[Religion News Service, July 23, 1996] At the beginning of a summer expected to be long and hot, a shocking charge was made: Racists are burning black churches. In a June 8 address, President Clinton cited the burning of Murkland Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C., which he described as the 30th such fire in 18 months.
[Religion News Service, May 28, 1996]
I found out the other day I have a pancreas. Not that I would have ever denied it; I know that the existence of such things is generally taken for granted, and one would disagree only at the risk of looking foolish. If the phone rang and it was a pollster inquiring about mine, I'd know the correct answer: “Yup, got it right here.”
Where, exactly, I wouldn't be sure. In fact, that whole arrangement of complicated, slippery items on the dark inside of the torso is a mystery to me. I can't see them, so maybe they aren't there.
[Religion News Service, April 16, 1996]
The latest animal-rights action spreads beyond usual bounds: members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plan to disrupt a sport-fishing tournament by throwing rocks in the water to warn the fish. (Presumably they hope not to hit any fish in the process.)
[Religion News Service, April 2, 1996] I think I see what the problem is. We admire Mother Teresa, and we despise Leona Helmsley.
This doesn't immediately look like a problem, nor does it look like news. Mother Teresa has earned worldwide admiration of a higher order than the admiration we give to athletes, entertainers or other clever folks.
[Religion News Service, March 19, 1996]
Six lanes go east and six go west, and they go and go; cars pause briefly for the row of stoplights swinging overhead, then plunge forward in a wave. In the midst of the highway is a narrow weedy strip of green, and standing on the strip are two men.
[Religion News Service, February 6, 1996] At the local public elementary school, Christian parents are struggling to get Easter into the pre-Spring break celebrations. Where kids' parties and programs in the past have celebrated daffodils and April showers, parents are urging the school to include depictions of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus.
[Christianity Today, July 13, 1998] Pundits and commentators, who normally consider themselves more open-minded than the plodding masses, have been rocked by a discovery in the last six months: when it comes to a president's indiscretions, most people just don't care. “But you're supposed to be outraged,”
[Christianity Today, May 18, 1998]
Twenty-four years ago this month I learned something specific. The specificity of what I learned is what makes it, to many, offensive.
Twenty-four years ago a hitchiking jaunt around Europe brought me one afternoon to a church in Dublin.
[Christianity Today, April 6, 1998]
On the old ”Bob Newhart Show," the one that cast Bob as a psychiatrist, one recurrent character carried meekness to a fault. He was a failure as a door-to-door salesman because he feared knocking on people's doors might disturb them. So he'd wait on the doorstep, hoping they'd happen to open the door.
[Christianity Today, February 9, 1998]
Get a bunch of Christian intellectuals together and pretty soon they'll start in deploring the CBA. The initials stand for the Christian Booksellers Association, the organization that links Christian bookstores across the nation. (Secular bookstores form the American Booksellers Association, or ABA.)
