MC News

When Stuart and Jill Briscoe came from their native England to shepherd Elmbrook Church in 1970, their global perspective helped shape the congregation as it grew into one of the nation’s early megachurches.Read more of this story.

As I’m sure my readers will agree, in my last post, There’s No Arguing It: We Can’t KNOW If There’s a God or Not , I conclusively proved that it is exactly as reasonable to think that there is a God as it is to think there’s not. Not one of the 50 or so people who commented on that post questioned the validity of that assertion. (I’m kidding. I actually think Atheists of America have taken out a hit on me.) Now watch how easily — nay, how inevitably — one must move from the understanding that there’s at least a 50/50 chance of a…

Bill forcing pharmacists to dispense abortifacient drugs to receive public hearingMEDIA ADVISORY, March 4 /Christian Newswire/ — The Senate health committee will hold a public hearing Wednesday, March 5, on Senate Bill (SB) 232, the so-called "Birth Control Protection Act." The legislation would force all licensed Wisconsin pharmacists, regardless of their medical and moral judgment, to dispense the morning-after pill and other FDA-approved abortifacient contraceptive drugs.Read more >>

Religion’s role in social justice was debated and questioned by University of Wisconsin students and local faith representatives at a panel discussion Monday evening. Representatives from St. Paul’s University Catholic Center, the Muslim Students’ Association and UW Hillel presented each religion’s stance concerning social justice.Read more >>

Thanks to the First Amendment, Americans are free to choose in matters of faith. As it turns out, that’s exactly what we do.A report released this week by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that almost half of us “have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.”Read more >>

The mayor of the small city of Hudsonville in western Michigan said the City Commission will continue to “strive to serve God,” despite an atheist group’s demand that the phrase be removed from the city’s mission statement.“We are not creating a church; we are not asking anybody to only accept what we have in that mission statement,” Mayor Don Van Doeselaar said this week.Read more >>

David Swanson reports on opening events from the National Pastors Convention.David Swanson agreed to leave frozen Chicagoland to labor in sunny San Diego at this year’s National Pastors Convention. He’ll be sending us updates throughout the week of the goings on there. This is his first post. I arrived at the National Pastors Convention in California a day early to catch one of the pre-conference seminars: Emerging Critical Issues Facing the Church. (For this Midwesterner, the sunny blue skies of San Diego were another reason to come early.) The seminar featured four panelists—Scot McKnight, Phyllis Tickle, Andy Crouch, and Tony…

The Wisconsin Family Council now has their Voter Information Sheet available for download.There is a sear on the Wisconsin Supreme Court up for grabs along with a referendum on the governor’s veto power. Their web site says:To help you prepare for this election, Wisconsin Family Council (WFC) has produced an educational Voter Information Sheet (see options below), featuring information on the two Supreme Court candidates and on the statewide referendum. The Voter Information Sheet is strictly educational and can therefore be distributed in churches.Go to the Wisconsin Family Council web site for more information and to download the sheet.

There were tears, laughter and praise Thursday as "The Fish" Christian radio station broadcast its last morning show and prepared to enter the airwaves at midnight with a new identity.WFZH-FM (105.3) will still offer contemporary Christian music under its new ownership, but the national "K-LOVE" format it will use does not include local disc jockeys.Read more >>

Evangelicals make up the nation’s single-largest tradition, followed by Catholics. The survey also notes many Americans have changed religious affiliations or dropped ties to a specific faith.America remains an overwhelmingly Christian country, but the nation’s religious life also shows great fluidity, with many adults switching religious affiliations or abandoning ties to organized denominations altogether, according to a new survey released today. The study also suggests that, in the near future, Protestants may no longer make up a majority of Americans.Read more >>