Hinduism
NEWS FEATURE: Death penalty divides those in pulpit and pews
By Cathleen Falsani — May 7, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service CHICAGO (RNS)-In the 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, a bitterly emotional debate has preceded each of the 328 executions that have occurred in prisons around the country. The issue: Is killing a morally defensible punishment for murder? It is a question no less contentious […]
TOP STORY: RELIGION AND POLITICS: Christian Coalition head calls for a shift in rhetoric
By Adelle M. Banks — May 7, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-Sounding a call for moral persuasion rather than political coercion, Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed has proposed a wording change in the Republican Party’s anti-abortion plank and urged religious conservatives to cool their rhetoric against President Clinton and homosexuals. In his new book”Active Faith”(Free Press), Reed suggests rewording the […]
TOP STORY: RELIGION AND POLITICS: A reader’s guide to the Religious Right
By Steve Rabey — May 7, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-Just in time for the upcoming election season, a number of new books by conservative religious leaders-and some of their critics-raise intriguing questions about the power of the Religious Right and the popular appeal of its agenda.”Active Faith”by Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed is the most eagerly awaited book […]
COMMENTARY: Nirvana is here, right now
By Byron Kaye — May 3, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Les Kaye is abbot of the Kannon-do Zen Center in Mountain View, Calif.) (RNS)-A student once asked Zen master Shunryu Suzuki,”What is Nirvana?”He replied,”Seeing one thing through to the end.” Suzuki-roshi, as he was known, (roshi means teacher) came to this country from Japan in the mid-1950s and established Zen […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — May 3, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Anti-smoking forces claim victory in billboard campaign (RNS)-Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company said Thursday (May 2) its 3M Media subsidiary will no longer accept billboard advertising for tobacco contracts. Anti-smoking advocates, including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a coalition of 275 Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish investors, hailed […]
TOP STORY: RELIGION IN AMERICA: Christian rally puts `evils’ on trial
By Adelle M. Banks — May 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-Thousands of evangelical Christians, gathering at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday (April 30) for a rally dubbed”Washington for Jesus,”declared the United States”guilty”of a variety of”sins,”ranging from abortion to AIDS to racism.”We face the 21st century a great nation with a great heritage, but living today in the shadow of the […]
TOP STORY: RELIGION AND MEDICINE: Israeli researchers take a new look at an ancient healing traditio
By Elaine Fletcher — April 25, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service JERUSALEM (RNS)-In antiquity, health and healing were the domain of monks, shamans and priests. But that intimate link was broken long ago in most parts of the world. One exception was the Tibetan highlands, where geographical isolation from the West helped preserve a 1,700-year-old medical tradition that combined spiritual healing […]
NEWS STORY: Bishops, pope seek land-mine ban as U.N. takes up issue
By Carl Anderson — April 23, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are asking the Clinton administration to”act boldly”and quickly to ban the production, sale and use of anti-personnel land mines.”The United States should move quickly and unambiguously to ban the production, sale and use of anti-personnel land mines,”Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of Worcester, Mass., said in […]
NEWS FEATURE: Missionary in India lives in fear of Hindu extremists
By Tim Murphy — April 23, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service NEW DELHI (RNS)-American Christian missionary Max Strong has been stalked by tigers and rogue elephants, and had to kill a 13-foot king cobra while clearing 100 acres of jungle in a malaria-infested district on the India-Nepal border. But Strong, 81, says the greatest danger he has faced has not been […]
COMMENTARY: Clinton should speak out on Kuwaiti persecution case
By RNS Blog Editor — April 23, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421.1551(AT)compuserve.com.) (RNS)-President Clinton has shown admirable solidarity with beleaguered […]
COMMENTARY: A pastor attacked for advocating pluralism
By James Rudin — April 17, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-A bitter dispute currently unfolding in a small Michigan town has profound implications for Christian-Jewish relations everywhere. Richard Rhem, the 61-year-old pastor of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, may be expelled from his denomination, the Reformed […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — April 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Cardinal O’Connor uses Easter sermon to criticize euthanasia ruling (RNS)-Roman Catholic Cardinal John J. O’Connor of the Archdiocese of New York interrupted his joyous Easter Sunday (April 7) sermon celebrating the resurrection of Jesus to issue a somber warning about the dangers of assisted suicide. O’Connor, addressing a standing-room-only crowd […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — April 5, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service New York assisted-suicide ruling criticized (RNS)-Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston has called on the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the April 2 ruling of a federal appeals court that overturned New York state’s ban on assisted suicide for the terminally ill.”How horribly sad it is, in this season of new […]
RNS Daily Digest
By Carl Anderson — April 4, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Jews in China mark first communal Seder since end of World War II (RNS)-For the first time since World War II, Jews in China were scheduled to come together to hold a communal Passover Seder, the Lubavitch News Service reported Wednesday. The news service, the official news agency of the […]
TOP STORY: TV PREACHING: Schuller son to walk in TV preacher’s footsteps
By RNS Blog Editor — April 4, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-Like father, like son. Television preacher Robert H. Schuller and his only son, Robert A., both decided to be ministers before they were teenagers. Both men preach a positive theology aimed at building their congregations’ self-esteem. And now, both are in top leadership roles of the expansive Crystal Cathedral Ministries […]