News
Racial and ethnic diversity is increasing on campus. A March 10, 2008, article in the Washington Post projects that minority populations on U.S. college and university campuses will grow from 30 percent three years ago to 37 percent by 2015.InterVarsity has multiethnic chapters and ethnic specific chapters on many campuses. Currently 29 percent of our active students define themselves as minority or multiethnic. Ethnic reconciliation and justice are long held core values. But InterVarsity’s campus staff members are noticing that student attitudes on race are also changing.Read more of this story.
CHICAGO (ELCA) — The General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) will consider a proposal for full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) when it meets April 23-May 2 in Fort Worth, Texas. The proposal, "Implementing Resolution for Full Communion between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church," has been years in the making. Read more of this story.
When Prince Caspian the movie—the sequel to 2005’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe—opens in theaters next month, viewers might be interested to know that there are a number of parallels between the title character and the author of the Chronicles of Narnia.Read more of this story.
It’s one of the largest and most trusted humanitarian organizations in the world that leverages compassion and generosity to help the most needy. Yet on Tuesday, World Vision announced a cutback on the number of people it can feed this year as it feels the effects of a slowing economy.Read more of this story.
MALULA, Syria — Elias Khoury can still remember the days when old people in this cliffside village spoke only Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Back then the village, linked to the capital, Damascus, only by a long and bumpy bus ride over the mountains, was almost entirely Christian, a vestige of an older and more diverse Middle East that existed before the arrival of Islam.Read more of this story.
Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become…
Religious schools do not have a blanket exemption from the state’s anti-discrimination laws, the 4th District Court of Appeals found in a decision released last week that might be precedent-setting.Read more of this story.
NEWS RELEASENeighbors in need at Dane County’s busiest food pantry rely on donations of garden veggies. Now that snow piles have been rained away, the thoughts of many in the Madison area turn to gardening. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is asking those whose thumbs are any shade of green to grow a row or two of produce this year for the Dane County neighbors who turn to the Society’s food pantry for help.
The New International Version of the Bible is by far the most preferred translation of the Scripture, according to a new survey of U.S. evangelical leaders.More than 65 percent of the participating leaders named the NIV as their preferred Bible in a survey conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in light of the NIV’s 30th anniversary this year.Read more of this story.
Forgiveness is like gift giving, said theologian Miroslav Volf. He used the example of a gift sent to his sister, who might find all kinds of reasons not to accept something sent by her brother. "The gift is still valid and important," he told a questioner who wanted to know if forgiveness was conditional upon the recipient showing remorse for their actions.