Monthly Archives: July 2006
Downsizing Means New Life for Old Church Buildings
By RNS Blog Editor — July 29, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service SPRINGFIELD, Mass. _ In a West Hatfield church, hungry diners eat barbecued ribs and pulled pork daily where families once attended Lutheran baptisms, weddings and Sunday services. In Holyoke, the place of worship for hundreds of Methodist-Episcopalians and later Christian Scientists now serves as a large residence for a family. […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — July 29, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service Malaysian Fatwa Says No Botox for Muslims (RNS) A council of Muslim clerics in Malaysia has issued an order banning the use of the popular Botox injections for wrinkles, citing the use of pig-derived materials in the treatment, The New Straits Times reported. The declaration by the National Fatwa Council […]
COMMENTARY: Sending Stickers to Lebanon
By Dale Hanson Bourke — July 29, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) His round face stares out at us from the front of our refrigerator. Nicolas is his name, and although we have never met him, we have supported him for several years through World Vision, a Christian child sponsorship organization. From the moment we first saw his photo, our entire […]
A Confusion of Labels
By Nancy Haught — July 29, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In the past 50 years or so, Jeff Strang has been a churchgoer, an agnostic, an atheist and a humanist. If anyone knows what these words mean, it ought to be he. Yet even he admits to some “fuzziness” around the terms. Strang has his own working definition: “A […]
Questions and Answers From African Archbishop on Anglican Unity
By Daniel Burke — July 28, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Njongonkulu Ndungane, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, has seen divisive policies tear a society apart. But this fourth-generation Anglican cleric, who was jailed for three years under apartheid in South Africa, is determined not to let the same thing happen to his increasingly fractious Anglican […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — July 28, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service Vatican Criticizes U.S. Stance on Middle East Conflict VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican on Thursday (July 27) offered a downbeat assessment of recent Middle East peace talks that failed to produce a consensus on the deepening conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon. In an interview with Vatican […]
Geneticist Seeks to Bridge Gap Between Faith and Science
By Peter Sachs — July 28, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ After reading from his book on science and religion to an audience of 150 people at an independent bookstore here, Dr. Francis Collins saw the interactions he hoped would occur. Collins watched as audience members struck up earnest conversations, debating back and forth about one of the knottiest […]
COMMENTARY: Ariel Sharon’s Long Goodbye
By James Rudin — July 28, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Ronald Reagan’s death two years ago at age 93 ended America’s “Long Goodbye” to a president who suffered with Alzheimer’s disease for many years after he left the White House in 1989. Now the people of Israel are saying their own “Long Goodbye” to their own national icon: Ariel […]
Cease Fire Now
By RNS Blog Editor — July 27, 2006
Christian Groups Press for Middle East Ceasefire Christian leaders are pressing for an immediate cease fire in Lebanon, as reported by RNS’ Senior Editor David E. Anderson, in the RNS full text article of the week, linked above. Quote: The Bush administration, however, has rejected calls for cease-fire as premature or “not sustainable.” Instead, it […]
Rape Victim Denied Morning-after Pill
By Matthew Bowman — July 27, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service LEBANON, Pa. _ A hospital emergency room doctor in central Pennsylvania refused to give a rape victim a morning-after pill because it would be against his Mennonite religious beliefs. Rebuffed by the doctor at Lebanon County’s Good Samaritan Hospital on Saturday (July 22), the woman called her gynecologist, who wrote […]
Catholic Youth Program Balances Playing Time
By RNS Blog Editor — July 27, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ The gymnasium walls did not come tumbling down. Would-be Bobby Knights and the intense sports parents who enable them survived. And none of the more than 11,000 Northeast Ohio fourth- to eighth-graders who play Catholic Youth Organization basketball warmed the bench this year. A landmark program that puts […]
Judge Says Coach Can Kneel While Players Pray
By James Martin — July 27, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. _ A federal judge ruled Tuesday (July 25) that a high school football coach can bend a knee and bow his head while his players recite pre-game prayers this season, ending a dispute that had mushroomed into a nationally recognized test of the separation of church and […]
RNS Weekly Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — July 26, 2006
c. 2006 Religion News Service President Vetoes Expansion of Stem Cell Research (RNS) President Bush exercised the first veto of his presidency Wednesday (July 19) to reject a bill that would have expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Speaking at a White House event that included young children from the embryo program of […]
Connie Statz on AIDS discrimination
By Tracy Gordon — July 26, 2006
Quote of the Day: Connie Statz, Catholic laywoman from Minnesota “That really hurt me more than anything else, because that’s part of being Catholic. That’s part of the sacrament.” -Connie Statz, 50, who attended the 19th annual National Catholic HIV/AIDS Ministry Conference in mid-July at Loyola University Chicago, describing how she still feels rejected 13 […]
Pharmacist fired for beliefs
By Tracy Gordon — July 26, 2006
Quote of the Day: Gene Herr, pharmacist who was fired in Denton, Texas “This was the worst-case scenario. This was the hardest decision I ever made. The heinousness of a rape is a horrible thing. But I don’t think you should punish a child for the sins of the father.” -Pharmacist Gene Herr, who was […]
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