Author: Gordon Govier

A Yale librarian who cast doubt last year on the origins of the Serenity Prayer, adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous and reprinted on countless knickknacks, says new evidence has persuaded him to retain the famed Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr as the author in the next edition of The Yale Book of Quotations.The provenance of the prayer, which begins, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” became a subject of controversy last year with the publication of an article by the librarian, Fred R. Shapiro, who is also the editor of the book of quotations.

Town of Ashippun – Why would 600 Norwegians and Norwegian wannabes flock to a remote country church on a Saturday afternoon in December to eat lye-soaked cod, drenched with melted butter?For the same reason Green Bay Packers fans trek to Lambeau Field and huddle around Weber grills by the frozen tundra.It’s tradition.

Close your eyes and picture a Christmas creche, or its animated embodiment, the Christmas pageant. Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph are there for sure. Three wise men, a few shepherds. Maybe a donkey, ox and lamb stand nearby in the stable.Centuries of Christmas carols, creches and pageants — among countless other works of art — have ensconced this scene in the heart of the Nativity for generations of Christians. But the Bible doesn’t.

Although the Urbana Student Missions Conference is no longer held in Urbana IL, the nuts and bolts of the conference still come together in Madison WI, as they have for the past four decades. The Urbana conference moved from the University of Illinois campus to the Edward Jones dome and the Americas Center in St. Louis in 2006. It will be held again at the same location later this month, December 27-31.Today there are Christian conferences held almost every week of the year. But few have been around as long as the Urbana Student Missions Conference, and have impacted as…

PASTORAL COMMENTARY Dane County is an amazing community for African American babies to be born into. It is a horrible community in which to live if you are an adult African American male. As an African American who is both a male and a father, I find this stark contrast appalling.Recently, I was at a Healthy Births Outcome event. We gathered that morning to discuss the fact that Dane County has the absolute best African American infant survival rate in the entire country. In fact, we are the only community in the nation where white and African American infants have…

When a Los Angeles pastor decided his church needed a boost in membership, he did a little soul-searching and decided man’s best friend should be part of the fold. Now, his Sunday service at Covenant Presbyterian Church is attracting new parishioners — and their faithful pooches.

Near the end of the annual Catholic bishops’ meeting in Baltimore last week, Brother Paul Bednarczyk, executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference (NRVC), came to the podium to say what’s working and not working in terms of drawing men and women into religious orders. Speaking from findings in a recent survey: "Recent Vocations to Religious Life: commissioned by the NRVC and carried out by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), he described how dire the situation is.

"What if December looked different this year? What if we all gave Christmas away?"That’s the refrain from the theme song of a new Christmas video from VeggieTales, the animated children’s stories that share gentle Gospel messages.

On the first day of her college internship in the late summer of 2007, Jenna Liao waited amid the baggage carousels of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Just 21 and newly assigned to an agency that helps refugees, she had been told only to expect a family of 10 from Myanmar. She and a caseworker were to drive them here to the first temporary home of their new lives.The family trudged into Ms. Liao’s view after 19 years in a refugee camp and 30 hours of trans-Pacific travel. All their belongings fit into two plaid plastic bags, and in that…

Editor’s note: A number of Madison area churches are again participating in The Advent Conspiracy this Christmas season, including Door Creek Church. Today’s Breakpoint Commentary is also about The Advent Conspiracy.What is "Advent", anyway? The word comes from the Latin word adventus, which means "arrival" or "coming." The full name of the church season is Adventus Redemptoris, "the coming of the Redeemer" – or, less literally, "the coming of the Savior." In most liturgical churches, such as the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Lutheran churches, Advent is a holy season of preparation for the celebration of Christmas.