Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Training pastors — and finding them
A Religion News Service article by Jeffrey MacDonald has popped up in a number of outlets lately, including the Christian Centuryʼ. Citing changes at several seminaries and an interview with Daniel Aleshire, executive...
Survey Finds Deep Challenges for Romney
WASHINGTON (RNS) More than four in 10 American voters say they are uncomfortable with the idea of a Mormon in the White House, a reflection of the steep challenge facing Mitt Romney in the GOP primary. According to a...
Evangelicals Call for Nuclear Cutbacks
WASHINGTON (RNS) The National Association of Evangelicals on Tuesday (Nov. 8) called for greater precautions with nuclear weapons and a renewed effort toward disarmament. “The rules have changed in the past 25 years,”...
Church Leaders Resign amid London’s Occupy Protest
The resignation of Graeme Knowles as the dean of St. Paul's Cathedral caps – if it does not yet complete – a remarkably tumultuous period in the cathedral's history. It is really too soon to pronounce on exactly what...
Overcoming Isolation and Fatigue in Ministry
A friend recently shared with me a daily devotion that pointed out the story in Exodus 17 regarding Moses' arms. As long as Moses held his staff with his arms aloft, the Israelites prevailed in their battle with the...
Why Corporate and Wealthy Tax Evasions Matter Morally
G-20 governments voted last week to fight tax evasion at the same time that Citizens for Tax Justice released a report on American corporations that evaded the federal income tax. Associated Press reported that the...
Just like in Jerusalem
By John Pierce When our daughter was playing in a softball league several years ago, another dad asked me out of the blue: “You ever been to the Holy Land?” “Yes,” I replied. “How long did...
Historic Baptists Champion Interfaith Dialogue
Many persons feel they "know" Baptists as a group because of the unkind words of a few Baptist individuals or denominations. Indeed, some very public Baptists have made statements highly offensive to persons of other...
Poor People’s Campaign Needed More Than Ever
In early 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders continued plans for a Poor People's Campaign. It would take place in the spring in Washington, D.C. The poor and those in solidarity with them would...
British Prosecutors Try to Seize Muslim Family’s Home
Efforts to evict the family of a Muslim convicted under anti-terrorism laws from their home amount to "collective punishment" and are deeply unjust, according to a local Baptist minister. Rev. Gary Serra di Migni is a...
Spare the hose?
The New York Times has an interesting online feature about Michael Pearl, pastor of a small independent church in Pleasantville, Tennessee, who has become both revered and reviled as an advocate of corporal punishment...
At Religious Campuses, Atheist Groups Operate Underground
(RNS) Late one night over pizza, University of Dayton students Branden King and Nick Haynes discovered neither of them believed in God. Surely, they thought, they couldn’t be the only unbelievers at the Roman Catholic...
Atheists Thrive at Cal Lutheran
(RNS) Evan Clark chose to attend California Lutheran University even though he wasn’t sure how he might fit in as an atheist at a religious school. But when Clark, now 23, and a handful of other students sought to...
Catholic Official Resigns over Column
(RNS) A policy adviser to the U.S. Catholic bishops’ anti-gay-marriage office resigned on Friday (Nov. 4), a week after writing a column that blamed Satan for homosexuality. Daniel Avila had been an on-staff adviser to...
As Population Grows, Conflicts Will Increase
The UnitedNationsPopulationFund projected that the world population reached 7 billion people on Oct. 31. When I was born in 1938, the global human population was under 2.3 billion. So in my lifetime the population of...
Preparing for a Shift in Healthcare Provisions
For years I have been working in the health field – caring for older persons, teaching others to care for older persons and advocating for future needs of older persons. Sometimes I felt folk were not hearing me –...
Four Ways That Congregations View Pastors
Church members view their pastors in many ways. Here are four views. The ruler One view holds that the pastor is the spiritual ruler of the church and that "he" should be deferred to and even obeyed. Such a pastor is...
Historical markers
Today I'm not thinking about those plaques we see along the road that mark civil war sites or the birthplace of a president, but objects shaped by humans to make their lives better or more beautiful. Monday marked the...
Religious Leaders Lobby Congress for Foreign Aid
WASHINGTON (RNS) As Congress prepares for a high-stakes battle over federal spending, religious leaders are lobbying senators to preserve foreign aid as a moral obligation. “We’re talking about lives—great numbers of...
Church Prosecutor: Parents Have Duty to Report Abuse
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Catholic parents have a “right and duty” to report the sexual abuse of minors, in spite of any “ill-informed and misplaced considerations of loyalty” to their church, the Vatican’s chief sex abuse...
Amid Tense Relations, Ireland Closes Embassy to the Vatican
VATICAN CITY (RNS) After months of tense relations over the clergy sex abuse scandal, the Irish government announced Thursday (Nov. 3) that it will close its embassy to the Vatican. “The government believes that...