The name has become synonymous with Charles Dickens’s beloved Christmas Carol. After bringing his own adaptation to life, playwright A. S. “Pete” Peterson has become well acquainted with Ebenezer Scrooge and his spiritually significant name.

Peterson—brother of Rabbit Room founder and musician Andrew Peterson—serves as artistic director of Rabbit Room Theatre, whose adaptation of A Christmas Carol debuts December 7 in Franklin, Tennessee.

The Nashville-based Rabbit Room Theatre has enjoyed a broad scope and reach in its relatively short lifespan. In 2022, its adaptation of Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place ran locally in Franklin to sold-out audiences, and the following year was released in movie theaters across the US and internationally.

When considering what project to bring to the stage next, Peterson turned to one of his favorite authors.

“It’s been a lot of fun to dig into the language of somebody you look up to so much,” said Peterson, a devout Christian and a lifelong fan of Dickens “To get to live in their sentences and their story structure and figure out how their brain was working … to put your own version of it alongside theirs is really rewarding.”

A Christmas Carol is shorter than most of Dickens’s other works and is divided into five chapters, called “staves.” Peterson said that the brevity in the text afforded him the opportunity to build on the existing structure and play with the gaps in the story.

“You can read it in one sitting, and that opens it up to a lot of room to build out the meat and bones of it in different ways,” Peterson said. “Every adaptation does that a little differently.”

The Darker Side of ‘A Christmas Carol’

Lisa Toland

Charles Dickens Still Haunts Christmas

Laura Kenna

One of the angles Peterson approached in studying the text was to examine how the character of Scrooge came to be such a humbug.

He noticed a recurring image throughout the story of a small boy: Scrooge’s childhood self, Tiny Tim, and the hauntingly gaunt boy called Ignorance who appears with the girl Want underneath the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present. Peterson realized how much the neglect and trauma of Scrooge’s childhood had contributed to the hardened, twisted adult Scrooge.

“The show that we’ve built gives us a really good roadmap from childhood through adulthood of seeing how a person can end up as this really angry, twisted, cold miser that Scrooge has become,” Peterson said. “And if we can understand how he became that way, then I think we can better understand how he can change.”

The character of Scrooge undergoes a miraculous transformation of divine intervention, repentance, and faith.

“Scrooge says, ‘The three spirits will strive within me,’ and I think that’s a real clue,” Peterson said. “The Trinity, the threefold spirit, strives within me—making me, sanctifying me, making me better than I was before.”

Even the name Ebenezer means “stone of help,” taken from 1 Samuel 7:12: “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’”

While Dickens doesn’t explicitly explain the meaning of this name, Peterson believes there was both intentionality and significance to his naming, which is often a characteristic of Dickens’s storytelling.

In exploring that background, Peterson found ample source material from Dickens’s life, adding allusions to David Copperfield, a work considered to be largely autobiographical, as “Easter eggs” in the show.

Dickens not only experienced mistreatment as a child himself but also as an adult was moved by the plight of poor British children and sought to advocate for them through his writing.

After a visit to one London institution, Dickens wrote to a newspaper to enlist the attention of the readers to the efforts “to introduce among the most miserable and neglected outcasts in London, some knowledge of the commonest principles of morality and religion; to commence their recognition as immortal human creatures.”

“He had gone on a tour to visit all these places and see the facts for himself, and he was so affected by that tour that he decided he was going to do something about it,” Peterson said. “What he wanted to do about it was write a political pamphlet.”

Instead of writing a pamphlet, Dickens ended up writing A Christmas Carol. The resulting work, Peterson said, is a much more effective tool.

Dickens’s original audiences thought so too. Shortly after its publication, Dickens wrote in a letter,

I have great faith in the poor; to the best of my ability, I always endeavor to present them in a favorable light to the rich; and I shall never cease, I hope, until I die, to advocate their being made as happy and as wise as the circumstances of their condition in its utmost improvement, will admit of their becoming.

His social advocacy was not merely humanitarian but also grounded in his faith. “He was motivated, I think, by the gospel and his care for children,” Peterson said. “Dickens is really clear that he definitely had a strong Christian faith. It bears out in a lot of his work.”

A Christmas Carol is one of his works that bears the marks of his faith with particular clarity.

Certainly, the story reflects the mercy toward the marginalized spoken of in James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.”

While Peterson calls the story inherently a deeply Christian one, his adaptation also reflects his own faith. 

“I’m foundationally a Christian. All of my stories and the ways that I tell them are foundationally Christian, and so I see it as a mission,” he said. “We get to invite people from all over the city into our storytelling … to tell these beautiful stories that bear the truth of Christ and the kingdom.”

Courtesy of The Rabbit Room Theatre

Producer and director Matt Logan was instrumental in promoting Peterson’s first foray into theater—The Battle of Franklin. Since then, the two have teamed up to form a symbiotic creative partnership for several productions, including The Hiding Place.

“Matt and I have learned that we have very similar storytelling styles,” Peterson said. “I’m able to write in a way that he enjoys developing on stage, and I think the way that he works on stage is something that enables me to write specifically for his skill set.”

Logan’s costuming and casting pedigree includes such Broadway credits as The Lion King, and he is also an established actor, director, and illustrator. He designed sets and costumes for the play’s upcoming premiere run, taking a creative direction Peterson calls a marriage of modern theater techniques with the traditional Victorian.

“You don’t do theater because you want to exactly represent a 19th-century street. Theater flourishes in its abstractions and its ability to paint beautiful pictures with light and space,” Peterson said. “We’re really leaning into that with this show.”

Peterson and Logan have been working on the production for the past year and a half, including multiple workshops with the cast and crew.

“It’s such a deeply Christian story that has so thoroughly pervaded our English-speaking culture,” Peterson said, “that it’s just a great opportunity to spread the good news.”

A Christmas Carol runs December 7–22 at the Franklin Special School District (FSSD) Performing Arts Center in Franklin, Tennessee, and tickets are available at rabbitroomtheatre.com. Peterson’s stage play is also available for purchase at store.rabbitroom.com.

Erin Jones is a freelance writer and the founder of Galvanize and Grow Copywriting. More of her writing can be found on erinjoneswriter.com.

The post The Rabbit Room’s ‘Christmas Carol’ Draws on Dickens’s Pure Religion appeared first on Christianity Today.

While studying at Lincoln College, Oxford, I noticed a similar list. More than 50 names were ornately inscribed onto a wooden panel under the college crest in the common room. I marveled that a smaller college had lost this many students to the Great War and wondered about the scale of loss across England.

Before there were names on memorials, though, there was the aching absence, agonized waiting, dread, and then, for many, heartbreak of war. Armistice came in a bleak November. And it was out of this somber history that the Western church got one of its most widespread and beloved Christmas traditions: the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols.

In the midst of holiday pomp and celebration, this observance—often held on Christmas Eve in Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic, and other denominational churches—rehearses the story of redemption with methodic yet beautiful simplicity. As the name suggests, the liturgy alternates “lessons” or passages from Scripture with “carols,” a mix of congregational carols and anthems offered by a choir or other musicians. These services can be the pinnacle of a church music program’s liturgical year, held in sanctuaries glittered with candlelight.

The narrative arc of the lessons places the familiar Christmas story in the context of the broader redemption story, and like the very candles flickering throughout a darkened sanctuary, the hope and joy that headline much of the Christmas season shine brighter against the acknowledgement of brokenness, pain, and waiting.

