Author: Gordon Govier

Hollywood pundits and advertisers on Madison Avenue like to tell the press that sex and nudity sells best, but nothing could be further from the truth. For example, we recently completed a ten-year study of the theatrical box office at MOVIEGUIDE®. We discovered that Hollywood movies with strong Christian worldviews make far more money than movies with explicit sex and nudity. In fact, Christian movies make two to seven times as much money, and often four to six times as much money, as movies with explicit sex and nudity. The study is based on an analysis of nearly 2,700 of…

When the young Muslim men came to ask Rev. Victor Mosele to help them start an Islamic Youth Center across the street from his Roman Catholic church in Sierra Leone he wondered what their imam would say about that. "But father," they replied, the imam was the one who told us you could help us."

These are exciting days for the Christian church, although the most exciting things are happening in Africa and Asia rather than the U.S. and Europe, according to Lamin Sanneh, a Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale University. Sanneh was the morning plenary speaker on the final day of the What Next Conference, a prayer and missions gathering convened here in Madison to mark the bicentennial of the Haystack Prayer Meeting, that launched the North American Missions movement.

There are a couple of churches you can find in Madison that have been converted from their original purpose and are now a restaurant or have been remodeled into apartments. In Andrew Walls’ hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland, church after church is now a store, a night club or a drinking hall. "No one needs them anymore as churches," he says.

While several hundred students formed lines outside of the Kohl Center to purchase Badger basketball tickets last night, another hundred or so were at St. Paul’s Catholic Center on Campus, worshipping God and learning about Student Power in World Missions. The presentation was given by David Howard, former missionary and former missions director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. It was the second evening of the What Next Conference, marking the 200th anniversary of the Haystack Prayer Meeting.

MADISON — A full house of about 1,000 people filled The Capital Theater at the Overture Center in downtown Madison on September 19 to hear a speech by Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Vatican agency, Cor Unum, which oversees the pope’s ministry of charity. Read more.

Evangelical Christianity, born in England and nurtured in the United States, is leaving home.Most evangelicals now live in China, South Korea, India, Africa and Latin America, where they are transforming their religion. In various ways, they are making evangelical Christianity at once more conservative and more liberal. They are infusing it with local traditions and practices. And they are even sending "reverse missionaries" to Europe and the United States. Read more.

Tomorrow evening the What Next conference gets underway in Madison marking the bicentennial of one of the most important events in America’s religious history. Our coverage of the conference begins with a reflection on the anniversary by Alvin Reid, a professor at evangelism at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. We also present this reflection in light of tomorrow’s See You At The Pole observance involving students across the country. WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)–I have always had a love for studying (and even more being a part of) movements of God, from my childhood when our small church erupted in the Jesus Movement to teaching…

In a new clash with a Roman Catholic organization on its campus, the University of Wisconsin at Madison has declined, for now, to recognize and provide financial support to the UW Roman Catholic Foundation because only three of the group’s board members are students, the Associated Press reported. Read more.Daily Cardinal coverage.

The battle over Wisconsin’s marriage amendment isn’t a simple political fight. It’s a struggle over values, too, an issue that bubbled for years in the statehouse and houses of worship, on the airwaves and in church pews. It likely will come to a boil in the closing weeks before the Nov. 7 election. Read more.