MC News
Music, food and a healthy dose of Gospel characterized Madison’s 23rd annual Juneteenth Day celebration. At the South Side park on this day, children waited their turn to play in the “bouncy house,” young people teamed up for basketball, and adults chatted with friends and family. Music ranged from hip-hop to jazz to gospel. Read more of this story.
Wisconsin Family Action’s Director Julaine Appling addressed a group of 450-500 supporters assembled outside of Kastenmeier Courthouse in Madison on Friday at the “Stand Up For Religious Freedom” Rally. The crowd, one of many across the nation, gathered to express opposition to the Obama Administration’s HHS Mandate, set to be ruled on by the Supreme Court at the end of the month. Appling made it imperative during her speech at today’s rally that, “This idea that we have no right to take our faith outside of the four walls of our churches and outside of the four walls of our…
The desire to ensure more people around the world have safe water to drink prompted Christina Miller to pursue a master of international public affairs degree at the UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs. “I think we take it for granted that we can go to the bathroom or kitchen and turn on a faucet and we have water in our glass,” Miller says. “We take showers daily and waste water continuously. There are so many places in this world where water, safe and drinkable water, is very hard to come by.” The welfare of women and children is…
Authoritative figures on local church membership are hard to come by. The U.S. Census Bureau has not asked questions about religion since the 1950s, so the task falls to other organizations. Fortunately, every 10 years, a group called the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies collects data on the number of congregations and adherents within each state and county. The latest numbers, just released, offer an interesting look at who’s up and who’s down in Dane County.
Carol Grabins, a supporter of Republican Gov. Scott Walker, was watching election returns Tuesday at a bar in rural Dane County when she let out a whoop of excitement at the latest results. A woman at a nearby table gave her the finger, and another yelled, “You’re the reason my daughter and I will have to go on welfare.” That’s when Grabins, who helped start the bipartisan, pro-civility group Reach Out Wisconsin, knew there was still a lot of work to do.
AUSTIN, Tex. (RNS) Laura Kaeppeler has a fantasy gig: traveling nonstop, wearing stylish new outfits each day and attracting TV crews in every city she visits as Miss America 2012. But the glamorous appearances go for a most unglamorous cause. As someone who saw her father hauled off to prison for a white collar crime, Kaeppeler uses her high-profile platform to shine a spotlight on the 2.7 million, largely unseen kids who have an incarcerated parent. “I feel like I’ve been called to do this,” said Kaeppeler, a 24-year-old from Kenosha, Wis.
This is no Sunday stroll for Andy Stenz. He’s walking with purpose. Walking and walking and walking. From the Mississippi River at La Crosse to Lake Michigan’s McKinley Beach in Milwaukee, the 31-year-old Waukesha man is completing the equivalent of nine marathons in 10 days – with another day of rest in between. He’s got one goal in mind. Stenz is hoping to bring clean water to parts of the world that don’t have it by raising awareness and money for the cause.
At Madison Church Supply, the Friar Tuck line of clergy shirts is sold out and the weatherproof Jesus statues are half off. The store, Madison’s first religious bookstore when it opened in 1953, will close next Thursday. Everything must go.
The U.S. Catholic Bishops have declared a Fortnight for Freedom to highlight concerns over the erosion of Religious Freedom in the United States. The two-week observance begins June 21st with a Mass in Baltimore, the oldest Cathoic Diocese in the U.S. Each diocese in the U.S. will be observing the campaign. The details for the Madison observance have just been published by the Madison Catholic Herald. A separate rally for religious freedom is scheduled in Madison next Friday.
This summer Madison will be hosting 120 of the top younger Christian leaders of North America. The Lausanne Consultation for North American Younger Leaders will be held at the Inn on the Park, July 24-26, 2012. The Lausanne Movement was launched by Billy Graham with a meeting in 1974 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The first Lausanne conference drew several thousand participants from across the globe. A second international conference was held in Manila in 1989 and a third in Cape Town in October, 2010. This Consultation for North American Younger Leaders is a follow-up to the Cape Town conference. It…