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More than 1.7 million children across the USA have a parent in U.S. prisons, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The number of children with a father in prison grew by 77% from 1991 through mid-2007. And those children are two to three more times likely to wind up behind bars themselves, says Christopher Wildeman, a University of Michigan sociologist who has studied the effects of imprisoned parents.To try to snap that trend, Angola and other prisons across the country sponsor two programs aimed at reconnecting prison dads with their children: Returning Hearts, a day-long carnival-like celebration where inmates…
COMMENTARYWhere did we get the idea that the church should be a place that makes people feel comfortable?It’s interesting when a teenage agnostic and a federal judge understand the nature of the church better than do some church staff. A plaintiff known as Doe 2 recently said that if s/he had to attend a high school graduation ceremony in a Christian church, s/he would be "forced to submit to a religious environment that … will make me feel extremely uncomfortable and offended."Doe 2 (as in "John Doe") was one of five plaintiffs who sought an injunction against Enfield Public Schools…
WASHINGTON – Jennifer Wiseman is an astrophysicist and a Christian. Both of those elements will come into play in her new role with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she aims to civilize the sometimes-divisive discourse between the broader scientific and religious communities.Wednesday, AAAS played host to a discussion to introduce Wiseman as the new director of the association’s Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion (DoSER), a program whose goal is to facilitate communication among communities that are sometimes depicted as disparate and often at odds with one another. Wiseman, head of NASA’s Laboratory for Exoplanets and…
The most poignant and unexpected moment of President Obama’s address to the nation Tuesday night about the Gulf oil spill was his reference to "The Blessing of the Fleet.""Each year, at the beginning of shrimping season, the region’s fishermen take part in a tradition that was brought to America long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe. It’s called ‘The Blessing of the Fleet,’" he said, "and today it’s a celebration where clergy from different religions gather to say a prayer for the safety and success of the men and women who will soon head out to sea — some for…
A South Dakota minister says he wants to do for religious freedom what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did for civil rights.The Rev. H. Wayne Williams, pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, last month endorsed GOP state Sen. Gordon Howie in the South Dakota governor’s race, in defiance of the Internal Revenue Service and a federal court ruling and in hopes of producing a landmark constitutional test case.
The question facing universities looking to compete in the booming market for online higher education is not so much how to do it, but how to distinguish themselves from the rest. In this, Christian universities appear to have a built-in advantage. And many are seizing the opportunity to expand their footprint."Given the relatively strong religious character of much of the U.S. population, and an ever more crowded online market, the schools that that are faith-based in some strong sense" have an advantage over others, the majority of whom have built "more generic programs that don’t have any strong affiliation with…
The ancient people of the Levant — present day Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories — believed their gods lived on a massive mountain in the north. The Canaanites called it Mount Zaphon, and to them it represented the heavens.A thousand years later, the author of Job referred to the Canaanite mountain as a way to explain God’s creation of the cosmos. "He stretches out Zaphon over the void," Job explains, "and hangs the earth upon nothing."Job’s image often ran through the mind of Col. Jeffrey Williams as he looked down on Earth during two missions on the International…
When pastor Mitri Raheb finds someone who is surprised to learn that he is a Palestinian Arab Christian he assures them that there are many Christian Arabs living in the Palestinian territories. And also in Israel.Speaking in Madison Sunday afternoon, the pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem said that he sometimes asks people if they know when the gospel message was first preached to Arabs in Jerusalem. Many respond with a guess that it was sometime during the 19th century.
With America seeing huge attacks against the Christian faith, one congressman is not sitting idly by and allowing Christianity to be pushed out of the public square. "Over the last several decades we have seen this constant erosion of just an access to the marketplace of ideas," Virginia Congressman Randy Forbes said on Friday’s Family Talk radio broadcast."We don’t want to dominate the marketplace," he noted. "We don’t want to control it. We just want to have faith and religion having a seat at the table." Forbes is the founder and chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus and active in…
When it comes to the issue of immigration reform, there’s no shortage of opinions or passions — not only from politicians, but also from the pulpit. "The issue of immigration is one that affects us as a church family," said Rich Nathan of the Vineyard Church of Columbus.Now, a group of conservative evangelicals, including Southern Baptist Leader Richard Land, have come together with a message for the nation’s leaders.