Articles

Galileo was seventy years old when the Inquisition required him to recant his conviction that the earth moved around the sun. In those days, it was believed that God had placed the earth at the center of the universe, and to believe otherwise was to offend God.

The 2003 Annual Meeting of The Mother Church & Conference was held in June in Berlin, Germany; Boston, Massachusetts; and on the Internet. Since then, participants and others have sent letters, e-mails, and faxes that tell of fresh inspiration and a recognition that spiritual ideas provide a meaningful response to challenges in their communities.

Recently , a man who has been working on my house told me about some of his personal struggles. It was the whole package: health, marital, and financial problems, as well as the challenge of sharing the upbringing of his young daughter with his ex-wife.

June Fleming shared with the Journal entries from a diary in which she had expressed gratitude for ways that Mary Baker Eddy's book, Science and Health, had been helpful to her in varied situations over a period of several years. As with any diary, the entries are open-ended and the outcomes are not always complete.

People from all over the world live in Brookline, Massachusetts, a quasi-urban town bordering Boston on the west. The community of just over 50,000 includes a diversity that is both ethnic and religious.

Ask Olivia Alexander why she joined her church, and she'll tell you a story of a membership focused on healing. "They responded to my need for help when it was greatest," said Olivia.

That Paul's letters are thought to be older than any of the Gospel accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Mark's Gospel, which is now accepted as the earliest one, dates from AD 70—just before the fall of Jerusalem. Paul's letters were written from AD 50—68, possibly as early as AD 48, which puts at least some of them much closer to the life and times of Jesus and the disciples.

Earlier this year, Holmes Rolston III, winner of the 2003 Templeton prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities was interviewed by Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology about his views on nature's diversity and spirituality. During the interview, he commented on the Bible's views of nature.

When Hezekiah inherited the throne as Judah's 12th king, he decided right away not to follow in the footsteps of his father, Ahaz. The kingdom of Judah had long faced a problem common to other surrounding areas of that day—constant attacks from the Assyrian Empire.

When he walked into the Dresden library, Dr. David Trobisch, Throckmorton-Hayes Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Bangor Theological Seminary, had no idea that he was about to make what he calls a "once-in-a-lifetime find"—one that had been buried for at least 400 years.