The Service of Nine Lessons and Carols is a beloved tradition rooted in healing, because it was forged in the fires of grief and suffering. Just months before the end of the war, it was King’s College, Cambridge, dean Eric Milner-White who faced the daunting task of planning a Christmas Eve service. In the safety of Cambridge, the echoes of war still rung in his own memory.

When the war broke out, the 30-year-old left his position at the school to serve, trading “the stillness and beauty of King’s Chapel for the noise, brutality and squalor of the French front line—the life of an army chaplain,” writes author Alexandra Coghlan in Carols From King’s.

Along with a generation of young men, Milner-White witnessed horrors in battle. Coghlan quotes the chaplain writing about the fireworks and noise from the German trenches: “We felt so powerless against those splitting cracks and roars, and dreamt of the metal tearing its way into the bodies of poor men.”

Milner-White returned to King’s College as dean in 1918 and had to consider how to tend to the emotional and spiritual wounds soldiers brought home. He began to formulate a service with the suffering and trauma of the last four years in mind, a service marked by beauty, simplicity, and truth.

“He didn’t doubt, I don’t think, the love of God or the presence of God. What he wanted to know was how to communicate it to people who had been brutalized and traumatized by this kind of experience,” said chapel dean Stephen Cherry in the BBC documentary 100 Years of King’s Carols.

A Carol for the Despairing

Kristen O'Neal

An early version of the lessons and carols liturgy dates back to 1880, when Bishop Edward White Benson created the structure at Truro Cathedral and called it “Festal Service for Christmas Eve.” Milner-White’s adaptation shaped the service into the form most known today.

Over a century-plus of lessons and carols services, one of the most beloved elements is the opening hymn. The twinkling glow of candles and the mosaic of color from stained-glass windows illuminate the chapel. Out of the silence an angelic treble voice will sing unaccompanied the first verse of “Once in Royal David’s City”:

Once in royal David’s city
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby
In a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.

The arrangement is the same one composed for the lessons and carols service in 1919. In the verses that follow, the rest of the choristers join in a simple hymnic harmonization. The congregation joins them for the third verse, their voices filling the candlelit space. The fourth and fifth verses grow as the organ music swells beneath the voices.

The sixth verse crescendoes gloriously with the addition of a descant soaring above the choir, congregation, and organ. This final verse looks to the culmination of the redemption story: “Not in that poor lowly stable, / With the oxen standing by, / We shall see him; but in heaven, / Set at God’s right hand on high.”

This carol draws listeners into the service and the story that follows with a simplicity that is both tender and profound. The hymn introduces a Savior who is meek and mild, sympathetic to the world of grief in which he entered. “He was little, weak and helpless, / Tears and smiles like us he knew; / And he feeleth for our sadness, / And he shareth in our gladness.”

The hymn also dedicates two verses to heaven.
And our eyes at last shall see him,
Through his own redeeming love,
For that child so dear and gentle
Is our Lord in heaven above,
And he leads his children on
To the place where he is gone.

For a generation that had lost their sons, brothers, and husbands, these words and the tender beauty in which they were delivered must have brought profound comfort.

The traditional service at King’s begins with its first lesson in Genesis 3, where “God tells sinful Adam that he has lost the life of Paradise and that his seed will bruise the serpent’s head.” Each lesson is followed by a song related in some way to the text. “Their liturgical order and pattern is the strength of the service,” Milner-White wrote, “and prevents it becoming a recital of carols rather than an act of worship.”

The lessons go on to include God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 22, two passages from Isaiah foretelling the coming Messiah, passages from Luke and Matthew telling the Christmas story, and finally John’s glorious account of the Incarnation, the Word made flesh. Then come two congregational hymns: “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

Hallelujah! ‘Messiah’ Sing-Alongs Turn Audience into the Choir

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Another fixture in the service is Milner-White’s bidding prayer, which poignantly acknowledges loss and at the same time offers hope:

Let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we for evermore are one.

King’s College’s inaugural Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was held shortly after World War I—still called “the Great War,” with the assumption that it was, in the words of H. G. Wells, the “war to end all wars.” Yet two decades later would bring another that would leave King’s College, as well as war memorials around the country, with another list of names.

By World War II, the service was broadcast on the radio, broadening its reach beyond the confines of Cambridge as a source of national comfort. The service proceeded, even though the stained-glass windows were temporarily removed to be kept safe from bombings. The radio broadcast reached not only the country but also the troops. Radio Times even records lessons and carols services taking place in German prisoner-of-war camps.

As the service’s popularity has grown globally, many churches and choral communities have added it to their repertoire. Some closely follow traditions from King’s, and others use the structure as a loose skeleton from which to build their own.

Why does this service hold up so well in times of grief? Rather than leading with the holly-jolly razzle-dazzle that can crush a bruised spirit during this season, it tenderly invites the congregant into stillness. Consider Psalm 46 with its descriptions of mountains falling into the heart of the sea, an image that resonates with anyone who has faced tragedy. The conclusion to this is “Be still, and know that I am God.”

The stillness of Nine Lessons and Carols brings with it a meticulous and systematic meditation on the ultimate source of hope. Familiar Advent passages take on fresh meaning when we’re given the chance to respond in singing or find ourselves transported in the beauty of a choral anthem.

When set in the context of the entire biblical narrative, they become even more poignant. Rather than skip to the “glad tidings of great joy,” we are forced to behold the tragedy of the Fall, the glimmers of hope in the promises of God, the majesty of the Incarnation, and the miracle of the Christmas story.

The Christmas story is not merely the stuff of Christmas pageants. Linger in its pages, and the hurting soul will find the agony of mothers who have lost children, the pain of barrenness, the shame of false accusation, the oppression of a people group, the plight of the refugee.

Linger further and discover, lying in a dusty manger, the incarnate God, who has taken on human flesh and human sorrow. Linger further still and behold him as he is now, “risen with healing in his wings.”

Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn king!”

Erin Jones is a freelance writer and founder of Galvanize and Grow Copywriting from Maryland. More of her writing can be found on erinjoneswriter.com.

‘Carol of the Bells’ Is More Than a Christmas Favorite. It’s a Ukrainian Cry of Independence.

Nadiyka Gerbish and Yaroslav Hrytsak

The Contexts for Our Carols

Josh Herring

The post How Nine Lessons and Carols Brought a Century of Christmas Comfort appeared first on Christianity Today.

In the car, four-year-old Sam Ang, who was blind and could not yet eat solids, suddenly started violently banging his head against the car floor. Startled, Sullivan tried to stop him, unaware that due to neglect, this was his way of communicating hunger. As Sullivan pulled him into her lap, he began to calm down as he felt her face with his hands.

Sullivan, a CIF volunteer, recalled feeling worried about whether his foster mother would be able to care for him.

Yet that anxiety dissipated as they pulled up to the village in Svey Rieng province three hours later. A group of villagers stood by a house, waiting for their arrival. Ravy parked, opened the car door, and gently lifted the boy from Sullivan’s lap. Quickly, a woman ran up and whisked Sam Ang out of Ravy’s arms, hugging and kissing him repeatedly. She was his new foster mother, Pang Sokha. Smiles erupted on everyone’s faces, and several villagers clapped with delight.

This is the vision of the Christian nonprofit CIF: to provide resources for impoverished families to raise their own children or take in abandoned children instead of sending them to orphanages.

