A dozen international peacemakers from 10 countries around the world will visit congregations and presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from Sept. 24-Oct. 18.
Russia’s prisons, struggling with a growing crime rate, overcrowding and shortfalls in funding, are turning to religion to bring moral guidance to inmates.
Protestant and Catholic women in the United States have grown unhappier since stores have stayed open on Sundays, according to a study by economists from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Chicago’s DePaul University.
The study found that the repeal of “blue law” restrictions on Sunday shopping has corresponded with lower church attendance for white women. Meanwhile, the probability of women becoming unhappy increased by 17 percent.
The study concludes that “an important part of the decline in women’s happiness during the last three decades can be explained by decline in religious participation,” said Danny Cohen-Zada, an economics scholar …
On Oct. 9, Patty Sanders will swim, bike and run alongside hundreds of other triathletes in the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii.
"Why did they ask you?" That was the question I heard whenever I told colleagues and friends that I would be away from the office for 12 days in order to serve on the Ecumenical Jury at this year’s Montreal World Film Festival.
An international grouping of churches and Christian organizations says that if one sixth of the world’s population is hungry when there is sufficient food to feed the world, then action to address the problem’s root causes is needed.
The Geneva-based Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, which campaigns for food justice, said in a statement on Sept. 14 that new figures on world hunger highlight that the food crisis is still acute for one-sixth of the world’s population.
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Program had on the same day announced that 925 million people …
After publishing a report on sex abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests, Belgian church leaders announced on Sept.13 they would establish a center of “recognition, reconciliation and healing” to punish abusers and protect victims.
But victims’ advocates complained the measure would be meaningless since the church will not report cases to civil authorities unless the victims request it.
“We are fully committed to tackling this problem in a new way,” Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard of Brussels told reporters. “It causes us pain. Coming out of such a crisis is not easy.”
A report by a church-sponsored panel, released on Sept. …
The Rev. Mark Koenig has been selected as the new director of Presbyterian ministry at the United Nations. Koenig brings 30 years of experience in ministry, serving congregations, the Presbytery of the Western Reserve, and the General Assembly Mission Council. He has been on the staff of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, since 2002, and has served as its coordinator since 2007.
Most teenage boys think about friends, girls, video games, sports, cars and maybe school sometimes. But 17-year-old Hunter Badgely, a member of Haines Presbyterian Church in the Presbytery of Alaska, has had something completely different occupying his mind since he was 12.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Office of Public Witness in Washington, D.C., is encouraging Presbyterians to participate in a Sept. 21 conference call with President Obama to learn more about the new health care plan.