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Students find A's easier to give than receive
 Three Christian post-secondary schools ranked near the top in the very small category (under 4,000 students) in the Globe & Mail's 2009 University Report Card, released October 23 (PDF file). The survey, based on feedback from students, ranked 58 schools on 19 criteria. The three Christian schools -- Redeemer University College, The King's University College and Trinity Western University -- received an A+ for Quality of Education, a mark received by only one other school in the very small category and two other schools in the other three categories. Only three schools overall received an A+ in student satisfaction, including King's and Trinity Western in the very small category.
Home is where the help is
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is launching a 10-year, multimillion-dollar campaign to help people in southern Sudan. A 22-year civil war there killed 2 million people and displaced 4 million others. Since a peace agreement was signed in 2005, about 1.7 million people have returned home to a devastated land with few resources. The MCC campaign, 'Coming Home: Sudan,' will build schools, support education, assist farmers and promote peace. MCC, which has been serving in Sudan for 35 years, is seeking to raise $400,000 for the campaign by March 2009, with an eventual goal of raising $2 million per year. MCC is the relief and development agency of most Mennonite denominations in North America.
It was a controlled study
University of Toronto sociology professor Scott Schieman interviewed 1,800 Americans to examine the link between levels of religious belief and a sense of personal control over events in everyday life. He expected to find that the most devout religious practitioners would feel a lack of personal control in their lives because they have such faith in divine control. Instead, he found the opposite. Those who believe in a powerful God but do not spend much time praying or attending religious services felt they had less control. But those who were committed to prayer and attending services felt they had more control. Schieman's study, 'The Religious Role and the Sense of Personal Control,' was published in the October issue of the journal Sociology of Religion.
Tristan departs
Tristan Emmanuel has resigned as president and executive director of the ECP Centre (Equipping Christians for the Public Square) for personal reasons, the board of directors announced November 3. Emmanuel founded the organization as a Christian advocacy organization to defend the right of social conservative Christians to participate in the public square. The board said it was deeply disappointed at the resignation and wished him, his wife and his family God's blessing. The board said it is currently considering its options for the future and in the meantime all current initiatives will continue.
Ted continues to serve
Tetsunao (Ted) Yamamori has been named president and CEO of WorldServe Ministries, effective November 1. Based in Frisco, Texas and White Rock, BC, the organization has been involved in the distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, disaster relief, church planting, and ministerial training in several countries. It now plans to narrow its focus to serving persecuted Christians in China and Cuba. Yamamori, 70, previously served as international director of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and president of Food for the Hungry International. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture of the University of Southern California and adjunct professor of holistic mission at Asbury Theological Seminary.
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Theology is more honourary than science
Bertrand Blanchet, Roman Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Rimouski, received an honourary doctorate in theology during the 2008 convocation ceremonies of the Dominican University College, Ottawa, on October 26. Blanchet served as Bishop of Gaspe for 19 years, then Archbishop of Rimouski for 16 years, before retiring earlier this fall. Besides his studies in theology, Blanchet earned a master's degree in science in 1964, and a doctorate in forestry in 1975. In his acceptance speech, Blanchet said his life has been marked by two important realities, faith and science, and that there is an inalienable bond between nature's grandeur and the presence of the Creator: "Beauty opens us to something greater. It can only be the imprint of a Superior Being."
Abbot to Bishop
Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Clement Fecteau as Roman Catholic Bishop of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatiere, Quebec, and appointed Yvon-Joseph Moreau as his successor, October 18. Fecteau had reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. Moreau was ordained to the priesthood in the Diocese of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatiere in 1968. He served as a parish priest and worked in education until he joined the Cistercian Order in 1984. After six years, he was elected Abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Oka, near Montreal, becoming the fourth Abbot since the foundation of the monastery in 1881. The Diocese of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatiere has 95 diocesan priests, seven permanent deacons and 150 religious Sisters serving over 87,700 Catholics in 58 parishes and missions.
Broken CD
Canadian classical musician Timothy Corlis has produced a CD called Notes Toward to encourage listeners to meditate on their lives as humans in a broken world. One song, 'Notes Towards a Poem That Can Never Be Written,' contains words from a 1981 poem by novelist Margaret Atwood. Another song, 'As Through a Glass Darkly,' is based on poems by G. Victor Toews on the meaning of living a Christian life in a modern age. -- Canadian Mennonite
There's no place like homilies on the Internet
Father Michael Mierau of St. Michael's parish in Leduc, Alberta, is one of the few Roman Catholic priests who has his own website to try to reach the majority of Catholics who don't come to church. The website contains homilies with titles such as 'Doggie Dinner,' 'God Sure Knows How to Make Something Suck,' 'Sleepless in Toronto,' 'Treasure Quest' and 'Just Keep Swimming.' He also analyzes Superman and Batman, whom he sees as symbols of the ultimate hero, Jesus Christ.
November 6/2008
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