Sam Ang became the first of 76 children, most of whom have disabilities, to be fostered in the village and its surrounding communities. CIF has also supported 113 children at risk of family separation. Since domestic adoption became legal again in 2017, 47 families have adopted their foster children, transitioning them out of CIF’s program. (Cambodia made foreign and domestic adoption illegal in the early 2000s due to corruption and the lack of legal framework.)

“Our role at CIF is to help Cambodian parents fulfill their God-given responsibility to children, not to take their kids away,” said founder Cathleen Jones.

A different way to care for orphans

I first visited Sam Ang’s village in Svey Rieng in 2016, a month after I came on staff at CIF as its communication and media director. A coworker took me on her motorbike down a dusty path to a small farm on the outskirts of the village, where a grandmother and aunt cared for a little boy with cerebral palsy.

Abandoned by his mother at birth, the boy had been cared for by his extended family, who had little knowledge about his condition. He spent his first six years of life on his back, staring at the rusting, corrugated ceiling. After CIF intervened with medication, physical therapy, education, and the love of God, he began gaining strength and mobility. His grandmother and aunt caught glimpses of his personality as he started to communicate nonverbally. They pushed him in a custom wheelchair to visit neighbors, removing not only his isolation from the world but also their own.

I also witnessed a baby from a crisis pregnancy placed with a childless couple that had spent five years longing for a child. Tears streamed down my face as I watched them hold their dream in their arms for the first time.

This way of caring for neglected and abandoned children was completely different from how I viewed orphan care growing up, as some of my earliest memories are centered around orphanages.

When I was five years old, my parents moved to Mexico to work in a children’s home. We lived in humble but separate quarters, isolated from the other children. Most of the children still had living parents, but I was told they had been abandoned.

A few years later, we moved to Venezuela so that my parents could start an orphanage. The plans eventually fell through as the government began to create a more stringent legal framework around foreigners taking in local children. Still, I grew up believing the world was full of parentless children who were best served in orphanages.

That was an idea that Jones and her husband, Dale, initially held as well when they arrived in rural Cambodia in the early 1990s and were tasked with running an orphanage. Yet after caring for more than a hundred children, they realized that institutionalization left many with lifelong trauma that exhibited itself through addiction, difficulty bonding with their own children, perpetuation of sexual abuse, and inability to assess risk. They realized there was no good substitute for God’s design of children raised in families.

Globally, 80 percent of children have at least one living parent, but many families are forced give up their children because they can’t afford more mouths to feed. Due to Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge in the ’70s—which killed a third of Cambodia’s population—families lack access to basic sanitation, shelter, and food, let alone social services and birth control.

The Joneses realized that even the children without parents had extended family or community members who wanted to care for them. They started to wonder, Why not support children and their family units?

From orphanages to families

So in 2006, Jones started CIF, which focuses on emergency care for kids who were trafficked or living in abusive families, kinship care, or foster care. CIF provides each foster family with between $40 and $150 per month depending on the child’s disability, age, and medical needs.

In the beginning, it was difficult for orphanages to get on board with CIF’s vision. At most, they would hand over children with disabilities, who were the hardest to care for, while keeping the cute, healthy children who could entertain visitors and look good on fundraising material.

Jones also had to contend with the myth that Cambodians would not accept non-biological children into their families. After the Khmer Rouge, many families took in children whose parents were killed and raised them as their own. Yet as foreign aid flooded into the country in the 1990s, Cambodians started to see well-funded foreign orphanages as a better way to care for their children.

CIF believed the best way for foster care to flourish was within a community where several families could take in orphans and help each other raise them. Ravy, CIF’s Cambodia director, felt that the village where she grew up in Svey Rieng province would be a good fit. Why? First, the villagers didn’t discriminate against people with disabilities, which CIF observed in way local leaders showed respect to a young man with Down syndrome. Also, the village had access to a school and a clinic, it was safe, and it was close enough to Phnom Penh that CIF staff could regularly visit and monitor the program.

CIF and the UK’s Strengthening Families and Children came to the village to train 40 families interested in fostering. “You have the gift of time,” Jones told the families. “You have the space. You can give these children love. You can teach them to be Cambodian.”

The first families to take in foster children were Christians, as Buddhists in Cambodia feared that bringing a child with disabilities into the family would bring bad karma. But as they saw how much joy children like Sam Ang brought to the families’ lives, the stigma began to lift.

Other families in the village agreed to take in children with chronic illnesses, disabilities, and trauma. Soon, eight more children joined the community.

“Before we knew it, half the village had their hand up to foster,” Jones said. The waiting list grew exponentially, impacting surrounding communities.

When CIF places a child with a foster family, the paper signing and placement ceremony happen with pastors, village leaders, and other community members present. This way, the well-being of the child becomes the responsibility of not just the foster parents but also the community.

Families with foster children meet regularly to share their struggles and encourage one another. Having foster families grouped together also makes it easier for social workers to visit and address problematic patterns and concerns.

CIF has seen communities change their view of Christianity because of how the group involves the entire village instead of removing children from their families and cultures to mold their minds in an institutional setting.

When donors offer to provide wells or water filters, Jones and Ravy let the village leaders choose the families who are most in need of these projects, regardless of whether they are supported by CIF. Local staff also holds classes on topics like hygiene or parenting, which are mandatory for the foster parents and open to all villagers.

“[CIF] works with entire villages, so it’s not just our kids and families who benefit,” Jones said. “If a non-CIF family is struggling in one of our communities, we also support them.”

Orphanages’ chokehold

Today, CIF’s foster care program works in three provinces as well as Phnom Penh, each of which has at least three families fostering near each other for support. In total, it has placed 160 children into foster families. The organization says there are hundreds of vetted Cambodian families waiting to foster children. However, the organization recently had to pause adding new children into its program, as donations have dropped due to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19 and donors looking to fund other areas of development.

At the same time, orphanages continue to house tens of thousands of Cambodian children because donors are willing to fund them, said Rebecca Nhep, founder of the Australian Christian Churches International (ACCI) Kinnected program, which also focuses on family care. Images of cute babies and children tug at donors’ heartstrings and loosen their purse strings. In 2021, American churches alone donated $2.5 billion to fund orphanages.

Yet Nhep believes the theology behind orphanages is flawed. When the Bible talks about looking after the orphans and widows, they should be viewed as a vulnerable family unit rather than separate entities, she noted.

Orphanages are also costly compared to family care. Cambodian orphanages receive about $50 million annually according to Sarah Chhin, the founder of M’lup Russey, an organization that helps young adults who have aged out of orphanage care. That funding could instead be used to eradicate the extreme poverty in Cambodia that causes parents to give up their children.

Christian orphanages see a spiritual dimension to their work, yet Nhep questions if it’s right to disciple children by taking them away from their family units.

“What aspect of the gospel promotes raising Christians by separating families?” Nhep asked. “We are told to go into the nations … not extract and take in, divorcing children from their social structure and culture.”

Back in the Svey Rieng village, Sam Ang grew up like his peers, riding bikes and learning to speak Khmer. With the help of CIF, the local school opened its doors to Sam Ang, making him its first blind student. Today, Sam Ang is training to be a massage therapist and is a competitive runner. At the 2023 ASEAN Para Games in Phnom Penh, he sprinted to a third-place finish in the 1,500-meter race with his sighted guide.

