Renowned theologian and author Diana Butler Bass will be the featured speaker at VERGE 2010, sponsored by North Puget Sound Presbytery. The event will take place Sept. 18 at North Creek Presbyterian Church in Mill Creek, Wash.
VERGE "invites cutting-edge leaders to address these questions: What is happening in the world around us? What is God on the verge of in the midst of it? How can we be part of it?"
World Christian leaders are paying tribute this week to the ecumenical community of Taizé in eastern France, which is marking its foundation in 1940 by Brother Roger Schutz, who died in 2005.
In an Aug. 14 message to Brother Alois, who now heads the community, Pope Benedict XVI described Schutz as a “pioneer in the difficult paths toward unity among the disciples of Christ.”
“Seventy years ago, he began a community that continues to see thousands of young adults, searching for meaning in their lives, come to it from around the world, welcoming them in prayer and allowing them to …
What started as a local zoning debate about an Islamic center near Ground Zero, and then morphed into a fight over religious expression, has now turned into an election-year political brawl.
Caught in the middle of the rancorous partisan fight are American Muslims, whose own voices have been drowned out by politicians on both the left and the right.
“In a fundamental sense, this is not a conversation about Muslims,” said Omid Safi, professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This is a conversation in which the Muslims are being used as the football …
Who would imagine that shoppers strolling past Nassau Presbyterian Church here on a summer Friday would find themselves face-to-face with modern-day slavery?
Yet on display July 30 in the church parking lot was a cargo box truck, a replica of one in which farmworkers were held against their will in 2008. The incident resulted in a slavery case: U.S. v. Navarrete.
In ministry, as in life, there are good days, happy days and "Lord, have mercy" days, said the Rev. Alice Ridgill at the opening worship of the National New Church Development Conference, here Aug. 9-12.
"Discouragement and frustration are a part of life, and they are a part of ministry — any ministry," Ridgill said. "It ebbs and it flows."
After South Africa’s success in hosting the first-ever soccer World Cup in Africa, the government needs to use the same determination to deal with the country’s social problems, say church leaders.
“We must use our considerable skill and learning to tackle the most pressing issues in our country: education, healthcare, and criminality and service delivery,” the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, said in a mid-July statement.
Napier said South Africa is a society in transformation and that the World Cup has given the country an opportunity to work together and prove that it is a nation full …
Believers have been writing about their spiritual journeys ever since St. Augustine invented the autobiography 16 centuries ago. Today, spiritual memoirs are enjoying a popular resurrection.
Exhibit A is Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, which describes Gilbert’s midlife meltdown and her subsequent yearlong global quest for food, salvation and sex. Published in 2006, the book has sold some 8 million copies.
“I used to have this appetite for my life, and it is just gone,” says actress Julia Roberts, who plays Gilbert in the film adaptation that opened Aug. 13. “I want to go somewhere where I can marvel …
Self-Development of People, a ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is celebrating its 40th anniversary by acting on its mission of “People Investing in People.”
SDOP is sponsoring a T-shirt design contest that will provide college scholarship money to the winner. Presbyterian youth and young adults in ninth grade through their fourth year of college are invited to enter the contest, which will award a $2,000 scholarship for the college or higher educational institution of the winner’s choice.
SDOP is a ministry that demonstrates God’s justice and wholeness, especially among the economically poor and oppressed, by partnering with …
“A Woman’s Voice” — this year’s Katie Geneva Cannon Lecture and Interfaith Conference at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (LPTS) — will be held Sept. 12-13 on the seminary campus.
The event, sponsored by the Women’s Center at LPTS, “will seek to create holy space and time for women involved in teaching and leadership in religious communities of diverse faith traditions and denominations” and hopes “to create energy around interfaith learning and worship, reaching across boundaries to share knowledge, spirit, and experience.”
Presenters include:
Brigham Young University was named the nation’s most religious campus, and Sarah Lawrence College the least religious, in new rankings released Aug. 3.
The Princeton Review released the 2011 edition of their yearly assessment of “The Best 373 Colleges,” which included rankings of the most and least religious students.
Mormon-owned BYU rose from second place in last year’s rankings. It also ranked first in the list of “Stone-Cold Sober Schools,” an honor which the school has held for 13 consecutive years.
All of the schools with the most religious student bodies hold some kind of church affiliation — including two …