News
WASHINGTON (ABP) — America’s first female secretary of state said Nov. 20 the United States must begin educating its current and future diplomats on faith issues in order to have success in the foreign-policy arena.Echoing the thesis of her new book, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs, Madeleine Albright told the nation’s largest gathering of religion professors that the ignorance of policymakers toward religion is dangerous for the United States. Read more.
Promise Keepers, the international ministry to men, has wrapped up its 16th season of conferences. In this year’s season, they’ve reached more than 132,000 men with the Gospel, with over three-thousand men giving their lives to Christ. This year’s meetings helped men discover their God-given potential, hone their talents and move ahead with accountability. The PK team is now looking ahead to 16 specially focused shorter events around the US events in 2007. Read more.
WASHINGTON (BP)–Not only do the news media need to change in order to report more accurately and justly on evangelical Christians, but evangelicals themselves can do things differently to affect their portrayal, panelists at a recent theological meeting said.A panel consisting of a Southern Baptist ethics leader, a Christian radio talk show host, an ABC News producer and former religion writers for two major news magazines discussed evangelicals and the media during a Nov. 17 session of the annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting at the Washington Hilton.Read more.
CommentaryThe players in studio power offices call it the "Passion Playbook."At least, that’s what the Variety — holy writ in Hollywood — calls the slate of commandments that insiders are supposed to be following in order to reach the $612 million audience that backed "The Passion of the Christ." Or was it the $744 million audience that embraced "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"?Whether or not a savvy consultant has produced an actual "Passion Playbook" doesn’t matter. Everyone knows that studio executives are becoming more interested in the "Christian market," even if admitting it still…
CommentaryNov. 13, 2006 issue – During my time in the White House, the most intense and urgent evangelical activism I saw did not come on the expected values issues—though abortion and the traditional family weren’t ignored—but on genocide, global AIDS and human trafficking. The most common request I received was, "We need to meet with the president on Sudan"—not on gay marriage. This reflects a head-snapping generational change among evangelicals, from leaders like Falwell and Robertson to Rick Warren, focused on fighting poverty and AIDS in Africa, and Gary Haugen, confronting rape and sexual slavery in the developing world. Since…
QUITO, ECUADOR (ANS) It was a bright, sunny, cool day, typical of the Christmas mini-dry season in Quito. My Otavalan Indian friend Pablo and I were standing on the street just a few days before the holiday, discussing how we would celebrate the season. —
Commentary(BP)–America’s most congested travel season is now underway as millions of people are headed home to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. These days, the holiday signals the beginning of the extended Christmas season, and even though an official Thanksgiving observance has long been a familiar part of our American culture, the substance of the observance is very much in question. Read more.
AgapePress) – For one professional basketball star, the goal of winning an NBA championship fades in comparison to winning a teammate to Jesus Christ.Win or lose, Milwaukee Bucks All-Star guard Michael Redd and two other teammates gather at the center of the court after each game to give thanks to God. Redd says although there are no born-again believers on the team, he keeps "planting the seed" because he knows God will one day "give the increase." Read more.
For Alex Gee, a well-known pastor in Madison, and his wife Jackie, the searing moment happened not once, but twice.In 1992, their first daughter, born only 17 weeks into the pregnancy, died within a short time. "We called her Victoria and held her until she slipped out of our arms into eternity," Gee wrote in his new book, "When God Lets You Down."Read more.
(AgapePress) – Wacky guy Bruce Barry’s love for art started as a child when he sat on the knee of his father, an animation cartoonist for Walt Disney. Barry was eager to learn how to draw, cartoon and paint, and his father was willing to teach him."My dad always taught me, if you’re going to do something right, do it first-class or not at all," Barry said.Barry took his father’s words to heart. What began with cartooning at a nearby amusement park led Barry to create award-winning work for Disney, Universal Studios and the Rain Forest Café, among others. "But…