Sokha cheered him on from the stands, waving her arms and shouting, “That’s my baby!”

“Our family is so poor I thought I would have to leave and work in a factory to support my family,” Sokha told CIF. “But I love being a mom, and being a foster parent finally makes me feel valued for the work I can do as a mother.”

Erin Foley formerly worked in Communications & Media at Children in Families and authored the book Where They Belong: A Journey from Orphanages to Loving Families. This article includes excerpts from her book.

The post The Rural Cambodian Community that Fostered 76 Children appeared first on Christianity Today.

The Telegraph likewise reports: “Michael Jursa … made what has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, a discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact.”

What Jursa found was this inscription, on one of the 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets housed in the British Museum:

(Regarding) 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

In other words, chief eunuch Nebo-Sarsekim gave gold to the Temple of Esangila. Not impressed? Here’s Jeremiah 39:3 (NIV):

Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekim a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officials of the king of Babylon.

The British Museum’s Irving Finkel told the Times, “A mundane commercial transaction takes its place as a primary witness to one of the turning points in Old Testament history. This is a tablet that deserves to be famous.”

Likewise, he told The Telegraph: “This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find. If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power.”

Bible scholar and blogger Jim West isn’t so sure. “I’m not really sure why a cylinder naming Nebo-Sarsekim is big news at all. No one has ever argued that there was no Babylonian of that name,” he wrote on his blog. “The artifact demonstrates the use by the biblical authors of archival materials gleaned from contacts with those archives. But even this is not ‘proof’ of the biblical narrative.”

Peter Kirk gloats over at TNIV Truth, noting that Nebo-Sarsekim is named only in NIV, TNIV and NLT translations of Jeremiah 39:3. “For once we have clear and new archaeological evidence that TNIV is more accurate than ESV,” he writes.

2. Ghana “miracle” pastor arrested in Uganda for magic trick When Ghanaian pastor Obiri Konjo Yeboah (or Kojo Nana Obiri-Yeboah or Yeboah Nana Kojo, depending on the news source) entered Uganda, officials at the airport seized his luggage. Inside was a machine that they believed was a piece of bomb-making equipment.

It turns out that it was the Yigal Mesika Electric Touch, a gadget sold in magic stores that sends a 12-volt charge into anyone touching the person who’s wearing it. The company says it will “create excitement, mystery, curiosity, and supernatural powers all in one forgettable experience.”

Ugandan officials are worried about that “supernatural powers” part, and the pastor is now being investigated for fraud.

It’s about time, says an editorial in the Ugandan newspaper The Monitor:

Probably, for the very first time our vigilant police may have stumbled upon the explanation to the ‘miraculous’ falling down that has been going on in many churches. Most of us have either seen in real life or watched on television how pastors touch people who then simply collapse! …

Ugandans are presently caught up in the global billion dollar industry that television evangelism has become. We urge the police to carry out a no-nonsense inquiry into the activities of all pentecostal and other churches known to indulge their faith in this manner. Pastors who practice the falling down brand of ‘healing’ must subject themselves to police investigation. Whoever objects to this course of action, taken in the public interest, immediately becomes a suspicious character.

The police apparently agree. “Police are investigating the conduct of churches for born-again Christians in the wake of rising cases of pastors’ impropriety,” a separate Monitor article reports. “The detectives will be interested in the idea of sowing, the term used to describe the generous tithes that pastors manipulate churchgoers into giving in the honest expectation of miracles.”

The pastor told the BBC that he didn’t use the Electric Touch for religious purposes. “This is a toy. It was sent for my daughters’ birthday,” he told the BBC.

3. Time: Can Democrats really overcome the “God gap?” If you’ve avoided all the talk about the “God gap” and the 2008 election so far, Time has a very good primer on Democrats’ efforts to win over evangelical Protestants and rekindle its relationship with Catholics. But a sidebar on results of the magazine’s polling has some real news: “The conventional wisdom about the two political parties and religion may be so ingrained that no amount of evidence to the contrary can change perceptions. That may very well help Republicans in 2008 despite their various religion issues. And it may also mean that most Democrats, with one important exception, will have to try twice as hard to reach faith-minded voters.” Amy Sullivan, the voice crying in the Democratic wilderness four years ago, has a piece laying out her take on how Democrats lost religious conservatives.

4. Holsinger distances himself from his 1991 Methodist white paper His 1991 paper for the United Methodist Church’s Committee to Study Homosexuality on the physical risks of gay sex “does not represent where I am today. It does not represent who I am today,” the nominee for U.S. surgeon general told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions today. “Questions have been raised about my faith and about my commitment to ensuring the health and welfare of all Americans, including Gay and Lesbian Americans [they’re capitalized in his statement]. I am deeply troubled by these claims, which do not reflect who I am, what I believe, or the work I have accomplished in over 40 years of practicing medicine.” While Holsinger has been savaged by the Left for the paper, he has received at best tepid from the Right, probably because he supported embryonic stem cell research in 2002. Asked about the issue in the final moments of today’s hearing, he refused to say what his views are. “Since 2002, I have not had reason to stay engaged in the stem cell discussions,” he explained.

I liveblogged the hearing over at our other blog. I’m most interested to see if there’s any opposition to Holsinger’s appointment from conservatives now that he has backed away from his 1991 paper. I’m also interested to see how many people talk about his most controversial statement at the hearing: He wants to ban drug companies from advertising to the general public.

5. Anglican Canon Andrew White leaves Iraq The Church of England’s Andrew White has been one of the most visible faces of Western Christianity in Iraq, and tenaciously stayed in Baghdad amid the violence to minister to his church there. He has now left the country amid death threats.

Quote of the day “Times may be tough, but God has not forgotten Zimbabwe. Disasters are often God’s loudspeakers to his people. People hear better during these times.”

— Baptist pastor Ray Motsi, who was arrested with other Zimbabwean ministers for holding illegal prayer meetings. He was quoted by Baptist Press in one of two excellent dispatches from Harare.

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James Holsinger | Homosexuality | Politics (U.S.) | 2008 election | Immigration and refugees | Gambling | Politics (non-U.S.) | Religious freedom | Church and state | Education | Lawsuits | Crime | Preacher arrested with magic shock device | Mungiki | Abuse | Church life | Assemblies of God head stepping down | Anglicanism | Catholicism | Latin Mass | Vatican document on proper churches | Tadeusz Rydzyk | World Youth Day | The Pope’s books on Jesus | Books | Charles Marsh | Tony Dungy | Audio Old Testament | Media and entertainment | Soccer (football) | Music | Times Square butt billboard | Money and business | Poverty and corruption | Zimbabwe | Israel | Iraq | Christianity and Islam | Deaths | AIDS | Missions and ministry | Spirituality | People | Other stories of interest

James Holsinger:

