MC News
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is a proven fiscal conservative, and his stock continues to rise as Republicans think about their possible candidates for 2016. The son of a Baptist preacher, the governor is still influenced by his father’s style of communication.
Though Protestants—by and large—do not hold pilgrimages in high esteem, many “tours” to locations of spiritual significance—be it the Holy Land, Reformation Germany, or Anglican England—still play an important role in the life of many people. But what about Chicago, Illinois? Not usually associated with pilgrimages, Chicago should become a place of interest for Protestants wanting to bask in the life and history of the Protestant movement in America.
If this were a typical year at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, the high school seniors would have spent last week packing swimsuits and beach towels for the annual spring break class trip to South Padre Island, a Texas resort town. Instead, the students were swallowing anti-malaria pills and stocking up on Wet Wipes. The class of 2013 voted to forgo the traditional beach vacation for a “Survivor”-like mission experience in Panama.
Raised agnostic, Aria Cabot figures she set foot in a church fewer than 20 times growing up. For her undergraduate degree, she chose Smith College, a “progressive, feminist” school, as she puts it, in Northampton, Mass. That’s why some of her friends are now a bit puzzled. “They say, ‘Whoa, I didn’t expect this from you,’” said Cabot, 29, a graduate student at UW-Madison. This weekend, Cabot is joining the Catholic Church. In the Catholic tradition, adult converts are welcomed every year at Easter, a time of rebirth and renewal for all Christians as they mark the resurrection of Jesus…
A typical Sunday night at Chief’s Tavern is pretty quiet — a few regulars, having a beer and watching the game. But if those regulars had stopped in at 7 p.m. on the first Sunday in March, they likely found their east side pub unrecognizable. On that night, some 50 Lutherans from a nearby church crowded the tables, drinking pints and singing “Amazing Grace,” “This Little Light of Mine,” and “Be Thou My Vision.” The atmosphere was noisy and fun, accompanied by acoustic guitar and djembe bongo drum. Some people danced, most clapped. “When the Saints Go Marching In” inspired…
MONONA — The seventh and eighth grade students at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Monona walked solemnly down the middle aisle and out of the sanctuary of their church last week after portraying living Stations of the Cross. The school has been acting out the stations — visual descriptions of the events leading to Christ’s crucifixion — in front of other students in the school and the community for at least seven years, according to teachers’ estimates. It’s a tradition that is also carried out in some other Catholic schools in the area.
Rebecca Blank, the newly selected UW-Madison chancellor, is a labor economist and once served as co-director of the National Poverty Center. Blank is a member of the United Church of Christ and chaired the committee that wrote, “Christian Faith and Economic Life,” a statement adopted by the general synod of the UCC in 1989. In 2009 she talked with Sally Steenland about the recession, failures of the market, populist anger, and the role of faith communities during this time of economic turmoil.
Robert Enright is locked in an existential battle with a dead, but very influential, German philosopher. Friedrich Nietzsche equated forgiveness with weakness, calling it “sublimated resentment.” That way of thinking persists today in our culture, where power and winning are celebrated, and showing mercy to those who have done us wrong is seen as condoning their crimes. But that thinking is quite the opposite of what drives Enright, a UW–Madison professor of educational psychology.
The fabric of a community is woven together out of many strands. But one of the most important is the church. That was my thought after reading a Christianity Today Gleanings report that said that Americans are far more connected to their church than any other institution. The report was discussing the latest findings from a Rasmussen survey.
Seconds after white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday, Samuel Schultz shot out of his Madison apartment and ran more than a mile to St. Paul’s University Catholic Center on the UW-Madison campus. Dozens of his Catholic classmates were gathered around a television there, alternating between excited chatter and solemn prayer as they waited for the name of the new pope to be announced.