Author: Gordon Govier

MADISON — It was a day of thanks and celebration as 121 married couples packed the Bishop O’Connor Center chapel. The August 10 occasion was the Mass of Thanksgiving for couples celebrating 50 years or more of marriage. To fully illustrate the years of dedication, prayer, and devotion, there were about 7,000 combined years of marriage being celebrated.

It’s been an unsettling summer with a world full of problems pushing at us for our attention. It’s hard to know how to respond or whether there is anything we can do in response to troubling news on the other side of the world. Madison-based WE International has a suggestion.

It’s a beautiful thing when the Madison Saints gather to worship Jesus and pray.  Once a month Gates of Glory is held in a different venue, always on the third Friday of the month. Last Friday night the scene was Lighthouse Church on the west side.  Lighthouse is a bi-lingual, Spirit filled body led by Pastors Marcio and Tia Sierra.  Saints from all over Madison showed up at 7:00pm with the express purpose of worshipping God.

COTTAGE GROVE — “This is going to be the best week of your life” is a bold promise from the team members of Totus Tuus, but for most of the participants at all levels — it was indeed one of the best weeks of their lives. Totus Tuus is a summer Catholic youth program dedicated to sharing the Gospel and promoting the Catholic faith through evangelization, catechesis, Christian witness, and Eucharistic worship.

“We the people” is not just a nice saying; it’s a statement of responsibility.  We as citizens have the duty, the obligation, the honor of participating actively in our government.  As Christians, I believe we have a stewardship responsibility in this area.  Taking a pass, sitting it out is not the answer.

New York City is known as the city that never sleeps. It’s not as well known for the vibrancy of it’s religious faith, although that is changing. So perhaps there’s hope for Madison.What would it be like if Madison was criss-crossed with people prayer walking?

Last week City Church invited the saints in Madison to explore what it means to have intimacy with God.  All of the messages can be accessed here.  The assumption is that one who is intimate with God is free and empowered to love as God loves, see as God sees, feel as God feels, and to act as God would want us to act to fulfill our God-given purpose in the world. The Bible promises so much more than most of us experience on a day to day basis.

City Church pastor Tom Flaherty likens the “Intimacy with God” conference, beginning Wednesday evening at the church, to the Sunday night services back when the congregation was known as Madison Gospel Tabernacle.

Last November, the Freedom From Religion Foundation won a stunning court victory. The Madison organization had taken aim at a longstanding Internal Revenue Service rule that allows a house of worship to designate part of a clergy member’s cash compensation as a tax-free housing allowance. This federal tax break grants ministers special treatment and causes the rest of us to pay higher taxes, the foundation argued. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in the foundation’s favor, finding the tax break unconstitutional because it “provides a benefit to religious persons and no one else.” The federal government has appealed. If the…

WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins or the Freedom From Religion Foundation may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist. Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.