• Holsinger: Politics won’t trump science | 1991 paper “does not represent where I am today. It does not represent who I am today” (Associated Press)
• Bush surgeon general nominee defends views on gays | President George W. Bush’s surgeon general nominee, Dr. James Holsinger, disputed claims by critics that he holds “anti-gay” views during a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday (Reuters)
• Concerns raised as Holsinger’s hearing nears | Kentuckian is up for surgeon general (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• Bush nominee runs into crossfire | Homosexual advocacy groups are objecting strongly to President Bush’s nominee for surgeon general, but Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. also faces questions from conservative groups about his views on human cloning and embryonic-stem-cell research (The Washington Times)
• Health group opposes Bush surgeon general pick The American Public Health Association opposed President George W. Bush’s surgeon general nominee on Wednesday, a day before Dr. James Holsinger, already under fire by Democrats and gay rights groups, faces a tough Senate confirmation hearing (Reuters)
• A nominee’s abnormal views | There are disturbing indications that Dr. James Holsinger, who has been nominated to be surgeon general, is prejudiced against homosexuals (Editorial, The New York Times)
• Ask the doctor | President Bush has nominated Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., a Kentucky cardiologist, to be surgeon general. Today he is to go before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Here are 15 questions the committee members might want to ask (Op-ed, The New York Times)
• Faith in medicine | Are doctors’ primary obligations to their patients or their religious convictions? (Richard P. Sloan, The New York Times)
• Can a Methodist be U.S. Surgeon General? | Democrats have guns aimed at Dr. James Holsinger, alleged holder of “abnormal views.” (Mark Tooley, The American Spectator)
• Related: Surgeon general sees 4-year term as compromised | Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona said that Bush administration officials tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports (The New York Times)
• Also: Former Bush surgeon general says he was muzzled | The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research (Reuters)

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Homosexuality:

• Boycott of gay pride event at Padres game fizzles | Roughly 75 protesters showed up outside Petco Park’s front gate dressed in red T-shirts emblazoned with the message “Save Our Kids.” Official attendance for the game was 41,026, just short of a capacity crowd for the 42,685-seat ballpark. (San Diego Union Tribune)
• Also: Protests at ballgame were unsportsmanlike | Members of a gay-pride group were simply trying to enjoy themselves at Petco Park in San Diego, but a few people made an issue of it (Dana Parsons, Los Angeles Times)
• Psychologists to review stance on gays | “We believe that psychologists should assist clients to develop lives that they value, even if that means they decline to identify as homosexual,” said a letter from conservative religious leaders and counselors (Associated Press)
• Pridefest draws mixed blessings in Colorado Springs | The city’s mayor has refused to sign a proclamation honoring the event, which will be held Sunday at Acacia Park, because it includes same-sex marriage ceremonies (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• The life and death of a young gay American | In a 90-minute telephone interview, Michael Glatze talked in detail about the crisis he said led to his Christian rebirth, how that experience motivated him to reject his self-identification as a gay man, his feelings of “repulsion” at the thought of sex with another man, and his conclusion that his work at Young Gay America was all about “peddling homosexuality to youth.” (Gay City News)
• Pride event wasn’t really open to everyone | So let’s have a public, civil debate about homosexuality (Julian Raven, Star Gazette, Elmira, N.Y.)

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Politics (U.S.):

• Hindu prayer in Senate disrupted | A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate’s morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors’ gallery (Associated Press, video via NRO)
• A senator’s moral high ground gets a little shaky | Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, whose phone number was on a client list kept by the so-called D.C. Madam, had depicted himself as a champion of family values (The New York Times)
• Thou shalt not judge | Bible Belt judge Roy Moore’s insistence on having a granite block carved with the Ten Commandments in his courthouse led to his dismissal. But his cause became a rallying point for the Christian right, and in 2006 he ran for the governorship of Alabama (The Guardian, London)
• Amplifying charity | New rules for political engagement (Alan Jacobs, Books & Culture)

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2008 election:

• Leveling the praying field | The Democratic front runners are leading their party’s crusade to win over religious voters (Time)
• Time poll: Faith of the candidates | The conventional wisdom about the two political parties and religion may be so ingrained that no amount of evidence to the contrary can change perceptions (Time)
• The origins of the God Gap | The relationship between religion and politics changed abruptly in the turbulent decade that spanned the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. (Amy Sullivan, Time)
• Evangelicals see dilemmas in GOP field | The calculus for social conservative voters is replete with tradeoffs over who best adheres to their values and who is ultimately electable (The New York Times)
• GOP hopefuls skip chance to woo liberal groups | Broad pattern of rejection seen among candidates (The Boston Globe)
• Finding religion on the campaign trail | Whether they’re going to pray for endurance, or for votes, polls suggest it’s a good idea for candidates to show up at church (The New York Times)
• Brownback, Schiavo’s brother to campaign | Republican presidential hopeful Sam Brownback is embarking on a campaign trip with the brother of the late Terri Schiavo, whose fate touched off a political firestorm over government intervention and end-of-life issues. He is also traveling with Francis Bok, an escaped slve from Sudan (Associated Press)
• Group says it hired Fred Thompson in abortion rights bid | The presidential candidate, who has positioned himself as an opponent of abortion rights, appears once to have been hired as a lobbyist to work on the other side of the issue (The New York Times)
• Faith intertwines with political life for Clinton | Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has increasingly been alluding to her spiritual life, but she has come under attack for it (The New York Times)
• Hillary on her faith | Sen. Clinton is entitled to whatever faith she wants to practice, but when she uses it as an election tactic, she should not be allowed to alter classic Christian theology (Cal Thomas)
• A religious test for the presidency | We all know there is no religious test for the U.S. presidency. But there should be (Stephen Prothero, Beliefnet)

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Immigration and refugees:

• Woman finds refuge in city church | The congregation at Port Credit’s Trinity Anglican Church is rallying around one of its own, providing sanctuary since last October to a Nigerian woman slated for deportation (The Mississauga News)
• Christian converts ‘may not be deported’ to Iran | A German court said Monday that asylum-seekers from Iran who have converted to Christianity may not be deported (Middle East Times)
• Simi church to shelter illegal immigrants | Congregants will protect those who have deportation orders but won’t attempt to hide them (Ventura County Star, Ca.)
• Sanctuary: The churches are right when the system is wrong | Although the federal government does not condone the practice of sanctuary, it rarely arrests those who have sought asylum or who have helped facilitate it. This makes the practice appealing for desperate refugee claimants who believe that their lives are in danger if returned to their homelands (Jennifer Cole, Vancouver Sun)
• Faith groups oppose new rules on religious-worker visas | Critics of the new rules, which were announced in April and could take effect as early as September, say they could deprive many religious communities of the workers they need to lead services, do missionary work and perform other important tasks (Religion News Service)
• Day-labor protesters accused of bigotry | The national Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has issued a statement criticizing the San Diego Minutemen for their protests at a Fallbrook church that facilitates the hiring of day laborers, describing the group’s actions as Catholic bashing (San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Gambling:

• Local leaders pick sides as W.Va. gambling battle heats up | Elected officials in West Virginia’s largest county are set to vote Thursday on a resolution endorsing table games for a racetrack in Nitro, arguing a full-blown casino would draw more tourists and help encourage economic development. (Associated Press)
• Churches begin effort to block table games | Gambling is a menace to society, and the church has a responsibility to stand up and speak out on social and moral values, said Rev. Okey Harless (The Charleston Gazette, W.V.)

