Other
NEWS STORY: Group sees occult practices infecting churches
By Kyle J. Howard — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service ST. LOUIS _ Once Marcia Montenegro converted to Christianity in 1990, she gave up a successful career as a licensed astrologer. No more chart readings. No more workshops for civic groups, public school students or witchcraft devotees. It was all over. What disconcerts Montenegro now is meeting Bible-carrying Christians who […]
NEWS STORY: European synod could be a headache for Rome
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ Two years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the nastiness that communism had sown, Europe’s Catholic bishops came to Rome and uttered a collective hallelujah. At last, they declared, the closed European societies to the East would experience a renaissance in religious freedom. They did, […]
NEWS FEATURE: Afro-Cuban religions miffed at being left out of papal visit
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service HAVANA _ For most of his 64 years, Ibrain Barrallaso, descendant of African slaves, has proudly and openly practiced his religion. Down a dark corridor and past a busy courtyard in this city’s oldest and most crowded quarter, in a drab room forming part of his modest home, Barrallaso has […]
NEWS FEATURE: New movement within Catholicism inspires some, frightens others
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEWARK, N.J. _ The Rev. Luis P. Gonzalez began his long journey of faith as a cynical teenager in Spain. His leanings were Marxist, and he considered the Roman Catholic Church of his parents to be authoritarian, old-fashioned and sexist. His reconciliation with Catholicism came through what is called the […]
NEWS STORY: Cuba’s religious revival’s many forms boost non-Catholic faiths, too
By Ira Rifkin — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service HAVANA _ Cuba’s religious revival, which began in 1991 and which Pope John Paul II hopes to boost during his current visit to the island nation, has spurred growth in a number of faith movements across the Marxist country. The Cuban Roman Catholic Church and a host of Protestant denominations […]
COMMENTARY: Lessons from the death of Rock and Roll Daniel
By Tom Ehrich — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey,”daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com) UNDATED _ The house seems quiet when I return from an evening of teaching. My 6-year-old son sits […]
COMMENTARY: In defense of Reggie White
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service (Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.) UNDATED _ Even though he plays for the hated Wisconsin Cheese Heads _ sometimes […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service World’s Christians near setting common date for Easter (RNS) An ecumenical proposal to establish a common date for Easter throughout all Christendom has won strong support from some prominent church leaders. Easter, the feast celebrating Jesus’ Resurrection, is usually commemorated on two separate dates, one by most Protestants and Roman […]
NEWS FEATURE: In Ohio, mainline meets evangelical _ musically
By David Briggs — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ Cover up the organ. Empty the choir loft. Pack away the liturgical robes. And bring on the T-shirts, sandals and electric guitars. Some 30 years after it began in the cultural revolution of the ’60s, and long after many nondenominational churches reached out to a missing generation by […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service Family agrees to remove tube from brain-damaged man (RNS) The family of a Virginia man believed to be in a persistent vegetative state has agreed to remove the man’s feeding tube after a bitter debate. The parents and brothers of Hugh Finn, 44, decided not to request that the Virginia […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service Religious liberty advocates urge freedom for new religious movements (RNS) Delegates to the Fourth World Congress on Religious Liberty have called on governments around the world to protect the religious liberties of sometimes controversial new religious movements”The Congress affirms that the principle of religious liberty applies equally to new religions […]
NEWS ANALYSIS: Unification Church blessing event sends mixed signals
By Ira Rifkin — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon _ who officiated at a marriage blessing ceremony here Saturday (Nov. 29) attended by some 40,000 people _ appears torn between trying to broaden its appeal and holding to a theology presenting Moon as a messiah and the church […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service Clinton asks Yeltsin to veto proposed religion law (RNS) President Clinton has asked Russian President Boris Yeltsin to veto a proposed law that would slap severe restrictions on the activities of foreign missionaries and religious groups not”traditional”to Russia. Clinton asked Yeltsin to reject the measure when the two leaders met […]
NEWS STORY: Not all new religions end in mass suicides
By Adelle M. Banks — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service UNDATED _ The suicide of 39 members of Heaven’s Gate _ a quasi-religious group that mixed elements of apocalyptic Christianity with sci-fi space travel _ has once again focused attention on what scholars call new religious movements and critics refer to as cults. Despite it’s unique theology _ which included […]
COMMENTARY:
By James Rudin — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ On Nov. 18, 1978, the catastrophe known simply as”Jonestown”occurred in a Guyana jungle. On orders from the Rev. Jim Jones, 912 members of his Peoples Temple committed suicide or were murdered, along with California Congressman […]
