Author: Gordon Govier

WASHINGTON – Jennifer Wiseman is an astrophysicist and a Christian. Both of those elements will come into play in her new role with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she aims to civilize the sometimes-divisive discourse between the broader scientific and religious communities.Wednesday, AAAS played host to a discussion to introduce Wiseman as the new director of the association’s Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion (DoSER), a program whose goal is to facilitate communication among communities that are sometimes depicted as disparate and often at odds with one another. Wiseman, head of NASA’s Laboratory for Exoplanets and…

The most poignant and unexpected moment of President Obama’s address to the nation Tuesday night about the Gulf oil spill was his reference to "The Blessing of the Fleet.""Each year, at the beginning of shrimping season, the region’s fishermen take part in a tradition that was brought to America long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe. It’s called ‘The Blessing of the Fleet,’" he said, "and today it’s a celebration where clergy from different religions gather to say a prayer for the safety and success of the men and women who will soon head out to sea — some for…

A South Dakota minister says he wants to do for religious freedom what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did for civil rights.The Rev. H. Wayne Williams, pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, last month endorsed GOP state Sen. Gordon Howie in the South Dakota governor’s race, in defiance of the Internal Revenue Service and a federal court ruling and in hopes of producing a landmark constitutional test case.

The question facing universities looking to compete in the booming market for online higher education is not so much how to do it, but how to distinguish themselves from the rest. In this, Christian universities appear to have a built-in advantage. And many are seizing the opportunity to expand their footprint."Given the relatively strong religious character of much of the U.S. population, and an ever more crowded online market, the schools that that are faith-based in some strong sense" have an advantage over others, the majority of whom have built "more generic programs that don’t have any strong affiliation with…

The ancient people of the Levant — present day Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories — believed their gods lived on a massive mountain in the north. The Canaanites called it Mount Zaphon, and to them it represented the heavens.A thousand years later, the author of Job referred to the Canaanite mountain as a way to explain God’s creation of the cosmos. "He stretches out Zaphon over the void," Job explains, "and hangs the earth upon nothing."Job’s image often ran through the mind of Col. Jeffrey Williams as he looked down on Earth during two missions on the International…

When pastor Mitri Raheb finds someone who is surprised to learn that he is a Palestinian Arab Christian he assures them that there are many Christian Arabs living in the Palestinian territories. And also in Israel.Speaking in Madison Sunday afternoon, the pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem said that he sometimes asks people if they know when the gospel message was first preached to Arabs in Jerusalem. Many respond with a guess that it was sometime during the 19th century.

With America seeing huge attacks against the Christian faith, one congressman is not sitting idly by and allowing Christianity to be pushed out of the public square. "Over the last several decades we have seen this constant erosion of just an access to the marketplace of ideas," Virginia Congressman Randy Forbes said on Friday’s Family Talk radio broadcast."We don’t want to dominate the marketplace," he noted. "We don’t want to control it. We just want to have faith and religion having a seat at the table." Forbes is the founder and chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus and active in…

When it comes to the issue of immigration reform, there’s no shortage of opinions or passions — not only from politicians, but also from the pulpit. "The issue of immigration is one that affects us as a church family," said Rich Nathan of the Vineyard Church of Columbus.Now, a group of conservative evangelicals, including Southern Baptist Leader Richard Land, have come together with a message for the nation’s leaders.

SOUTH AFRICA (ANS) — Excitement is reaching fever pitch as South Africa gears up for the first football (soccer) World Cup to be held on African soil.Beginning on Friday, June 11, 2010, the FIFA World Cup will encompass 30 days of football (soccer) played in 10 stadiums scattered over 9 cities. They are expecting over 300,000 visitors from all parts of the world. This will translate into 2.74 million spectators with a TV audience of some 40 billion watching the 200 hours of football. Half the world will be able to watch the final which expects to see 3.3 billion…

COMMENTARYGet ready. Big changes are coming to the United States military. Congress seems poised to pass legislation that would call for the elimination of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy put in place in 1993. With the support of the Obama administration, and with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, it appears that the official normalization of homosexuality within the U.S. armed forces may take place sometime this summer, after the completion of a Pentagon review.