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Politics (non-U.S.):

• CBCP: Change Comelec chief | Roman Catholic bishops want the Arroyo administration to implement much-awaited poll reforms, starting with the removal of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Benjamin Abalos and other officials (Philippine Star)
• Rudd spared by voters on faith, but Howard hit | Kevin Rudd’s Christian faith is less offensive to non-Christian voters than John Howard’s, according to an online poll of more than 3000 Australians (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• Catholic voters deserting Howard: poll | Catholics are spurning John Howard, once credited with having “catholicised” the Liberal Party, a survey suggests (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Religious symbolism in politics | There is a long tradition of religious symbolism in Jamaican politics that did not begin with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller (Michael Burke, The Jamaica Observer)

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Religious freedom:

• China jails 2 church leaders | Two ministers in China’s unrecognized Protestant church have been sentenced to one year each in a labor camp on charges of using an “evil cult” to obstruct the law, a U.S. monitoring group said Monday (Associated Press)
• Eritrea denies violating religious freedoms | Eritrea has accused “fringe” religious groups of sowing dissent in the Red Sea state and defended its right to arrest members who assemble illegally (Reuters)
• ‘Religious authorities should listen to grouses’ | Religious authorities should be prepared to listen to Muslims who wanted to leave Islam, the prime minister said (New Straits Times, Malaysia)
• Six African countries win high marks in new study of religious freedoms | Six African countries—Botswana, Mali, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, and Kenya—rank among the world’s most tolerant societies in terms of religious freedoms. That’s according to the latest study by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom (Voice of America)
• First freedom | Preying on prayer (Paul Marshall, National Review Online)

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Church and state:

• Jews for Jesus group sues town in free speech dispute | Jews for Jesus has filed a federal court action against Oyster Bay, N.Y., claiming a section of the town code is unconstitutional because it prevented the group’s members from freely distributing leaflets in a public park (New York Law Journal)
• Cobb must pay $1 in suit over Christian-only prayer | A federal judge has awarded $1 to plaintiffs who sued Cobb County in a federal lawsuit several years ago, contending officials had violated federal law that requires prayers given before open meetings be performed by clergy people of various faiths (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Also: Judge refuses to issue injunction in Ga. public prayer case (Associated Press)
• Bloomfield moves closer to Ten Commandments monument | The Bloomfield City Council is moving ahead with a Ten Commandments display on city property, despite contentions by several citizens that it would be illegal. (The New Mexican, Santa Fe)
• Texas adds ‘under God’ to state Pledge | Bill author says measure was meant to make state oath mirror national one, but critics say new law could violate students’ religious liberties (First Amendment Center)
• ADF sues city of Zachary, LA over prohibited preaching | Policeman allegedly prohibited a man from sharing a religious message on a public street outside of a bar in the city of Zachary, Louisiana. The officer cited a city ordinance prohibiting speech that is “annoying” or “offensive” to another person (Religion Clause)
• State can’t sanction proselytizing in prison | Constitutional issues cloud Newton program (Editorial, Des Moines Register, Ia.)
• Church and/or State | The bishops should welcome more independence from government (Editorial, The Times, London)

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Education:

• A calling behind bars | Columbia International University offers ministry degree to inmates (The State, Columbia, S.C.)
• All-male Christian fraternity sues UF | A Christian fraternity filed a federal lawsuit against the University of Florida Tuesday because the fraternity’s efforts to be recognized as a registered student group have thus far been denied, according to the lawsuit (The Gainesville Sun, Fla.)
• Also: Christian frat sues University of Fla. | A Christian fraternity sued the University of Florida on Tuesday, claiming discrimination because the university refuses to recognize it as a registered student group (Associated Press)
• Professors find God in groves of academe | Contrary to popular opinion, the majority of professors — even at elite schools — are religious believers, a new study shows (The New York Sun)
• Taking B-school on faith | Is your business school experience going to be all that different if you attend a religiously affiliated institution? (Business Week)
• The possibility of God | Religious studies is enjoying a boom. But in a multicultural society, what is it now for? (The Guardian, London)
• Fear and loathing at Wycliffe | Oxford’s theological college is being rocked to its foundations (The Independent, London)
• Public schools grapple with Muslim prayer | A San Diego school adjusts its schedule to accommodate Muslim worship (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Religious schools will get state vouchers for disabled | Dozens of religious schools — including those based in Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Baptist and Christian faiths — will be among more than 100 private campuses that will take part in the first year of the state’s new scholarship program for disabled students (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Vouchers fortify city Catholic schools | Amid talk of closings in diocese, their numbers stabilize (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
• Catholic school opens gates to Hell boy | The Hell family says it may tell a Catholic school in Australia where to go after it objected to enrolling their son because of his name (Associated Press)
• Earlier: Hell of a name for school | A man claims his son was rejected by a Catholic school because he has the surname Hell (Herald Sun, NSW, Australia)
• Update: Hell family may reject school offer | A father might tell the Catholic school where he was planning to send his son to “go to Hell” after the family’s surname spelt trouble for parish leaders (Herald Sun, NSW, Australia)
• Biblical wisdom | The folks at the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools are right on one count: The Bible should be taught in public schools. But they shouldn’t be the ones to do it (Editorial, Chicago Tribune)
• For high school students, free speech is no joke | Narrowly drawn as Supreme Court justices tried to make ‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’ ruling, don’t be surprised when many school officials and judges use it to find new grounds for censoring students (Charles C. Haynes, First Amendment Center)

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Lawsuits:

• State pays activists to end civil rights suit | The Oregon State Police reprimands a trooper for detaining a family over anti-war banner (The Oregonian)
• ‘Witch’ sues pub for religious assault | A psychic is suing her local pub for more than £3,000 for alleged religious discrimination (Ilford Recorder, London)

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Crime:

• Dozens take steps to move on | U.S. marshal and community unite to safely bring in fugitives at church; Akron man gets help of ex-officer, is among 136 who turn selves in (Akron Beacon Journal, Oh.)
• Earlier: Fugitives get chance to give up at church | Nonviolent offenders eligible for program starting Wednesday (Akron Beacon Journal, Oh.)
• Brazil Indian leader killed in land dispute-Church | An Indian tribal leader fighting for land rights in southwestern Brazil was shot dead by a gunman who his wife said was acting on behalf of local ranchers, a Roman Catholic church watchdog said on Monday (Reuters)
• The preacher’s wife | A small-town preacher was killed early one morning in his own parsonage as he slept in his own bed. The accused? His soft-spoken wife, who had a surprising tale to tell (Dateline, NBC)
• Cult members arrested for trying to bomb church | Group described as radical Christian activists (Cleburne Times-Review, Tex.)
• Threats by religious group spark probe at CU-Boulder | University of Colorado police are investigating a series of threatening messages and documents e-mailed to and slipped under the door of evolutionary biology labs on the Boulder campus (The Denver Post)
• No prison for man who poisoned juice | Members of the Calvary Baptist Church urged the court to show mercy on 29-year-old Wendell Woodroffe, and a judge sentenced him to five years of probation over the wishes of the prosecutor (Stamford Advocate, Ct.)
• Also: No jail for spiking Conn. church juice | A man who sickened more than 40 members of a Darien church last year by spiking their grape juice with soap was spared prison time at the request of parishioners. (Associated Press)
• Priest bound in attack | A Catholic priest was bound and his church robbed in a shocking home invasion at Virginia (The Advertiser, Adelaide, Australia)
• Slain Springfield pastor loved God, church, family | Why someone would kill the Springfield resident at a favorite fishing hole along the Edisto River late Friday night is hard for members of his church and biological families to comprehend (The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, S.C.)
• Sex offender lived at church | Used brother’s ID; leaders didn’t know he was wanted (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
• Trespassing charge dismissed for woman arrested at church | Karolyn Caskey will not be prosecuted on trespassing charges following her arrest during Sunday services June 17 at Allen Baptist Church. Caskey was removed in handcuffs by a Hillsdale County Sheriff’s Department deputy responding to a call from the church (Hillsdale Daily News, Mi.)
• Former church employee charged with theft | A former Fifth Avenue Baptist Church employee has been charged in connection with almost $72,000 in credit card fraud (Rome News Tribune, Ga.)
• Woman charged in church fraud | Police said Lynn Carlisle charged over $73,000 on a church credit card when she was working at the church as a part-time financial secretary (WXIA, Atlanta)
• Theft from churches ‘hits £1m’ | Hundreds of churches have been raided by thieves for their lead and copper amid a surge in the metals’ value, insurers said yesterday (The Telegraph, London)

