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Good Medicine
The United Methodist Church has decided that its aging and medication-dependent denominational constituents can't wait until the fall presidential elections for relief from the high cost of prescription drugs. In a partnership with DestinationRx,
I am Mordechai Vanunu
Anti-nuclear activist Mordechai Vanunu was released from an Israeli prison April 21 after completing an 18-year sentence for telling the world about Israel's previously secret nuclear weapons program. Vanunu exited Shikma Prison saying: "I am Mordechai Vanunu, the man behind The [London] Sunday
Between the Lines
Ten Years of Freedom
South African voters elected a new national parliament and nine provincial governments in the nation's third "all-races" elections since the end of apartheid in 1994. Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu (above) applauds after casting his vote. "Often they say the first election after democracy is the last," Tutu told SABCNews. "Many countries degenerate into dictatorships. We are disproving that. We are taking it in our stride."
Counting Your Cubits
Maybe your thwarted dreams of urban development, ancient Hebrew-style, have got you down. Or you could just be pining for a reason to turn off the television. Either way, pout no more! Uberplay and Inspiration Games brings you "The Ark of the Covenant," an intriguing tile-laying game for all ages that adds biblical themes to the award-winning German game "Carcassonne." Each drawn tile adds to land, a road, a temple, or a city. Then sheep, wolves, and strategically placed followers and prophets add to the earned points of completed projects.
"The game doesn't try to teach doctrine. It just gives people an opportunity to talk about history and have fun," said Uberplay's Matt Molen. He says it's the perfect combination of collaboration and competition. (Of course, in Jesus' version the rules are reversed. You win by how much you give away.)
News Bites
Xtreme Peace. Eight Palestinians and Israelis completed an Antarctic expedition called "Breaking the Ice" to prove that "our peoples can and deserve to live together in peace and friendship," according to their statement. Two of the Palestinians had served time in an Israeli prison. Two of the Israelis were former members of a commando unit.
Riot Report. Obdulio Villanueva - a former Guatemalan military officer serving a 30-year sentence for the 1998 assassination of Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi, a human rights leader - was killed in February during a prison riot in Guatemala City, according to Reuters.
Spotlight. South African Quaker, anti-apartheid activist, and theoretical cosmologist George F.R. Ellis won the 2004 Templeton Prize for advances in religion and science. Ellis is splitting the $1.4 million award between his retirement trust and a number of small South African nonprofit agencies.
For Pete's Sake
How can a Christian tick off both porn filmmakers and religious conservatives? Ask youth pastors Mike Foster and Craig Gross, who created xxxchurch.com, "the #1 Christian Porn Site" on the Internet, calling children and adults to
Counting Your Cubits
Maybe your thwarted dreams of urban development, ancient Hebrew-style, have got you down. Or you could just be pining for a reason to turn off the television. Either way, pout no more! Uberplay and Inspiration Games brings you "The Ark of the Covenant," an intriguing tile-laying game for all ages that
Life in the Balance
Five young women—survivors of child and youth sex trafficking in New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis, and San Francisco—came to Washington, D.C., this winter to share their stories and discuss solutions to a problem that affects an estimated 300,000 youth in the United States annually.
Shareholder Values
Faith is influencing the actions of shareholders, according to a February 2004 report by the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility. "ICCR members are at the forefront of the social and environmental shareholder movement," said ICCR Executive Director Pat Wolf.
No Nukes is Good Nukes
House and Senate conferees amended fiscal 2004 energy and defense authorization bills to reduce funding for research on nuclear weapons such as the "bunker buster," to create
Hereafter Glow
The mayor of Fall River, Massachusetts, sits in the hot seat each year at an accountability meeting of Catholic, mainline Protestant, and Jewish congregations called the United Interfaith Action of Southeastern Massachusetts to answer questions about past and future policies. Though he dislikes the format, Mayor Ed
News Bites
Me. Me. "[The apostle] Paul says were supposed to die to ourselves and Im paying a publicist $3,000 a month to make sure everybody knows who I am?" said "Everybody Loves Raymond" star Patricia Heaton in People magazine.
Families Valued
Rabiye Kurnaz (center), mother of German Guantanamo Bay detainee Murat Kurnaz, came to Washington, D.C., in March to join British and French families of detainees who shared stories of anguish over the treatment of their relatives. "Can the U.S. government legitimately claim that the continuing
Churches Close Accountability Gap
The mayor of Fall River, Massachusetts, sits in the hot seat each year at an accountability meeting of Catholic, mainline Protestant, and Jewish congregations called the United Interfaith Action of Southeastern Massachusetts to answer questions about past and future policies. Though he dislikes the format, Mayor Ed
Sweeping Up Corruption
Protesters converged on Managua in February with brooms in hand to "sweep out" corrupt public officials. Organized by CEPAD, the Nicaraguan Council of Protestant Churches, thousands marched to municipal offices and courts to present
Trading Spaces
More than 100 church and grassroots organizations from the United States, Canada, and Mexico met in New York in January to discuss international financial institutions and trade and investment treaties that affect the poor in North America.
Cradle of Life
With 35,000 churches and monasteries and 500,000 clergy in Ethiopia, the Orthodox Church is poised to send messages into the most remote parts of that country to prevent HIV and to fund ministries to treat the infected. The International Orthodox Christian Charities, the humanitarian aid agency of Orthodox
No Mas
Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel (left), in a meeting with religious representatives from the United States, took up the delegations proposal that Venezuela stop sending soldiers to the School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) at Ft.
Raising Lazarus in South Dakota
In the diocese of Rapid City, South Dakota, a group of Catholic priests decided to take action on behalf of both the victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse in the church. About 30 active and retired priests created an independent nonprofit called the Lazarus Fund, to which they are donating 5 percent of
A Dream Still Deferred
"State of the Dream 2004: Enduring Disparities in Black and White," released in January by United for a Fair Economy, catalogues the continuing and, in some cases, worsening gaps of income, wealth, poverty, health, housing, education, and imprisonment among African-American and white populations in the
News Bites
EuroVision.
Seven European businessesMTV Europe, National Grid Transco, ABB, Barclays, Novartis, The Body Shop International, and Novo Nordiskhave agreed to comply with U.N. principles on human rights. The norms had previously only been applied to countries, not corporations.