Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly is a production of THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET. Visit www.pbs.org/religionandethics for additional information. Show #2005 will be fed over PBS at 5:00 p.m. EST on September 30, 2016 (check local listings).

The Ambassador of Israel visited the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC or Church Of Christ) Central office last week. His Excellency Effie Ben Matityau arrived at the INC Central office complex and was welcomed by INC Executive Minister, Bro. Eduardo V. Manalo.

The Board of Directors of Courage International, Inc., announced today that Fr. Philip G. Bochanski has been appointed the third Executive Director of the 36-year-old apostolate by the unanimous decision of its Board of Bishops. Fr. Bochanski, a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, succeeds Fr. Paul N. Check, who has led the work of Courage since 2008.

The modern university campus is no place for a believer. Far from the watchful eye of faithful parents, lost among a million to-do’s, surrounded by dormmates and classmates of different faiths or no faith at all, college students are pretty much set-up to become a statistic of those who “have left the church in college.” But it doesn’t have to be this way. Harvard graduate, Rhodes Scholar and now author Aurora Griffin shares forty practical tips on how prospective and current college students can keep their faith in college in her debut book, HOW I STAYED CATHOLIC AT HARVARD.

On Wednesday, September 28 at 1:00 P.M., historians, rabbis, pastors, and representatives of many civic and educational organizations will gather at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale grave site of William E. Blackstone, recognizing the 175th anniversary of his birth, and his historical significance as a pioneer of respectful relationships between Christians and Jews.

The Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) has announced the publication of Vol. 2, No. 2 of Yale Journal of Music & Religion (YJMR), and the appointment of Jeffers L. Engelhardt as its new editor-in-chief, effective October 1.

KidSpirit, the sole magazine by and for youth to explore life’s big questions, is delighted to announce it has received the top magazine honor from the Religion News Association (RNA), the 2016 award for Magazine Overall Excellence. Founded in 1949, RNA is the only professional association in the world for journalists who cover religion.

In a speech at the U.S. Department of Education, William Jeynes, a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton and a Harvard graduate, presented data from a recent major study on raising African American student achievement. The study was a meta-analysis, which is a very highly regarded statistical approach. This is because a meta-analysis statistically combines all of the studies that have ever been done on a particular topic. The findings indicated that African American parental involvement is a particularly strong means of raising the educational outcomes of their children and that these youth responded particularly well to love, as expressed by their parents and teachers.

  Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs, NY, has received a gift to establish The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Professorship in Buddhist Studies. The $300,000 grant for the new tenure-track position addresses a priority at the College as it creates a new Religion Department and seeks to strengthen its interdisciplinary Asian Studies Program. The […]

Senator Rory J. Respicio, the majority leader of Guam’s 33nd legislature, made a courtesy call to Iglesia Ni Cristo Executive Minister Brother Eduardo recently, to present the legislative resolution of Guam that recognized and congratulated the INC on its 102nd anniversary this past July 27. “The Iglesia Ni Cristo is a very resilient Church, and […]

To kick off its 25th anniversary, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the first independent magazine dedicated to Western Buddhism, will be presenting a unique event with Sheila Hixon on Tuesday, October 25th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Greene Space in Manhattan’s SoHo district to celebrate the release of Conversations in the Spirit, a collection of Lex Hixon's WBAI “In the Spirit'” interviews, published by Monkfish Book Publishing Company.

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly is a production of THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET. Visit www.pbs.org/religionandethics for additional information. Show #2004 will be fed over PBS at 5:00 p.m. EST on September 23, 2016 (check local listings).

Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible, from academic publisher Routledge Press, proposes a provocative new theory regarding when, where and why the Old Testament was written. According to the author, Russell Gmirkin, the idea for the earliest Bible came out of Plato’s Laws, which proposed a new form of government with divinely inspired laws and a carefully approved ethical national literature.

A new documentary from Samaritan’s Purse and Executive Producer Franklin Graham—brings to vivid life the true story of two American aid workers in West Africa stricken with the deadly Ebola virus and the race against time to get them home and get them treated.

After meeting with staff from the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative yesterday in Nigeria to review 21CWI's report "Nigeria: Fractured and Forgotten", thirteen Members of the Nigerian National Assembly released a letter (excerpt below) asking members of the United States Congress to confirm the U.S Ambassador to Nigeria appointee in September session.