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Preacher arrested with magic shock device:

• Pastor arrested with ‘miracle’ machine | It’s as strange as it’s true. A man of God of Ghaniain extraction was arrested and interrogated at Entebbe Airport after he attempted to clear a machine which, police say, he has been using to deliver electric current on unsuspecting worshippers during church service (The Monitor, Kampala, Uganda)
• Ugandan police seize magic trick from preacher | Ugandan police are holding a Ghanaian preacher over a stage magic device they fear may dupe people into believing they have experienced miracles (Reuters)
• Police start hunt for wired pastors | Police are investigating the conduct of churches for born-again Christians in the wake of rising cases of pastors’ impropriety. Police publicist Asan Kasingye said all allegations – from sodomy to fraud – would be investigated (The Monitor, Uganda)
• Uganda pastor denies miracle scam | A Uganda-based preacher has denied charges he tried to import an electric shock machine to make people believe he could pass on the Holy Spirit. He says it was a toy for his daughter (BBC)
• Police must act on the crooks in our churches | The arrest of ‘Pastor’ Obirir Konjo Yeboah while trying to clear an electric charge releasing device at Entebbe Airport Customs Office is a revelation (Editorial, The Monitor, Uganda)

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Mungiki:

• Mungiki beheads two-year-old boy | Boy was said to have been kidnapped on Monday (East African Standard, Kenya)
• No prayers, eulogies for Mungiki suspects | Hurried funerals without ceremony under instructions from the administration are the new kind of burials in Nyakahura village, Murang’a North District (East African Standard, Kenya)

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Abuse:

• Catholic abuse crisis starts to fade | If a settlement in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars is worked out, it will be placed near the end of a list of American Catholic dioceses coming to financial terms with victims of clergy sexual abuse, not the beginning (Associated Press)
• Abuse victims can sue for fraud | State justices allow cases in priest cover-ups (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
• Also: Justice may be at hand | The state Supreme Court’s ruling on sexual abuse cases involving the Milwaukee Archdiocese finally gives victims a chance to sue in the state courts (Editorial, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
• Preacher admits sex abuse, avoids jail | DA agrees to plea deal to keep 3 boys from testifying (The Huntsville Times, Ala.)
• Also: Sex offender who escapes jail time speaks | Because of his guilty plea, Jerry Wayne Love is now deemed a convicted sex offender. His four adopted children have been placed in other homes (WAFF, Huntsville, Ala.)
• Pastors face charges over not reporting assaults | Three Loveland pastors face misdemeanor charges alleging they failed to report a series of sexual assaults involving families at their church but say they were not trying to hide anything (The Coloradoan, Ft. Collins, Co.)
• Also: Windsor man, three pastors charged in connection with possible abuse | Pastors did not report allegations until recently (The Greeley Tribune, Co.)
• Also: Man arrested in church-group sex assaults | Police arrested a 23-year-old Windsor man Wednesday in connection with five incidents of child sex assault involving members of his Loveland church group over the past two years (The Denver Post)
• Also: Pastors may have sheltered accused child molester | Authorities charge church member in sex assault of kids (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• Bail for former youth minister raised to $120,000 | Investigation in sexual assault case, number of victims cited (Ventura County Star, Ca.)
• Also: Former youth minister posts bail, surrenders passport (Ventura County Star, Ca.)
• Earlier: Former Pepperdine professor faces molestation charges (Malibu Times, Ca.)
• Ex-youth pastor gets 63 years | Jamie Soria is sentenced for sex abuse of 4 boys. (The Fresno Bee, Ca.)
• Diocese of Orange sued in abuse case | Woman alleges sexual abuse by former choir director and conspiracy within the church to protect pedophiles (The Orange County Register, Ca.)
• Church accused of abuse silence | Suit claims Catholic Diocese knew of former choir director’s abuse of teen, but concealed it (Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, Ca.)
• Abuse claims aimed at retired priest | Episcopal Diocese of Texas reveals charges dating to the ’60s (Houston Chronicle)
• Court upholds abuse case ruling | The state Superior Court has upheld a 2006 ruling from a Lackawanna County judge, agreeing that a former altar boy who claims a priest repeatedly molested him waited too long to sue the Diocese of Scranton (The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.)
• Lawsuit alleges priest sex abuse in Del. | A man filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging he was molested as a teen by a Catholic priest, becoming the first person to sue under a new law allowing child sexual abuse victims to seek damages for misdeeds that occurred years ago (Associated Press)
• 8 men allege abuse in suit against Seattle University, Jesuit order | They claim sexual abuse by the Rev. Michael Toulouse, a now-deceased Jesuit priest who taught at the school from about 1950 to 1976 (The Seattle Times)
• Former priest lured 3 boys to fun-filled home, jury told | Former foster parent and Episcopalian priest Donald Shissler sexually assaulted three young boys he lured to his home by turning it into a “Disneyland” full of fun, games and candy, a prosecutor told a Denver jury Monday (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• New DNA test for pastor, teen mother, baby | Judge allows an independent assessment in second bid to determine boy’s likely father (Hartford Courant, Ct.)
• Sodomy in church | Victim reveals inside story (The Monitor, Uganda)
• Accused priest deserves his day in court | Guilty or not, Monsignor Michael Cashman is owed a final word from church leaders on what his future might hold (Editorial, The Home News Tribune, West Chester, Pa.)

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Church life:

• Sheriff hopes to scare trespassers away from ‘haunted’ rural church | 60 citations are issued in one month as rumors, Web sites draw people (Statesman Journal, Salem, Ore.)
• Earlier: Polk County sheriff: trespassers at supposedly haunted church will be jailed | A supposedly haunted Polk County church has become a target for trespassing, and the sheriff is promising to jail anyone caught on the property after hours (Statesman Journal, Eugene, Ore.)
• Presbyterians agree on split process | Washington Presbytery plan termed ‘a way of doing church together’ (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
• Religious expansion, land use raise issues | The controversy over a synagogue’s expansion plans has spread beyond Plantation Road and the Chabad Lubavitch to encompass all religious institutions that are considering accessory uses such as day-cares, gyms and dining halls (Tallahassee Democrat, Fla.)
• Terry Fox to keep on preaching at park site | Monday’s bankruptcy filing by Wild West World should have no immediate impact on the Rev. Terry Fox’s Summit Church. Fox said the church will continue to hold services at the park’s Johnny Western Theatre (The Wichita Eagle, Kan.)
• Schaumburg OKs disputed cell antenna for church | A few parishioners had moral objections (Chicago Tribune)
• Earlier: Cell no, parishioners say to phone antenna | Parishioners worried that a cell-phone antenna proposed for the roof of a Catholic community hall in Schaumburg will become a conduit for pornography sent and received by wireless customers (Chicago Tribune)
• Pastors trade collars for racing suits | Atlanta Motor Speedway hosts Faster Pastor race (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Punch-drunk church | Evangelicals find home in a Billyburg bar (The Village Voice, N.Y.)
• Uniting to save a tiny church with a rich past | One community is banding together to find a way to preserve its historic church by physically moving it (The New York Times)
• Church minister suspended | A Fife minister at the centre of a sex scandal has been suspended for the second time in four years (The Courier, Fife, U.K.)
• The buildings speak of God | Paying a call on the vicar in Warnford, Hampshire (The Economist)

