Politics
NEWS PROFILE: Pastor on Clinton’s race panel: Can there be one America?
By Bart Worden — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ Every Sunday the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook tends to the spiritual needs of her flock from the pulpit of a storefront church in the South Bronx, a baseball’s throw from Yankee Stadium. By Monday, she’s usually on a plane headed for some far-flung city to help heal […]
NEWS STORY: Chinese dissident rejects”Asian”values, says human rights are universal
By Chris Smith — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service PRAGUE, Czech Republic _ The notion of”Asian values,”used by countries such as China and Singapore to justify authoritarian regimes, is a modern blend of Marxism and fascist racism that defies Asia’s own traditions, said Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng. The idea of Asian values is”that certain human beings are able […]
NEWS PROFILE: Bishop Moore _ a career of pushing the ecclesiastical envelope
By Bart Worden — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ From the parlor of his elegant townhouse in Greenwich Village, Paul Moore, the 78-year-old former Episcopal bishop of New York, pauses as he ponders the role of his church in the approaching millennium. At nearly 6 feet 5 inches, with a full shock of white hair and […]
NEWS STORY: North Carolina church, citing authoritarian trends, quits Southern Baptists
By Yonat Shimron — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service RALEIGH, N.C. _ After months of often agonizing debate, Raleigh’s oldest Baptist church _ a congregation known for elevating the role of women _ voted this week to end its 153-year relationship with the Southern Baptist Convention. The 264-23 vote at First Baptist Church came just three months after the […]
NEWS STORY: Catholic overseas aid group challenges WHO on drug distribution rules
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ One of the nation’s oldest and largest religious charities supplying medical aid to Third World hospitals is challenging World Health Organization guidelines on drug distribution that the group says puts the lives of thousands of people in jeopardy because they prevent badly needed medicine from reaching the […]
NEWS FEATURE: Pakistan’s Christians treated as second-class citizens
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service RAWALPINDI, Pakistan _ According to the law, no one should have been able to take Seema and Khushi Masih’s daughters away from them. According to the law, all parents in Pakistan _ including Christian parents such as the Masihs _ have the right to raise their children in their own […]
NEWS STORY: Church panel calls Egyptian persecution of Christians `overstated’
By Bart Worden — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ Reports of murder, rape and torture of Christians by Muslim extremists in Egypt are”grossly overstated”and there is no evidence of widespread or government-sponsored persecution of Christian minorities in the Muslim-dominated nation, according to a report released Wednesday (March 25) by a delegation of New York religious leaders […]
NEWS FEATURE: Pope John Paul II’s papacy has radically changed church’s relations with J
By Christiane Gruber — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service ROME _ In his two decades as pope, John Paul II has radically changed the scope and tenor of relations between Roman Catholics and Jews. As pope, the Polish-born John Paul has presided over and encouraged an official Catholic opening to Jews, their sensitivities and their causes unprecedented in 2,000 […]
NEWS STORY: Jewish interfaith leader wins Templeton religion prize
By Bart Worden — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ Sir Sigmund Sternberg, a Hungarian-born British businessman who spent more than a half century building bridges among the world’s faiths, was named Wednesday (March 4) the 1998 winner of the $1.2 million Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Little known to the general public, Sternberg, 76, currently […]
NEWS FEATURE: Is Kwanzaa going commercial?
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ The Kwanzaa Lady is growing concerned. Kwanzaa, the seven-day festival in which an estimated 18 million African-Americans celebrate family, community and culture from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1, she says, is going commercial. “I think it’s being exploited because (some retailers) are charging too much money for […]
NEWS FEATURE: Rabbi courts the powerful in pursuit of human rights
By Ira Rifkin — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ The photos covering one wall of Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s synagogue office on Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side tell the story: There he is with Pope John Paul II. There he is with Chinese President Jiang Jemin. There he is with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. And, in a […]
NEWS STORY: Netanyahu to back legislation barring non-Orthodox conversions
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ Reversing his previous stand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to press for legislation to bar state recognition of non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism performed in Israel. The decision has aroused fierce opposition from Conservative and Reform movement leaders, as well as from moderate Israeli parliamentarians who had said […]
NEWS FEATURE: White church member’s kidney gives black woman new life
By David Briggs — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service LYNDHURST, Ohio _ The first two times Diana Harrill felt God had spoken to her, the voice was soft but persistent and asked her if she would help a church member suffering from kidney failure.”Of course I would,”Harrill replied. So she prayed that Toni Whatley would wake up one morning […]
NEWS STORY: Vatican official backs joint Israeli-Palestinian rule over Jerusalem
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ The Vatican’s foreign minister has harshly criticized Israel’s 21-years of rule over East Jerusalem while suggesting the Roman Catholic Church would support shared Israeli-Palestinian sovereignty over the city as long as its long-standing demands for free access to religious sites are guaranteed. Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s […]
NEWS STORY: Pope beatifies controversial World War II-era prelate
By Chris Smith — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service MARIJA BISTRICA, Croatia _ In a joyous ceremony conducted amid cornfields and pumpkin patches, Pope John Paul II, brushing aside objections from abroad, Saturday (Oct. 3) beatified Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, the controversial World War II-era prelate the church contends is a martyr to communism but whom critics accuse of collaborating […]
