Author: Gordon Govier

A spate of headlines last month reported on a Northwestern medical research study that linked obesity and church attendance. Medical researchers are on to something but exactly what is open for debate. TIME magazine did not present the report in the most positive light with their headline, “Why Going to Church Can Make You Fat.” At least the story acknowledged that going to church can be linked to many positive outcomes. A year ago we reported on local Madison-area churches working together to help people lose weight in the Million Pound Challenge: “The idea is simple: for every pound of weight you…

About 30 religious leaders from around Dane County met with three staff people of Governor Walker today.  The political realist in me wonders if it was worth the time.  Three low level staffers listened and responded with pre-arranged talking points.  Our group has little influence, no money, and few significant political connections to make a difference in the current budget and policy decisions being made. The religious leader and populist in me found several reasons to be hopeful and encouraged.

Mennonites from Wisconsin and Canada started coming to Louisiana in the weeks after Katrina, and they’re still coming.

Russell Arnett was ordained the first married Catholic priest in the Milwaukee Archdiocese on Saturday at St. Jerome Parish in Oconomowoc. His journey in life and faith wasn’t the ending that Arnett originally imagined. “I spent years running from the call,” Arnett said. Growing up a Southern Baptist, the earliest prayer he can remember was at 7 years old: “I remember saying, ‘Lord, I’ll do whatever your will is, just don’t ask me to be a preacher,’ ” Arnett said.

Climbing a giant ice cream sundae dressed in a tutu while gripping a snake instead of a rope sounds hard but was comparatively easy for the members of Fish Sticks, a Christian improvisational comedy group based in Milwaukee. Both in the depiction by three of the group members and the conclusion drawn by the other member who was out of the room as the audience shouted out details of what they wanted enacted, the Fish Sticks proved adept at translating each aspect with a combination of gestures and gibberish. For laugh-til-your-jaw-aches entertainment, it’s hard to top a good improvisational comedy…

The family is the cornerstone of our culture. When the family is not healthy the culture is in trouble. Chuck Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship, has spoken and written often about the troubled family backgrounds of many of the men he has counseled in prison. The Christian church is supposed to be a bulwark against the erosion of the family. But in recent years we’ve heard that divorce rates are as high amongst the families of the church as amongst the families outside the church. Now, though, there is new research that clarifies the picture.

To judge by what has happened in Wisconsin over the past month, the transition to the new normal is not going to be easy. But change is coming like a tsunami, development consultant Jerry Twombly told a group of non-profit representatives Friday. “Everybody on the planet knows what’s happening in Wisconsin, but what’s happening in Wisconsin is happening everywhere,” Twombly said, referring to the state budget crunch that prompted a budget fix from governor Scott Walker followed by four weeks of demonstrations at the state capitol. While union supporters rally in response to the budget bill, non-profit organizations also have…

A court decision that requires UW-Madison to fund religious worship activities for student groups will stand after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the university’s appeal on Monday. In September 2010, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the university violated the First Amendment by refusing to fund activities of the student group Badger Catholic involving prayer, worship and proselytizing. The decision affirmed a lower court ruling.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is a bad Christian for standing up to government unions, according to the Religious Left. Religious Left author Diana Butler Bass, writing for The Huffington Post, is the most explicit in faulting Walker’s ostensibly simplistic evangelical beliefs.  Butler revealed that Walker belongs to a nondenominational church with “boilerplate” evangelical theology about sin and salvation, with apparently none of the statist political demands that the Religious Left believes are more central to faith.

A Community Forum on the impact of projected state budget cuts on programs for children and families offered a scenario on what may be facing many more non-profits in the new economy ahead. The scenario is not encouraging.