interfaith
RNS Daily Digest
By Carl Anderson — May 20, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Orthodox jurisdictions repair rift over church in Estonia (RNS)-The Russian Orthodox Church and its mother church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey, have restored ties and avoided a schism, according to church officials. Three months ago, the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox denomination in the world, broke […]
COMMENTARY: In the diplomatic arena, let there be light
By James Rudin — May 16, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-When foreign ministers, ambassadors and other diplomats express themselves in public, they often employ a special language I call”diplospeak.” Diplospeak disguises reality and deliberately makes facts obscure or ambiguous. This dense and opaque language is an exquisite […]
COMMENTARY: Biblical Ruth is a model of power and determination
By James Rudin — May 10, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-The women’s movement in religion is providing us with exciting new ways to understand the Bible. One result is the transformation of Ruth from a character who seems too good to be true to an independent woman […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — May 8, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Child victims of Nazi experiments laid to rest (RNS)-Fifty-one years after the end of World War II, the brains of mentally handicapped children whom the Nazis considered”unworthy of life”will be buried Wednesday in a memorial grave at Vienna’s central cemetery. They are the remains of hundreds of German and Austrian […]
NEWS STORY: Conservative Jewish leaders condemn intermarriage
By Ira Rifkin — May 7, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-The united leadership of Judaism’s Conservative movement has issued its strongest condemnation ever of interfaith marriage, urging Jewish parents and young people to recognize the threat that the growing number of Jews marrying non-Jews poses to the faith’s continued survival.”We want Jews to marry other Jews,”the 2,000-word policy statement bluntly […]
TOP STORY: RELIGION IN AMERICA: To music and sermons, Capitol Hill marks National Day of Prayer
By Carl Anderson — May 3, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-More than 700 people, some in business suits and dresses, others in jeans and T-shirts, and many bearing well-worn Bibles, Thursday (May 2) filled an ornate caucus room in a House of Representatives office building on Capitol Hill to mark the 45th National Day of Prayer. Blending piety and […]
COMMENTARY: The birth of a nation
By James Rudin — May 3, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-Etched in America’s collective memory is the image of Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and the other founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Our newborn nation was at war against Britain, but we […]
RNS Daily Digest
By Carl Anderson — May 1, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Protestant, Jewish leaders back Clinton abortion veto (RNS)-More than two dozen top Protestant, Jewish, Unitarian and humanist leaders Tuesday (April 30) voiced their support for President Clinton’s veto of legislation banning a controversial late-term abortion procedure.”We fully support the president’s action in standing with women and their families who face […]
COMMENTARY: Shedding light on Luther’s dark side
By James Rudin — April 26, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-This year marks the 450th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther, the German monk who left the Roman Catholic Church in 1517 to become the leading figure in the Protestant Reformation. Now that Germany is unified, […]
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 […]
TOP STORY: RELIGION AND POLITICS: Liberals look to spirit to invigorate their movement
By Ira Rifkin — April 18, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-Torie Osborn, former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and Janet Winter, a member of the Bruderhof sect, a theologically conservative communal Christian group, lead lives that appear galaxies apart. Yet there they both were, Osborn in jeans and Winter wearing an ankle-length skirt and […]
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 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Mexican officials deny permission for Mormon temple (RNS)-An outcry from local Roman Catholics and concerns about urban development have led city officials in Monterrey, Mexico, to block the construction of what would have been the country’s second Mormon temple. The decision was reported Wednesday (April 10) in the newspaper La […]
COMMENTARY: Suddenly, the hospital room is a moral arena
By James Rudin — April 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-Two recent federal court decisions on physician-assisted suicide have raised profound questions for America’s religious communities, issues that many clergy are ill-prepared to face. In March, a Washington state law banning medical suicides was struck down; in […]
NEWS STORY: Pope to issue statement on Holocaust, but no encyclical
By RNS Blog Editor — April 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS)-Pope John Paul II appears close to delivering on a 1987 pledge that the Vatican would assess Catholic treatment of Jews during the Holocaust and church teaching that some contend fostered anti-Semitism. The tract on one of the most sensitive and complicated issues confronting the church is being […]