago this month the catastrophe known as”Jonestown”took place in a Guyana jungle. On orders from the Rev. Jim Jones, the People’s Temple leader, 912 members of his cult perished, along with U.S. Rep. Leo […]
COMMENTARY: Swiss banks reap the whirlwind of their greed in Nazi era
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ We have long known that the radical evil of Hitler’s Third Reich, which sent 6 million Jews to their deaths, corrupted religion, politics, music, art, journalism, medicine, literature, education, and sports. But now, as a […]
COMMENTARY: Texaco execs are soul mates of an ancient tyrant
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ The nation has been dismayed by the recently revealed”Texaco tapes,”in which oil company executives were secretly recorded expressing bigotry toward blacks and the new African-American holiday of Kwanza. But the tapes, which came to light […]
COMMENTARY: Holocaust Museum’s success risks trivializing a tragedy
By James Rudin — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (UNDATED) I attended the opening ceremonies of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., in April 1993, but it was only recently that I made a return visit. It proved to be a jumble of surprising, […]
TOP STORY: UNCOVERING THE TOMB OF JESUS: Archaeologist expects new findings on tomb of Jesus
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Restoration work within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem may lead to new evidence that the site is really where disciples laid the crucified body of Jesus, a British archaeologist says. The claim that the rock tomb is the place where Jesus was buried has been […]
Notes from God, written in magic marker
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Here’s an excerpt from “Conversations With God” (Putnam), a best seller by former Oregon talk show host Neale Donald Walsch. The responses Walsch attributes to God are in boldface. I’ve searched for the path to God all my life _ I know you have _ _ and now […]
