In the past, interfaith work in Colombia has mostly involved top-level clergy, not their congregants at the base, says a peace group here. But Tuesaquillo Territorio de Paz (Territory of Peace, or TTP) is working to change that model. Based in Tuesaquillo, one of 20 districts in the capital city of Bogotá, TTP is an interfaith, secular group dedicated to peace in the midst of Colombia’s decades-long armed internal conflict.
On Feb. 24, the Rev. Mitri Raheb, Palestinian pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and a key partner of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), received the German Media Award in Baden-Baden, Germany.
As the atheist community grows and matures, one thing people are looking for is a way to process grief and sorrow without the trappings ― or support ― of religious ritual and belief.
Indonesians who do not identify with state-sanctioned religions may soon be permitted to leave the religion column on electronic identity cards blank under new government proposals that acknowledge religious minorities while grouping them with unbelievers.
Our Christian friends are enduring great suffering, along with all the Syrian people, under the escalating violence of the Assad regime and the counter-violence of armed resistance groups. The international community seems unable to agree on ways to bring the violence to a halt or to find a path of engagement that can lead to a peaceable resolution of the conflict. As believers in Jesus Christ, who declare that our God is “able to find a way when there is no way,” we must go to God in prayer on behalf of all who are suffering and ask for wisdom as to how we might provide comfort and support.
In this Lenten season, one Presbyterian congregation in Colombia will be thinking about more than fasting.
“The church has the opportunity to do something in this place,” said the Rev. Julio Diaz, a pastor with the Presbyterian Church of Colombia (Iglesia Presbiteriana de Colombia, or IPC).
“Together for a just, peaceful and reconciled world” is the theme of the 2012 meeting of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Council to be hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia (IELCO) June 15-20 here.
After the Congolese Roman Catholic church challenged the credibility of election results in which President Joseph Kabila was declared the winner, the stabbing death of a nun and the arrest of three priests and two nuns in February are causing concern.
For the fourth year in a row, President Obama is proposing lower tax deductions for the wealthy on donations to churches and other nonprofit organizations.
And for the fourth year in a row, nonprofit groups say the change would lead to a dramatic drop in charitable giving.
The Rev. Candie Blankman, pastor of the multi-cultural urban First Presbyterian Church of Downey, admits that her Midwestern, suburban and fairly homogenous small town upbringing might seem a world away from her current call.
But a world away — the Philippines and Japan — is actually where much of it began.