“We’re bringing the bed back in church.” Ed Young Jr. The Dallas-area Baptist pastor and his wife recently spent 24 hours in a bed on the roof of their church to send a message about the role of sex in…
Pope gives final approval to controversial lay group
VATICAN CITY (RNS) — After a 15-year process, the Holy See on Jan. 20 gave its final approval to the Neocatechumenal Way, a lay movement that has been criticized for its unorthodox liturgical practices but that has been successful in…
VIRGINIA BRIEFS
2012 Heritage Fellows applications open. Applications are now available for the 2012 Heritage Fellows program, sponsored by the Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies. Each year the Center appoints a few outstanding Virginia Baptist college students as Heritage Fellows. They…
Big-city mayors come out for same-sex marriage
NEW YORK (RNS) — A bipartisan coalition of 80 U.S. mayors on Jan. 20 launched a “Freedom to Marry” campaign to build public support for giving same-sex couples the right to marry under U.S. and state laws. “It is not…
VITAL SIGNS: The unbalanced church
When a congregation wants to get, stay or remain healthy, one of the key questions it asks has to do with the balance between its internal and an external focus. One excellent congregational exercise to help with this question is…
Amish man says home electricity OK if it gets him out of jail
CLEVELAND (RNS) — The leader of an Amish splinter sect who is being held in jail on federal hate crime charges related to a series of beard-cutting attacks says he is not opposed to allowing electricity installed in his home….
WINN RECOMMENDS
Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster) Everyone’s talking about Jobs’ biography, so you might as well cave and give it a go. One observer noted that decades from now, we will remember Jobs in the same way we remember…
Obama holds firm on contraception coverage
NEW YORK (RNS) — The Obama administration said Jan. 20 that it will not broaden the religious exemption in new rules that require employers to provide contraception coverage to employees, a move that angered religious groups and opened a high…
OPINION: Songs about love and death
I feel sadness that I can’t quite shake and it’s strange to me because it all stems from an album I just listened to. Haunting melodies and gut wrenching lyrics pull my imagination in all kinds of places, but that…
Faith-based anti-trafficking efforts make a difference
Small details in the lives of the troubled students Tyler Shoesmith works with tell more than they would like him to know. It's the words they use, the clothes they wear — even the age of the people they spend…
Leonard to be installed in Baptist studies chair
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Bill J. Leonard will be installed as the first James and Marilyn Dunn Professor of Baptist Studies at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity Jan. 24. Bill Leonard The installation will be held in conjunction with…
Mexican poverty creates climate for exploitation
Poverty in Mexico fuels the destructive cycle of human exploitation and trafficking that consumes many young lives, experts on both sides of the Rio Grande agree. A volunteer at Cornerstone Children's Ranch in Quemado, less than two miles from the…