social issues
COMMENTARY: A word in favor of friendship _ and against gay marriage
By RNS Blog Editor — August 20, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Eli Hecht is vice president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America. He is the director of Chabad of South Bay in Lomita, Calif., and has been involved in counseling and outreach programs for more than 25 years.) (UNDATED) Friendships come in many forms. Some people consider their teachers, partners […]
COMMENTARY: A chance for common sense to cool America’s gambling fever
By RNS Blog Editor — August 7, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Robert F. Drinan is a Jesuit priest, former member of Congress and professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center). (WASHINGTON) For more than a century, gambling was banned throughout the United States. But today, there are only two states _ Utah and Hawaii _ where it is forbidden. Sadly […]
COMMENTARY: Living in a material world
By Dale Hanson Bourke — July 18, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of”Turn Toward the Wind”and publisher of Religion News Service.) (UNDATED) The two stories ran 13 pages apart in the Sunday New York Times. The first, just four pages into the first section, told the heartbreaking story of men and women who live in steel […]
BODY & SOUL: Gambling is a poor bet for satisfying the soul
By RNS Blog Editor — July 17, 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”Putting America on the Couch,”to be published by Riverhead Books in 1997.) (UNDATED) As his mother lay dying, Alex Walters’ father was nowhere to be found. Panic-stricken, Walters drove by his […]
COMMENTARY: Honoring Calvin Klein
By RNS Blog Editor — July 8, 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.) (UNDATED) It would be nice to believe that […]
TOP STORY: ANNULLING A CATHOLIC MARRIAGE: Catholic Church is changing its attitudes on annulment
By RNS Blog Editor — July 4, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (UNDATED) After his divorce and before he remarried in the Roman Catholic Church, Joseph DeCastra of Hoover, Ala., applied for an annulment and got it in less than a year. His was one of more than 59,000 U.S. annulments and 76,829 worldwide in 1992 _ a stark contrast to the […]
COMMENTARY: In defense of Gypsies
By RNS Blog Editor — June 28, 1996
c. 1996 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. His home page on the World Wide Web is at http://www.agreeley.com. Or contact him via e-mail at agreel(AT)aol.com.) (UNDATED) Victor Hugo would not see much connection between his […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — June 26, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Unitarians endorse same-sex marriages (RNS) _ The Unitarian Universalist Association voted Tuesday (June 25) to endorse the legalization of same-sex marriages, the first U.S. denomination to do so. Meeting in Indianapolis, delegates to the liberal religious group’s annual convention voted overwhelmingly to”proclaim the worth of marriage between any two committed […]
BODY & SOUL: Soundbites from a talk-show moralist
By RNS Blog Editor — June 20, 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”Putting America on the Couch,”to be published by Riverhead Books in 1997.) (RNS)-Her manner is rude. She belittles those who turn to her for help. She lectures against the perils of […]
On arguing with young women
By RNS Blog Editor — June 14, 1996
c. 1996 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. His home page on the World Wide Web is at http://www.greeley.com. Or contact him via e-mail at agreel(AT)aol.com.) (RNS)-Humankind is a contentious and stubborn species. It does not […]
On arguing with young women
By RNS Blog Editor — June 14, 1996
c. 1996 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. His home page on the World Wide Web is at http://www.greeley.com. Or contact him via e-mail at agreel(AT)aol.com.) (RNS)-Humankind is a contentious and stubborn species. It does not […]
Hare Krishna: A modern offshoot of an ancient movement
By RNS Blog Editor — May 30, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-The Hare Krishna sect is a modern offshoot of a 16th-century Hindu devotional movement. The sect traces its theology to the Bhagavad-gita, a 5,000-year-old Sanskrit text, and worships the Hindu deity Lord Krishna as the”supreme personality of the Godhead.” Members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), as Hare […]
COMMENTARY: One family’s loss of unexpected life
By RNS Blog Editor — May 30, 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)-We have been blessed in our marriage with two beautiful daughters. We were unaware that we had created another life until […]
Portraits of compassion in words and pictures
By RNS Blog Editor — May 26, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-In boldface below is caption information for six photographs by Phil Borges. Following each, in quotes, are comments by the Dalai Lama on the nature of compassion that accompany Borges’ portraits, in”Tibetan Portrait: The Power of Compassion,”a new book they co-authored, published by Rizzoli Press. 1. Tenzin Gyatso, 59 At […]
NEWS FEATURE: India’s Zoroastrians live and die by ancient beliefs
By RNS Blog Editor — May 23, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service BOMBAY, India (RNS)-Soaring above luxury apartments in an exclusive section of Bombay, vultures swoop toward the Parsi Towers of Silence on Malabar Hill. It is time for another”burial”at the”vultures cemetery.” Parsis, Indian followers of the ancient faith of Zoroastrianism, believe fire, earth and water are sacred. Thus they will not […]
