Word: wolpert
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Trace Haythorn, president of the nonprofit Fund for Theological Education (FTE), says fewer than half the rural churches in the U.S. have a full-time seminary-trained pastor; in parts of the Midwest, the figure drops to 1 in 5. "It's a religious crisis, for sure," says Daniel Wolpert, pastor of First Presbyterian in Crookston, Minn., and a partner with the FTE, which supports young ministers and religious teachers. "And to the extent that these churches are anchoring institutions, it's a crisis of community." The sign for one lovely wood-framed church in nearby Buxton, N.D., says...
...survive at 20 members and loses 12, they close." And for the first time in American history, the majority of seminarians don't come from rural areas. Shannon Jung, a rural-church expert in Kansas City, Mo., says of young pastors, "A town without a Starbucks scares them." Wolpert recalls a professor's warning to a promising seminarian to shun a rural call: "Don't go. You're too creative for that...
...worked 80-acre lots and prayed in small, ethnically uniform churches. But starting in the 1970s, Wobegon was hit with sinking commodity prices and job-cutting farm technology, a combo that sharply reduced the population. Churches foundered. But only in the past few years have people like Haythorn and Wolpert begun experimenting with new ways to counter the trend...
...believers don't give up. Many denominations are exploring ways to allow laypeople to preach. Some ordain laymen and -women but restrict them to their home pulpit. Wolpert of Crookston's First Presbyterian entertains even more radical visions. The average age of his Sunday flock is 63 (Carol Porter is now a member). But he is also founder of the Minnesota Institute of Contemplation and Healing, an energy-independent, nationally ambitious retreat center offering ancient disciplines such as icon and walking meditations and surrounded by a storybook hayfield with a view of the Red Lake River. Wolpert sees...
...Mohammed Ali Jinnah was an extraordinary leader of high stature and merit, and one of the most brilliant statesmen of his time. American scholar Stanley Wolpert, a South Asia expert, has remarked that Jinnah was for Pakistan what Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru combined were for India. But while you chose to put Gandhi and Nehru on the cover of one of your editions, you did not afford Jinnah the same courtesy. That's unfair. Aziz-ul-Haq Qureshi Chief Coordinator Nazaria-i-Pakistan Foundation Lahore, Pakistan...