Doctrine & Practice
TOP STORY: NATURAL DEATH AND ASSISTED SUICIDE: A father’s death: How God surprises us in dark
By RNS Blog Editor — April 9, 1996
c. 1996 Christianity Today (Wendy Murray Zoba is an associate editor of Christianity Today magazine.) (RNS)-One of the saddest essays I have ever read appeared in the New Yorker magazine in May 1995, written by a young man, Andrew Solomon, who was coming to terms with his mother’s death. She had been battling cancer-and lost. […]
COMMENTARY: On Good Friday, did Jesus feel like a failure?
By Dale Hanson Bourke — March 28, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of”Turn Toward the Wind”and publisher of Religion News Service.) (RNS)-Jesus was fully human and fully divine. It is one of the basic tenets of Christian theology and one of the great paradoxes of history. And during this Christian holy season, much of the pomp […]
COMMENTARY: Memories of two Seders, bitter and sweet
By James Rudin — March 20, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-I always look forward to the Passover Seder and to the stories, prayers, foods and songs of this festive family meal. But when Passover begins on Wednesday evening (April 3), I will be looking back. The year […]
COMMENTARY: The KKK and a little girl’s prayer
By RNS Blog Editor — February 22, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) (RNS)-“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength,”wrote David in Psalm 8. I was reminded of this […]
TOP STORY: RELIGION AND CULTURE: `Celestine’ sequel means more meditating
By Greg Garrison — February 15, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS)-Being married to the author of one of the most successful spiritual novels ever has given Salle Merrill-Redfield a high profile for promoting feminine spirituality and women’s issues. “My mission is to help women feel good about themselves,”she said.”There’s so much depression, so much anger and sadness.” By […]
Finding Buddha’s birthplace, faith and fact converge
By RNS Blog Editor — February 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-For a religion that asserts belief in a process of spiritual perfection over multiple lifetimes, the birthplace of a Buddhist might be considered an unremarkable thing. But an international team of archaeologists announced in Nepal this week that it had uncovered the site where the Buddha himself was born. It […]
Discovery of Buddha’s birthplace reveals more mysteries
By RNS Blog Editor — February 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service UNDATED (RNS)-For a religion that asserts belief in a process of spiritual perfection achieved over multiple lifetimes, the birthplace of a Buddhist might be considered an unremarkable thing. But an international team of archaeologists announced in Nepal this week that it had uncovered the site where the Buddha himself was […]
COMMENTARY: In a standing-room-only synagogue, there’s dancing in the aisles
By James Rudin — February 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-As the sun began to set on a recent Friday evening, the wind- chill factor on Manhattan’s West Side was minus 18 degrees. And even though bitter gusts were blowing in from the Hudson River, more than […]
TOP STORY: BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP: Did James, `the brother of the Lord,’ write the epistle attri
By RNS Blog Editor — January 30, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-Is a brother of Jesus the real author of a letter attributed to him in the New Testament? Luke Timothy Johnson, a Catholic who teaches at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, is bucking conventional wisdom by proposing that James-called the”brother of the Lord”by the apostle Paul in the New […]
TOP STORY: RELIGION IN INDIA: Sunset falls on an ancient Jewish community
By Tim Murphy — January 26, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service COCHIN, India (RNS)-“There was no need for it to come to an end, but now the party’s over,”Lily Koder said as she stood looking down Jewtown, a narrow lane leading to one of Asia’s oldest synagogues. Koder’s father, Samuel, who started Cochin’s first electric company and ferry service, was a […]
NEWS FEATURE: Proposed time change in Britain upsets Jews, Muslims
By Robert Nowell — January 17, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service LONDON (RNS)-Some Orthodox Jews and Muslims are objecting to a proposal to advance Britain’s clocks an hour and put the entire country on Central European Time. Such a move would make carefully planned religious observances-early-morning prayers and sabbath observances for Jews, and mid-day prayers for Muslims-more difficult, the groups say. […]
Appeals court strikes down Mississippi prayer law
By RNS Blog Editor — January 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-It’s not often that Jay Sekulow of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice and Elliot Mincberg of the liberal advocacy group People For the American Way agree on a school-prayer issue. But both men said Thursday they agreed with a federal appeals court decision this week that dealt […]
TOP STORY: A NEW BIBLE TRANSLATION: In the beginning, there were many different words
By Julia Lieblich — January 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service BOSTON (RNS)-Everett Fox was 21 when he decided to translate the first book of the Hebrew Bible into English, and he approached the project with the audacity of a graduate student undaunted by King James. The grandeur of the 17th-century King James Version-translated by a team of 47 scholars-had made […]
Portrayals of Virgin Mary reflect cultural cross-currents
By RNS Blog Editor — January 3, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-In the Gospel of St. Luke, it is written: “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. “The virgin’s name was Mary.” Mary-the humble […]
BODY & SOUL: Meet the new year by coming together in prayer
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Body & Soul is a regular column exploring the interplay between spirituality and psychology. Pythia Peay is the author of the forthcoming”Putting America on the Couch,”to be published by Riverhead Books.) UNDATED _ The year will soon be over and a new one is waiting to be born. Such times […]
