MC News
The train stopped at the border between Hungary and Romania. Bob Grahmann was sitting in the last row of seats. He saw the glaring searchlights, the dogs, and the barbed wire outside. He watched as guards boarded the train with their machine guns and methodically rifled through the passengers’ luggage. It was 1983, at the height of the Cold War. Bob was an InterVarsity Area Director in New Jersey with four years of campus ministry experience preceded by four years as a local church pastor. A friend working in Eastern Europe had invited Bob to teach church history to Romanian…
This summer I set out on a mission to get to know the congregation and amplify your voices. Coming in, I never imagined the pure depth of the congregation and how incredibly diverse the different niches are. Every story I wrote, every person I was introduced to seemed to have a different thing they were passionate about and was able to bring that energy to help further the church. Admittedly, I’m not a particularly religious or spiritual person. I grew up Jewish, going to temple a few Friday’s of the year and for the High Holidays (some would dub me…
Madison, Wis (WMTV) — The Catholic Multicultural Center (CMC) in Madison is breaking employment barriers by providing culinary arts training and creating a recipe for change. A former participant, Joseph Crenshaw, said the program changed his life. Crenshaw came from the inner city of Chicago and made his way to Madison –searching for a second chance. “Change is hard, but you can do it,” Crenshaw said.
The steeple and bell tower of a 127-year-old church in Mazomanie burned down early Sunday during a thunderstorm. The fire at the United Church of Christ occurred at about 2:50 a.m., and firefighters put it out shortly after, the Dane County 911 Center said. No one was injured. Pastor Denise Cole said her church was not able to hold services Sunday morning, and is looking for elsewhere in the Mazomanie community to hold services while repairs are made.
MILWAUKEE (RNS) — More than 500 years ago, a monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 theses outlining his grievances with the Roman Catholic Church to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany. On Wednesday afternoon (Aug. 7), members of the mainline Protestant denomination bearing Luther’s name taped 9.5 theses — expressing their concern for immigrants and refugees — to the door of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Milwaukee. The action was part of a prayer vigil for migrant children and their families during the ELCA Churchwide Assembly this week at Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Center. It took place on…
A Pentecostal church on Madison’s east side has concealed allegations of sexual assault among its congregants for over 30 years, and continues to perpetuate a culture of fear and control that fosters abuse, former members say. The Cap Times interviewed 13 people, four of whom said they were sexually assaulted and manipulated as children attending Calvary Gospel Church. Nine others, including parents, siblings of alleged victims, members who witnessed sexual misbehavior and one pastor who was in leadership at the time of many allegations, corroborate the description of the church’s culture, numerous accounts of sexual abuse in the congregation and…
UW–Madison’s Robert Enright is receiving a 2019 Expanded Reason Award in recognition of his pioneering work on the power of forgiveness. This international award from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid, Spain, and the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, recognizes extraordinary teachers and researchers. The recognition utilizes an international panel of seven judges who examine books and journal articles to ascertain who across the globe is best conducting innovative and important scholarship that cuts across the social sciences and philosophy or theology. Enright, a professor with the School of Education’s highly regarded Department of Educational Psychology, is being recognized…
Memorial Library has a long — and somewhat fraught — history, and when it opened on July 27, 1953, the arrival of the first book was cause for celebration. The day the shelves opened, the UW’s leaders lined up to watch retired librarian Laurence Burke haul in that first volume: a copy of the Coverdale Bible, printed in 1535 — the first complete Bible published in English.
Rev. Carmen Porco, the longtime executive director of Housing Ministries of American Baptists in Wisconsin, has been a well-known and highly respected anti-poverty activist for decades. But there is quite a bit about Porco’s life, especially his very interesting childhood growing up in poverty in his parents’ barroom in West Virginia, that people don’t know much about. Author, speaker, and diversity expert Dr. Charles Taylor discovered quite a few of those amazing little stories while he was writing the new 222-page biography of Porco’s life story titled “The Carmen Porco Story – Journey Toward Justice.”
Despite weather in the upper 80s early Saturday morning, more than 230 participants came out for the very first Madison Gospel 5K Run/Walk. Runners, numerous volunteers and more than 20 organizations celebrated the event’s theme; “Faith, Family and Fitness.”