Author: Gordon Govier

Can the ability to forgive help cancer patients die a good death? That was the intriguing question Robert Enright, a professor of educational psychology at UW-Madison, brought to oncologists, nurses, social workers and others at a recent symposium at Monona Terrace. Science says the answer is yes, Enright told those of us in attendance. Read more of this story.

The city of Jerusalem is one of the most excavated places on earth, and also one of the most complicated, according to Israeli archaeologist Gabi Barkay. Barkay has been coming to Madison to speak to the Madison Biblical Archaeology Society for 30 years or more and always brings an insightful and authoritative report on what’s happening in Biblical Archaeology.

MILWAUKEE – Someone stole the Sunday collection box at an east side Milwaukee church, and now they’re out thousands of dollars. For hundreds of people, Brew City Church is a safe haven. But on a now empty table, there once sat an offering box — a place to put cash, coins, whatever you could spare. Sunday, that changed.

Just up the hill from my house in Monona lies one of the small remaining number of indian mounds in the Madison area. Early settlers counted dozens, if not hundreds of mounds in the Madison area. Some can still be found in the arboretum, on the UW campus, and here and there around the city. I was surprised to learn a number of years ago that Jerusalem also has mounds. At least according to archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, who will be visiting Madison this weekend.

“Radical Jesus” is scheduled to be published Oct. 31 by Herald Press, an arm of the Mennonite Church USA. It is a comic book, or graphic novel, and author Paul Buhle says it is aimed at people ages 15-30.

Religion has always been a part of Jackson’s life, but his faith reached a new level this summer. “My whole mindset on life has just changed,” he said. “Just everything. I’m just so blessed and thankful to have God in my life.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) declared victory in a Christmas music case following a public outcry against a Wisconsin school board’s alleged attempt to limit religious songs in school performances. The Master Singers, Wausau West High School’s elite choir, which formed the center of the debate, resumed practice on Tuesday.

Two weeks ago the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families released a report called “Race to Equity.” In blunt terms, the Madison area has a race problem. The report in the Wisconsin State Journal detailed “jarring findings.” During recent political campaigns we learned that half of all black high school students don’t graduate on time, a harsh indictment of Madison schools. This compares with 16 percent of white children.But the newspaper story offered other statistics even more harsh:

(Madison, WI) — InterVarsity Christian Fellowship leads a list of Wisconsin nonprofits compiled by a Texas agency that assembled a state by state nonprofit comparison, measured by total revenue. The revenue figures were taken from GuideStar, a nonprofit monitoring organization. InterVarsity has been located in Madison, Wisconsin, for 44 of its 72 years, moving to Madison from Chicago in 1969.

Deadraiser,” is the film Johnny Clark is bringing to Madison this week. It’s a documentary and consists in part of interviews with people who believe they have raised others from the dead. Clark, 28, is a 2003 graduate of Madison La Follette High School. He moved to Madison as a young boy in 1992, with his parents, John and Julie Clark, pastors at what is now the Evangel Life Center on Femrite Drive.