More Questions, Fewer Answers, on the Afterlife

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS) For millennia, people have been trying to imagine what happens after death. Is there an afterlife, a heaven? Who gets in? And what happens to those who don’t? Books trying to provide answers to these age-old questions continue to be...

Fed Up with Hollywood, Churches Make Their Own Films

YORBA LINDA, Calif. (RNS)  This year’s Oscars may have been passed out, but for some churches across the country the major motion picture season is just getting started. Frustrated with the movies Hollywood has been releasing, more and more congregations are making...

A Year Later, Quake-ravaged Haiti Struggles to Recover

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (RNS) Driving through downtown Port-au-Prince, it can be difficult at first to see much change from a year ago, when a devastating 7.0 earthquake devastated this impoverished island nation. The presidential palace is still in ruins, with...

Christmas Star Gets Its Due on Epiphany

(Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly) Christmas, despite what the calendar says, isn’t over. And the star–“star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright”–that shone over Bethlehem won’t go dim until it gets its proper...