News
Brookfield – Lines snaked around three sides of the giant gymnasium, past the tuna casseroles and lasagnas, the veggie rollups and meatballs, and every variety of salad, cookie and cake one could fathom.It was a mega-potluck befitting a mega-church – an event members at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield hope will land them in the Guinness World Records – and a festive prelude to the solemn prayers that would end the night.
University of Toronto psychologists reported last year that "believing in God can help block anxiety and minimize stress," their research showcasing "distinct brain differences" between believers and nonbelievers. A new study released Wednesday by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago took the idea a step further. In patients diagnosed with clinical depression, "belief in a concerned God can improve response to medical treatment," said the new research, which has been published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
COMMENTARYFor most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.
Last week, the number-crunching folks at the Pew Center released a report titled "Religion Among the Millennials." It’s part of an ongoing analysis of the generation of young adults between 18 and 29 years old.This report was a meta-analysis of lots of surveys done over the past several years, some by Pew and some not. Many of the results seemed pretty "duh" to me: Young people tend to lean left politically, be more open to change, more tolerant of differences than their elders. It has ever been thus, ain’t it?
COMMENTARYSome 230 years ago, renowned china maker Josiah Wedgwood took his worldview into his china-making. He designed a medallion featuring an African in chains. Surrounding him are the words, "Am I not a man and a brother?"Fashionable British women who supported abolition wore the medallions as brooches. The jewelry started many a conversation about the morality of slavery — and helped, in a small way, to end the British slave trade.Wedgwood’s medallions, which are now priceless museum pieces, came to mind when I heard of a pair of modern-day businesswomen who, like Wedgwood, are putting their worldview to work in…
Few freshmen arriving on campus for the start of a new academic year realize how important their first 72 hours will be. The outcome of their entire collegiate career hangs in the balance. That may sound extreme, but John Decker, an InterVarsity volunteer at Syracuse University, has seen it over and over again.
In Charlotte, San Diego and in Madison, churches are learning that one of the keys to impacting a community is to serve the community, rather than wait for people to come through the doors of the church:
A dearth of archaeological remains in Jerusalem, traceable to the time of David and Solomon, has raised questions about the importance of these Biblical kings. But a Mississippi State University archaeologist says those critics who base their arguments on the absence of evidence sometimes jump too quickly to their conclusions.Speaking to the Madison Biblical Archaeology Society meeting at Edgewood College on Sunday afternoon, professor James Hardin said, "I would be very hesitant to say that because of things we haven’t found in Jerusalem that the kingdom of David and Solomon didn’t exist."
Lutherans who have left or are pondering their exit from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have put a name to the alternate church body they plan to form – North American Lutheran Church.
A funny thing happened to the Oakland Athletics’ hot prospect on the way to the majors: He decided to become a priest.In its nearly 50 years, St. Michael’s Abbey in south Orange County has welcomed scores of men who believe they were called to the priesthood. Most often they are young men who’ve prepared for this much of their academic lives. Occasionally, they are professionals who’ve chosen St. Michael’s path that leads away from the world — what adherents call "the hidden life" — over the pleasure and glamour of their own lives."There have been lawyers and academics," said St.…