The Sept. 21 release of U.S. hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal from an Iranian prison “affirms the importance of the role of religious dialogue and its end product in this case, public diplomacy, as we seek ways to define common ground between our two countries,” said Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop John Chane, who returned from a weeklong visit to Iran on Sept. 19.
Chane and a delegation of Christian and Muslim leaders had traveled to Iran at the invitation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; one objective was to seek the release of the hikers on humanitarian grounds, reports Episcopal News Service.
If World War II-era warbler Kate Smith sang today, her anthem could be “Gods Bless America.”
That’s one of the key findings in newly released research that reveals America’s drift from clearly defined religious denominations to faiths cut to fit personal preferences.
The folks who make up God as they go are side by side with self-proclaimed believers who claim the Christian label but shed their ties to traditional beliefs and practices. Religion statistics expert George Barna says, with a wry hint of exaggeration, America is headed for “310 million people with 310 million religions.”
Eleven international peacemakers from different countries around the world will visit congregations and presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from Sept. 23-Oct. 18.
They will share their stories about church-based ministries in their countries that seek peace justice and pursue peace in the name of Jesus Christ. This year’s international peacemakers come from Bangladesh, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, Russia and Sudan.
The International Peacemaker program is sponsored by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.
The nation’s top Catholic bishop issued a stern challenge to the Obama administration’s decision not to support a federal ban on gay marriage, and warned the president that his policies could “precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions.”
In a letter sent Sept. 20, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he and other prelates have grown increasingly concerned since the administration announced last February that it would no longer defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in court.
The Obama administration says it believes the law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman is unconstitutional.
Religious leaders in Jerusalem are more willing than ever before to take part in dialogue with members of other faiths despite growing political turmoil in the region, said Daniel Milo, the director of the Jerusalem Center for Ethics, prior to the start of the third annual Interfaith and Ethics Symposium on Sept. 14.
Religious leaders now realized “that the alternative to dialogue is not acceptable,” Milo said, noting that attendance at the annual symposium, which delves into interfaith challenges, has grown over the past three years. Still, he admitted, some Palestinian religious leaders from East Jerusalem declined an invitation this …
Eleven international peacemakers from different countries around the world will visit congregations and presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from Sept. 23-Oct. 18.
They will share their stories about church-based ministries in their countries that seek peace justice and pursue peace in the name of Jesus Christ. This year’s international peacemakers come from Bangladesh, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, Russia and Sudan.
The International Peacemaker program is sponsored by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.
Samantha Perilstein is a bubbly hospitality major at the University of Delaware and deeply connected to Jewish life on campus. Which is a change from where she started.
To Rabbi Jeremy Winaker, that made Perilstein a perfect candidate for an ambitious national experiment to bring college Jews back to Judaism.
Under a $17 million program sponsored by the national Jewish campus group Hillel, students like Perilstein are hired to help their less Jewishly inclined peers achieve some kind of “meaningful Jewish experience.” The upcoming High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah (Sept. 28-29) and Yom Kippur (Oct. 7-8) are a natural time to engage Jewish students.
Muslims in Kashmir, in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, are supporting the re-building of a Christian school that was destroyed by fire during anti-Christian violence one year ago.
“What happened here is certainly wrong and it should not have happened. I can assure you that our people will not allow it to happen again,” Munshi Mukhtar Ahmed, a Muslim teacher in a government school in the town of Tangmarg, told ENInews on Sept. 20.
On Sept. 13, 2010, the Tyndale Biscoe School was the target of Muslims protesting a reported desecration of the Quran in the U.S. that marked the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The school is in the town of Phulwama and is run by the Church of North India (CNI), the dominant Protestant denomination in North India.
Eleven international peacemakers from countries around the world will visit congregations and presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from Sept. 23-Oct. 18.
They will share their stories about church-based ministries in their countries that seek peace justice and pursue peace in the name of Jesus Christ. This year’s international peacemakers come from Bangladesh, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, Russia and Sudan.
The International Peacemaker program is sponsored by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.
Neerja Rajeev Prasad is secretary of the women’s fellowship for Christian service at the synod and diocesan level of the Church of North India in Nagpur. She will be visiting presbyteries and congregations in New Jersey, New York and Georgia.
Millions of college freshmen are overwhelmed right now trying to make new friends, adjusting to more rigorous school work and learning to live away from home. Whether they also find time for church during their first two weeks on campus will set the mold for the rest of their college years, according to new research.