Author: Gordon Govier

Washington – Can a public high school hold its graduation ceremony in a local church? The Supreme Court has been pondering that question in its private conference for six weeks, discussing whether to take up a Wisconsin case that could reset the line separating church and state. Last year, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that the Elmbrook School District, near Milwaukee, violated the First Amendment and its ban on “an establishment of religion” by holding a high school graduation ceremony in the sanctuary of an evangelical Christian church.

Middleton Outreach Ministry, for the first time, has space on site to store the 28 tons of donated canned and dry goods collected at its third annual Canstruction event. MOM’s new location at 3502 Parmenter St. in Middleton more than doubled its former space and brought its caseworkers, food pantry and clothing store together on one campus.

    “As the Executive Director of the Care Net Pregnancy Center of Dane County, I’ve learned that many things can be delegated but prayer cannot,” said Liz Osborn, speaking to a small crowd of about 100 that gathered on the capitol steps in downtown Madison this noon to observe the National Day of Prayer.”Prayer transforms us because it brings God near,” she also said. And she likened prayer to a Coast Guard ice cutter which forges a path through the thick ice so other ships can easily follow.

Brazil (MNN) ― What happens when missionaries go home on leave? Work usually stops until they get back, right? New Tribes Mission found a way around this in Brazil. Using a computer program called VSee, New Tribes missionary Barry Spor in Wisconsin can create Bible lessons in the Guanano language with a co-worker in Brazil.

The church on Madison’s Far East Side considers its nearly $7 million addition just one part of an ambitious two-year agenda.

The Rev. Philip Hougen, a former bishop of the southeastern Iowa synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has been named interim bishop for the ELCA south-central synod of Wisconsin. He begins Wednesday. He takes over for Bishop Bruce Burnside, who has been charged with three felonies and one misdemeanor in the April 7 death of Maureen Mengelt of Sun Prairie, who was out for an afternoon run when she was struck and killed. Burnside is accused of hitting her while driving drunk.

Care Net Pregnancy Center of Dane County has secured state tax credit financing for a $6.4 million, 36-unit, mixed income housing project on the East Side, after failing to get financial support from the city of Madison.

Since making a plea for donations to help release a shipment of medical supplies stuck in an East African port, the Sun Prairie-based nonprofit Hope 2 Others has ratcheted up its plans for delivering health care to a poor region of Tanzania.

A distinguished Christian scholar wrestled with a conundrum of modern faith on the University of Wisconsin campus as part of the annual Geneva Forum lecture series. The question posed to Mark Noll, a professor of history at Notre Dame University and the author of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind and other books, was “Christianity: Expanding Worldwide Yet Struggling in Universities. Why?”

Before the bombing in Boston and the explosion in Texas one of the top stories of the week, covered by most major media, was the death of singer George Beverly Shea. He died Tuesday, April 16, 2013, at the age of 104.I had interviewed Shea once, by telephone, almost ten years ago, and was surprised to hear him say Madison was “one of my favorite cities.”