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The bombshell from the new Pew survey on government faith-based initiatives: Democrats are now more supportive than Republicans of houses of worship getting government money for social services, a turnabout from 2001, when George W. Bush launched the White House faith-based office.
If members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have heard it once, they’ve heard their national leaders repeat this mantra a thousand times: “This is not your grandfather’s church.”That’s certainly what musician Phillip Magness experienced when he took a sabbatical at Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, Ill., and began a research tour after the 2006 release of the Lutheran Service Book. Since he led the committee charged with promoting the new hymnal, Magness wanted to see what was happening in the conservative denomination’s sanctuaries.“What I found out is that we’re a lot like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates,” he said.
The old hymn Trust and Obey has a lot of meaning for Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker. Ramping into a second campaign for governor of Wisconsin, Walker spoke Friday to 100 men who attended Madison’s monthly outreach lunch of the Christian Businessmen’s Committee (CBMC).Walker stayed away from political issues during his talk, and spoke about his faith walk as a follower of Jesus Christ. Walker was raised in a Christian family, his father was pastor of First Baptist Church in Delavan. He and his family currently attend Meadowbrook Church in Wauwautosa.
COMMENTARYEarlier this year, American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray wrote a warning about American elites pushing America to become like Europe. European social policies "drain too much of the life from life," Mr. Murray wrote in a March article in The Washington Post called, "Thank God America Isn’t Like Europe."
In slightly more than two decades—roughly from 1949 to 1971—Billy Graham moved from leader to celebrity to icon, and he retained that iconic status into the new millennium. For millions of Heartland Americans, he functioned very much as a Protestant saint. By the time he retired in 2005, reportedly he had preached to nearly 215 million people in person in more than 185 countries and territories, and to additional hundreds of millions through electronic media.
WASHINGTON (RNS) Under the bright stage lights, Daniel Staddon, an 18-year-old home-schooler from Salem, W.Va., squeezed his eyes shut as he methodically recited verse after verse from the Bible at the inaugural National Bible Bee. The concentration technique came in handy as he recited the first 20 verses of the fifth chapter of Ephesians and the 21 verses of Psalm 145 in the tie-breaker round on the stage of the JW Marriott Hotel ballroom. His skills paid off big-time, earning Staddon first place and a $100,000 prize.
LEIPZIG, Germany — St. Nikolai Evangelical Lutheran Church hasn’t changed much since the 16th century. Bach once played the organ here and the music remains alluring, but it is the church’s more recent history in the last days of the Cold War and its role in the fall of the Berlin Wall that draw tourists today.
West Allis — Less than two weeks before the release of her memoir "Going Rogue," former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was on message during a Friday night speech to anti-abortion activists at State Fair Park."Let’s simplify, we’re pro children," Palin told thousands of people who attended a $30-a-ticket fund-raiser for the Wisconsin Right to Life Education Fund.
On a Wednesday in late October, I and six other pastors and chaplains who have worked with Wisconsin Air National Guard (ANG) personnel were invited to join a refueling mission hosted by the Milwaukee based 128th Air Refueling Wing of the United States Air Force.
FORT HOOD, Texas (BP)–About a dozen Southern Baptist chaplains stationed at Fort Hood in central Texas began ministering in the aftermath of a shooting on post Nov. 5 that has left 13 people dead and 30 wounded.Also in the area, Southern Baptist churches rallied to pray for the victims and offer assistance.