MC News
In the eight weeks since Barack Obama was elected president, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism Director David Saperstein or members of his Washington, D.C.-based staff have attended roughly a dozen meetings with Obama’s transition team, on topics ranging from domestic poverty and the plight of White House faith-based initiatives to foreign policy challenges like bringing peace to the Middle East.Read more of this story.
The Iraqi Christian community, now nearly gone, was the church’s center for a millennium.Across much of the Middle East, the ancient Christian story seems to be coming to a bloody end almost before our eyes. The most dramatic catastrophe in recent years has been that of Iraq’s Christians, who represented 5-6 percent of Iraq’s population in 1970. That number is now below 1 percent, and shrinking fast in the face of persecution and ethnic/religious cleansing.Read more of this story.
COMMENTARYCould you sum up your life in six words? After this year, some of you might say, “Sure. ‘It has been a living hell.’” Actually, hundreds attempted the summation in the surprise best seller Not Quite What I Was Planning.Read more of this commentary.
IONIA, Mich. — Dressed in blue-and-orange prison suits and tennis shoes, the men came forward for Holy Communion singing an old spiritual."Hallelujah, we’re going to see the king," they sang in deep baritone voices. "Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king."Read more of this story.
Pursuing careers that matter is the focus of Following Christ 2008 (FC08), an InterVarsity conference going on this week in Chicago. Students, professors, and professionals are attending the conference and dialoging about living their professional lives in a way that is fulfilling to themselves and honors God, their creator and savior.Read more of this story.
COMMENTARYEach era depicts Jesus in its own way, and the late historian Jaroslav Pelikan wove a brilliant book around this theme. He traced images of Jesus from the earliest days of Christianity as "the rabbi" and "the king of kings" to more modern portrayals as "the teacher of common sense," "the poet of the spirit" and "the liberator." The Jesus of Christmas, Pelikan tells us in "Jesus Through the Centuries," owes a particular debt to Saint Francis of Assisi, who preached "a new and deeper awareness of the humanity of Christ, as disclosed in his nativity and in his sufferings."…
COMMENTARYMerry Christmas.No, honest, as in “the 12 days of” you know what between Dec. 25 and Jan. 5.If you doubt the accuracy of this statement, you can head over to the Web site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There you will find an interactive calendar that bravely documents the fact that, according to centuries of Christian tradition, the quiet season called Advent has just ended and the 12-day Christmas season has just begun.Read more of this commentary.
Members of a church in Kansas City, Ks., are protesting the secularization of Christmas by dressing like Jesus at their jobs, malls and restaurants.Pastor Kelly Lohrke advised parishioners of the Praise Chapel Christian Fellowship to wear at minimum a crown of thorns and a sash or robe during the week leading up to Christmas.Read more of this story.
Stages are set, sermons are ready, and tickets are nearly all reserved for the thousands of seats in megachurches across the country as they begin numerous Christmas services this week.But while everyone anticipates a joyous and grand Christmas observance, many preachers are rejecting the hoopla around the season and pointing people to a moment in history that’s far humbler and darker than people typically hear about. Read more of this story.
Worship services may still be the USA’s most segregated hour, but fewer congregations are now completely white, finds a study comparing churches, synagogues and mosques last year with a decade ago. The National Congregations Study says 14% of primarily white congregations reported no minorities in their midst last year, compared with 20% in 1998. Read more of this story.