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On his way to the 2008 Ryder Cup tournament in Louisville later this week, former Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman stopped in Madison for a short appearance before a group of about 100 local businessmen and golfers on the roof of the westside Princeton Club. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, the kind of day most golfers would prefer to be on the links, instead of sitting in folding chairs set up on the artificial turf of the rooftop soccer field.But listening to a some inside information from a golfing great after a nice lunch was also easier to fit…
COMMENTARYIt is crucial to take forceful leadership in praying for our business leaders, Christians in the financial industry and those whose investments and mortgages are tanking. We may find it hard to pray for these bankers because they are insanely wealthy, true. A few of them can be terribly arrogant; and some can have little heart for the less wealthy. Yet, Jesus prayed for the rotten because he loved the rotten. In this situation prayer could accompany a revival of the heart on Wall Street. Christian leaders need to lead during this financial crisis, which is threatening to become one…
When Marilyn Lorenz of Alma, Mich., talks about living out her Catholic faith in daily life, she starts by describing what’s inside her refrigerator.Read more of this story.
According to Julia Duin, a religion reporter for the Washington Times, more and more evangelicals are in fact fleeing their churches. Indeed, Ms. Duin regards church-quitting, at least among evangelicals, as nothing less than an epidemic. The problem, in her view, is not in the souls of the church quitters but in the character of the churches they choose to leave. "Something," she observes, "is not right with . . . evangelical church life."Read more of this book review.
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill of Congress for the creation of a new railway station in Washington D.C. just blocks from the Capitol. It simply stated, "A bill of Congress to create a Union Station—and for other purposes." A century later those other purposes include the purposes of God. Today, Union Station serves as the home of National Community Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the city.Read more of this story.
WASHINGTON — There may never be a female pastor leading Tony Perkins’ Southern Baptist congregation in Louisiana, but there could be a woman taking over the vice president’s mansion in Washington.And as Perkins sees it, there’s no contradiction there whatsoever."It’s not a spiritual role," said Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and a church elder, who calls Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a "brilliant pick" for the Republican ticket.Read more of this story.
On September 9 over 50 people attended a forum at Blackhawk Church on human trafficking around the world. Guest speakers were Saejung Lee, an immigration attorney for the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, David Lippiatt, the Executive Director of WE International, a Madison-based non-profit focused on social justice issues and poverty around the world, and Elizabeth Schrader and Jenny Morvak, both on their way to Cambodia to work in an after care facility for six months.
Madison Bishop Robert Morlino threw out his sermon notes last Sunday and instead addressed statements of church doctrine being made by Democratic Party leaders. Speaking at the 11am Mass at St. Patrick’s church in downtown Madison, shortly after the appearance of vice presidential candidate Joe Biden on Meet the Press, Morlino said "prominent Catholics should not be violating the separation of church and state and teaching the wrong thing."
After decades of soaring growth, the phenomenon of Protestant megachurches — behemoths of belief where 2,000 to 20,000 or more people attend weekend worship — may be stalled. And Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., the granddaddy of "seeker-sensitive" megachurches geared to attract the spiritually curious, is on a mission to rev the engines. Read more of this story.
CHICAGO — Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules. The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship. Read more of this story.