1+ week, 10+ hour ago (283+ words) Virtually every single thing about Thanksgiving Day is great. It was so even from the very beginning. William Bradford, Ye Governor of Ye Colony, threw down a great sermon in his original proclamation. That stuff will still preach today. I'd probably not use his phrase "ravages of the savages" outside Michigan. If you use it there the Michiganders will just assume you are referring to Ohioans. And the Lions record on Thanksgiving is 37-45-2. OK, some of you. Mostly I'm thankful that the Lord has been better to us than we've been to ourselves, to quote the great Otis Day (formerly DeWayne Jessie) via The Isley Brothers. Thanksgiving is pretty much the same across America. That matters, as a dwindling number of things have remained the same. Such shared traditions have the power to unify. We abandon them at our own…...

4+ week, 1+ day ago (35+ words) Sandra Easter has been here before, in a sense. A former district contracting chief for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Little Rock District, she was a public employee for more than 40 years, ......

4+ week, 1+ day ago (47+ words) A new nonprofit organization is working to establish an earth-friendly cemetery in Arkansas, a place without towering monuments above ground or concrete burial vaults beneath. Frank Lockwood is editor of the Religion section at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and has worked at the newspaper since 2006....

4+ week, 1+ day ago (43+ words) There's a sign, placed by his family members, on the spot in North Little Rock where Prophet Larry O'Neal Walker often preached. Frank Lockwood is editor of the Religion section at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and has worked at the newspaper since 2006....

4+ week, 1+ day ago (56+ words) After more than a half-century in storage, the rose window at Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock is on display once again, cleaned and restored and illuminated so that it shines no matter the ... Frank Lockwood is editor of the Religion section at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and has worked at the newspaper since 2006....

2+ week, 1+ day ago (34+ words) Bella Vista Community Church, 75 E. Lancashire Blvd., is an evangelical interdenominational church. Barns & Blooms art sale by local artist, Brenda Anderson, will be held from 2-6 p.m. Nov. 20. This ......

1+ week, 1+ day ago (668+ words) For Orthodox Christians in America, the 20th century was shaped by waves of believers fleeing wars, revolutions and persecution in lands such as Greece, Syria, Russia and Romania. The Orthodox did everything they could to preserve their faith and cultural traditions. When bishops visited these small flocks, it was rare to see converts. Then, in the late 1980s, flocks of evangelical Protestants swept into the Antiochian Orthodox church and then the Orthodox Church in America, which has Slavic roots. These converts began reaching out to others. Then came the seeker-friendly internet. Then came covid. Suddenly, streams of young families began exploring what was often called the mysterious, ancient "Eastern Church." "Some observers liken this influx to a flood, and the comparison is accurate. I do not visit a parish without meeting catechumens there. In some parishes, they number more than 100," said Metropolitan…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (33+ words) First United Presbyterian Church, 695 Calvin St., Fayetteville, invites all to join them for study and worship. Sunday morning activities begin at 9 a.m. Sundays. The nursery, for children pre-K and ......

2+ week, 2+ day ago (668+ words) U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to make official a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals. The step formalizes a yearslong process for the U.S. church to address transgender health care. From a Baltimore hotel ballroom, the bishops overwhelmingly approved revisions to their ethical and religious directives that guide the nation's thousands of Catholic health care institutions and providers. More than one in seven patients in the U.S. are treated each day at Catholic hospitals, according to the Catholic Health Association. Catholic hospitals are the only medical center in some communities. Most Catholic health care institutions have taken a conservative approach and not offered gender-affirming care, which may involve hormonal, psychological and surgical treatments. The new directives will formalize that mandate. Bishops will have autonomy in making the directives into law for their dioceses. "With regard to the gender ideology,…...

1+ day, 2+ hour ago (494+ words) The Orthodox baptism rite includes a three-stage exorcism that is extremely detailed about the spiritual warfare that surrounds new Christians. The "enemy" is Satan. Catechumens are asked three times: "Do you renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his worship, and all his angels, and all his pomp?" They respond: "I do renounce him." After several years of conversations while traveling nationwide, Father Andrew Stephen Damick is convinced these ancient prayers are painfully relevant to many converts surging into the small, but now growing, Eastern Church in America. It is no longer unusual to meet converts who have worshipped other gods and spirits. "There's a sense of disenchantment, both in the sense of people feeling disillusioned and sort of bummed by the culture in general, but also disenchantment in the sense of a disconnection from the unseen spiritual world,…...