Monthly Archives: June 2004
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — June 11, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Update: Employee Files Suit Over Removal of Cross in County Seal (RNS) Government leaders in Los Angeles County voted a second time to remove a small cross from their county seal. The American Civil Liberties Union said the religious symbol in the government seal was unconstitutional. During a raucous three-hour […]
NEWS FEATURE: Franz Wright’s Poem `Cloudless Snowfall’
By Christa Brown — June 11, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) CLOUDLESS SNOWFALL Great big flakes like white ashes at nightfall descending abruptly everywhere and vanishing in this hand like the host on somebody’s put-out tongue, she turns the crucifix over to me, still warm from her touch two years later and thank you, I say all alone _ Vast […]
NEWS STORY: Religious Political Progressives Seek to Revive Their Movement
By RNS Blog Editor — June 11, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ A diverse group of religious leaders, advocates and scholars is calling on progressives to embrace their own religious faiths in order to strengthen public policy debates in a new initiative aimed at taking the offensive in the “war of ideas” recently dominated by political and religious conservatives. To […]
COMMENTARY: The After-Dallas Disorder
By Frances Kennedy — June 11, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (Eugene Cullen Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author of “Cardinal Bernardin’s Stations of the Cross,” published by St. Martin’s Press.) (UNDATED) It may be hard to believe but it is only two years since America’s […]
COMMENTARY: Assessing Reagan
By James Rudin — June 11, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin, American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is Distinguished Visiting Professor at Saint Leo University.) (UNDATED) Adoring historians will soon attempt to set Ronald Reagan’s achievements into solid concrete, and just as quickly, the revisionists will also have a go at the record of our 40th president. But before […]
NEWS STORY: Cathedral Prepares Mix of Pageantry and Patriotism for Reagan Funeral
By Kein Eckstrom — June 10, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Former President Ronald Reagan’s state funeral on Friday (June 11) will combine a solemn Episcopal Church liturgy with personal touches chosen by Reagan’s family, officials at Washington National Cathedral said. As Washington prepares to roll out the black carpet for the first presidential state funeral in three decades, […]
NEWS STORY: Southern Baptists Likely to End Ties With World Baptist Organization
By Adelle M. Banks — June 10, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When Southern Baptists meet in mid-June in Indianapolis, they expect to break already loosening ties with the Baptist World Alliance and continue their efforts to foster evangelism in this country and beyond. The annual meeting from June 15-16 falls on the 25th anniversary of the beginning of conservative control […]
Religion in Canada
By Ron Csillag — June 10, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Harper Seeks Changes to Hate Laws QUEBEC CITY, Quebec (RNS) Conservative leader Stephen Harper says laws protecting gays and lesbians from hate crimes need to be amended to allay the concerns of church groups and others who fear their freedom of expression and freedom of religion might be harmed. “There […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — June 10, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Appeals Courts Declare Bible Classes, Park Cross Unconstitutional (RNS) Appeals courts in two different parts of the country handed church-state separationists victories on Monday (June 7), declaring the unconstitutionality of weekly Bible classes in public schools and an 8-foot cross in a federal park. The 6th U.S. Circuit of Appeals […]
COMMENTARY: `The Savage Nation.’ Indeed
By RNS Blog Editor — June 10, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (Professor Akbar S. Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. is author of most recently of “Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World,” published by Polity Press.) (UNDATED) Radio talk show personality Michael Savage, host of “The Savage Nation,” has been reported […]
NEWS FEATURE: Other Christians Making Amends to Anabaptists for 16th Century Persecution
By Rich Preheim — June 9, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In the early 16th century, groups of European Christians started splitting from the Roman Catholic Church in what is now known as the Protestant Reformation. But while Protestants and Catholics were at odds, they had one thing in common: Anabaptism had to be eliminated. The Reformed Christians drowned Felix […]
COMMENTARY: Lessons From a Swim Meet
By Tom Ehrich — June 9, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. Visit his Web site at http://www.onajourney.org.) (UNDATED) For our first swim meet of the summer, my son and I drive an hour north. He joins his teammates. I enter the […]
NEWS STORY: Religious Leaders Press G-8 Nations on Debt Relief
By Daniel Burke — June 9, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Hundreds of religious leaders from as far away as India and Peru have sent a letter to officials of the Group of Eight meeting in the United States this week, asking them to forgive the debts owed by the world’s most impoverished countries. Bearing the signatures of Christian and […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — June 9, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Vatican Doctrine Office Wants to Meet with Politicians Task Force (RNS) The Vatican office responsible for church doctrine is concerned that some U.S. bishops are being too harsh in their threats to deny Communion to dissenting politicians, according to one U.S. bishop. Bishop Donald Pelotte of Gallup, N.M., who met […]
NEWS STORY: Religious Leaders Press G-8 Nations on Debt Relief
By Daniel Burke — June 9, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Hundreds of religious leaders from as far away as India and Peru have sent a letter to officials of the Group of Eight meeting in the United States this week, asking them to forgive the debts owed by the world’s most impoverished countries. Bearing the signatures of Christian and […]
