MC News
New York City is known as the city that never sleeps. It’s not as well known for the vibrancy of it’s religious faith, although that is changing. So perhaps there’s hope for Madison.What would it be like if Madison was criss-crossed with people prayer walking?
Last week City Church invited the saints in Madison to explore what it means to have intimacy with God. All of the messages can be accessed here. The assumption is that one who is intimate with God is free and empowered to love as God loves, see as God sees, feel as God feels, and to act as God would want us to act to fulfill our God-given purpose in the world. The Bible promises so much more than most of us experience on a day to day basis.
City Church pastor Tom Flaherty likens the “Intimacy with God” conference, beginning Wednesday evening at the church, to the Sunday night services back when the congregation was known as Madison Gospel Tabernacle.
Last November, the Freedom From Religion Foundation won a stunning court victory. The Madison organization had taken aim at a longstanding Internal Revenue Service rule that allows a house of worship to designate part of a clergy member’s cash compensation as a tax-free housing allowance. This federal tax break grants ministers special treatment and causes the rest of us to pay higher taxes, the foundation argued. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in the foundation’s favor, finding the tax break unconstitutional because it “provides a benefit to religious persons and no one else.” The federal government has appealed. If the…
WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins or the Freedom From Religion Foundation may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist. Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.
This is a story about stories. Bill White learned their power early. As a boy, White accompanied a favored uncle who spun yarns in a rural Wisconsin barbershop. Men gathered nightly to listen. There was status in holding an audience, and his uncle had them rapt. “It was a delightful and enchanting experience,” White noted later. He went home to Viroqua, the bedroom he shared with a younger brother, and began telling tales of his own. White knew he’d succeeded when his brother began trying to script the endings, pleading for a happy close to a made-up story of adventure.…
Faith leaders and activists from across the state gathered at the statehouse Wednesday demanding Gov. Scott Walker reform the Department of Corrections, calling its policies cruel, immoral and an unconscionable drain on taxpayers.
Kenosha — Father Benjamin Reese stands at the altar and lifts the Eucharist with his outstretched arms, for the smattering of faithful in the pews. There is no sound, but the clanging of its gold-plated vessel. Six women, on their knees, begin to pray. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee… But Reese is silent. His own prayers these days are internal. Robbed of his voice by a degenerative — and ultimately fatal — disease, Reese continues to serve alongside Father Dwight Campbell at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Therese of Lisieux parishes in Kenosha.
It may not be immediately clear what God has to do with “Rent” or “Ragtime” or “Shrek,” and that’s OK. The Rev. Kerri Parker, pastor of McFarland United Church of Christ, isn’t always sure at first, either, and she’s the one leading this summer’s “God on Broadway” series at the church. On Aug. 3, she’s scheduled to give a sermon on “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” a 2005 Broadway production.
Monday’s storms left a popular church retreat in Iowa County without power, displacing campers and staff. Paul Petersen, director of Bethel Horizons, said the 20 adult campers on site at the time huddled together to ride out the storm.