Author: Gordon Govier

A Chicago-area bishop who oversaw a significant expansion of United Methodist Church in northern Illinois has been named to lead the denomination’s Wisconsin Conference for the next four years. Bishop Hee-Soo Jung succeeds Wisconsin Bishop Linda Lee, who will retire in September. Jung is the third person of Korean descent to be named a bishop in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, and the first non-Anglo to lead the diverse Wisconsin Conference, the organization said Tuesday.

The Elmbrook School District violated the constitutional separation of church and state by holding graduation ceremonies inside Elmbrook Church, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Monday. The ruling reverses a previous ruling by a district court and a 7th Circuit three-judge panel.

The Obama administration has offended some atheists. One day after Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters he gets on his knees every day and prays for rain, the Council for Secular Humanism — a leading atheist group — accused the Obama administration of sending the wrong message to farmers caught in one of the worst droughts in decades. “It sends the wrong message to distraught farmers when the Agriculture secretary suggests that the best response is to pray,” Tom Flynn, executive director of the council and editor of its journal Free Inquiry, said in a statement. Read more of this…

Madison—Wisconsin Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner (R) announced yesterday that he is authoring legislation that will repeal the “Obamacare Religious Freedom Tax.” Following is a statement from Wisconsin Family Action’s president, Julaine Appling, reacting to Rep. Sensenbrenner’s proposal. “Congressman Sensenbrenner is the cavalry riding to our rescue. As he says, ‘our religious liberties are not bartering chips.’

Madison, WI 17 July 2012 — The first ever Lausanne Movement Consultation for North American Younger Leaders brings together a diverse collection of change agents, thought-practitioners, and younger leaders to strategize on fresh approaches to sharing the Christian message. The consultation will see 120 select younger leaders from the U.S. and Canada gathering at Madison’s Inn on the Park, July 24-26, 2012.

madisonchristians.com encourages a city-wide perspective on Christian ministry. We believe Christians from different faiths, and churches of different denominations can multiply their outreach impact by working together. We were encouraged by a World on Campus report on a young adult ministry in Charlotte, North Carolina, called CharlotteONE, which is supported by a coalition of 48 churches.

At St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Hales Corners, Father Chuck Schramm has been known to talk politics in the pulpit, lifting up church teaching on such issues as immigration and the care of the poor and disadvantaged. He tries to present both sides, he says, but it’s lost him a few parishioners over the years. Still, he persists in the belief that one’s faith must inform every aspect of life, including the political.

After a year of eating the same rice, beans and tortillas; sleeping in a barn; contracting malaria and fleas; and riding a dilapidated tractor for transport, you’d think we’d be happy to fly home to the United States. It’s never that simple. Over the years, moving to and from the United States, Nicaragua, China and South Africa, we’ve seen much to love—and lament—on both sides of our nation’s borders.

Blackhawk Church, the large evangelical church on Madison’s Far West Side, is developing plans to add a third site, this one in Fitchburg. The exact location is yet to be determined, but church officials hope to be meeting in at least a temporary site in Fitchburg by January, said the Rev. John Rosensteel, a 14-year Blackhawk pastor who lives in Fitchburg and will lead the Fitchburg site.

Religious leaders and faith-based organizations responded to Thursday’s Supreme Court decision on health care, calling it alternately a “triumph of the common good” and “deeply wrong.”