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Assemblies of God head stepping down:

• Leader hopes church is ready for change | Thomas Trask plans to return to pastoring after retiring as general superintendent Months of prayer, fasting led to decision (Springfield News-Leader, Mo.)
• Earlier: Assemblies of God leader to step down | Nominations to replace Thomas Trask, general superintendent, will be accepted in August (News-Leader, Springfield, Mo.)
• Also: General superintendent to step down at upcoming General Council | Thomas E. Trask, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God since 1993, announced Tuesday afternoon that he will step down from office at the 52nd General Council next month which convenes in Indianapolis (AG.org)

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Anglicanism:

• Synod agrees deal over discipline to head off church rift over gay clergy | Archbishops to draw up historic covenant; conservatives see chance to crack down on dissent (The Guardian, London)
• Also: Church takes a step back from schism with gay expulsion plan | Covenant would prevent any province from consecrating an openly gay bishop (The Times, London)
• Also: Nervous support for Church rules | The Church of England’s ruling body, the general synod, is backing a set of rules – or covenant – aimed at resolving disagreements in the Anglican Communion, such as that over the ordination of gay bishops (BBC)
• Choose your church, the CofE tells couples | Couples looking for the perfect church wedding will now be able to get married almost wherever they like after radical reforms to marriage law (The Telegraph, London)
• Also: Church moves to reclaim lost wedding market by loosening rules on venues | The Church of England yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favour of relaxing its wedding rules in an attempt to recover its shrinking share of the marriage market (The Guardian, London)
• Also: CofE changes law for couples marrying in church | The Church of England voted overwhelmingly today to relax the laws on where couples can get married, giving them new rights to marry in a parish where they have a “connection” (The Times, London)
• Parish falls out of step, and favor, with diocese | Connecticut’s Episcopal bishop has retaliated against the leadership of a congregation in Bristol for objecting to the church’s position on homosexuality (The New York Times)
• Anglicans: a church in confusion | By agreeing that the blessing of same-sex unions is a ‘matter indifferent,’ the general synod would appear to have approved the rite, despite efforts by the bishops to stop it (Eric Beresford, The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
• What is Anglicanism? | Few would deny that the Anglican Communion is in crisis. The nature of that crisis, however, remains a question (Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, First Things)

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Catholicism:

• Latin American Catholic bishops urge more dynamic church to stem declining membership | Roman Catholic bishops from across Latin America released a blueprint on how they plan to reverse the exodus of members to evangelical Protestant churches, a central theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the region in May (Associated Press)
• Also: Top Roman Catholic leaders meet in Cuba | Top leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America gathered for the first time in Cuba on Tuesday, discussing the future of their faith in a globalized world against the backdrop of a closed Communist society (Associated Press)
• For Catholics, a gift to atone for sins | Archdioceses in Philly, Harrisburg extend plenary indulgences to their parishioners. (Allentown Morning Call, Pa.)
• Gathering to examine role of blacks as Catholics | 2,500 expected to attend national congress here (The Buffalo News, N.Y.)
• Pope in drag statue removed in Italy | Organizers of an exhibition on the relationship between homosexuality and art said Wednesday they were removing a controversial sculpture depicting Pope Benedict XVI in drag (Associated Press)
• Vatican agrees to reforestation project | The Vatican is pushing its green agenda, joining a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its CO2 emissions for this year, officials said Thursday (Associated Press)
• Pope names new Baltimore archbishop | The pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal William Keeler as archbishop of Baltimore on Thursday and named Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, who leads the U.S. military archdiocese, as his successor (Associated Press)
• New bishop fails to get everyone’s blessing | There is concern that the choice of Vitus Huonder, a former close aide to a controversial ultraconservative church leader, could create tensions within the Catholic community (Swissinfo)
• Homosexual group labels Catholics as ‘un-Christian’ | The Catholic Church in Liverpool has been labelled “un-Christian” after it stopped a gay and lesbian group using a church building in the city (Liverpool Daily Post)
• Indigenous plan gets church backing | Adelaide’s Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson says the federal government should be applauded for trying to tackle poverty and child abuse issues in remote Aboriginal communities (AAP, Australia)
• Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church to lobby | Proposed changes would include “total” freedom of expression in political affairs and allowing public schools to offer religious education (Associated Press)
• Update: Mexico won’t rule soon on church initiative to reform constitution | A government official has ruled out the immediate approval of constitutional reforms that would allow Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church to get involved in politics (Associated Press)
• The Pope and the Boy Scouts | A papal tribute to a valuable character-forming association (Hal G.P. Colebatch, The American Spectator)
• Latino Christians: A branding exodus? | Latino Americans’ abandonment of traditional Catholic services also serves—or, ought to serve—as a serious wake-up call for leading brands and those who market them (BrandWeek)
• Evangelicals and the Great Tradition | Beckwith’s decision to return to the Church of Rome is best seen in the context of his own spiritual journey (Timothy George, First Things)

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Latin Mass:

• Pope eases restrictions on Latin Mass | Pope Benedict XVI dismissed fears that its revival could divide the church or dilute the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (The New York Times)
• Concilium Vaticanum IIum, vale! | Catholics around the world should now have no illusions. Pope Benedict XVI’s recent decision to encourage wider use of the traditional Tridentine Mass in Latin is the latest move in his long campaign to undo liberal reforms in church practices popular with Catholics since the 1960s (Frank K. Flinn, The Boston Globe)
• Bene, Vidi, Vici | Pope Benedict XVI brings back the old Latin Mass—but will Catholics embrace it? (Andrew Santella, Slate)

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Vatican document on proper churches:

• Pope, restating 2000 document, cites ‘defects’ of other faiths | A document released Tuesday prompted anger from Protestants who questioned the Vatican’s respect for other beliefs (The New York Times)
• Pope: Protestant faith is ‘not a proper Church’ | Anglican leaders react with dismay after the Protestant and Orthodox faiths are dismissed as ‘defective’ in a Vatican document (The Times, London)
• Press review: Pope’s comments on Catholic “primacy” grate | The Vatican said Tuesday that Christian communities outside Roman Catholicism were not full churches. Protestant leaders were offended and said inter-denominational dialogue was now at risk. German commentators agreed (Deutsche Welle, Germany)
• Vatican says other Christian churches “wounded” | The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ (Reuters)
• Catholicism is the only true church, Vatican declares | Papal document seen by some as harsh, intolerant (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Vatican document on other churches may cause confusion | A Vatican document released yesterday that reaffirms the Catholic teaching that Protestant churches are not full churches breaks no new ground, even if it is likely to cause confusion and anxiety for non-Catholics (The Journal News, Rochester, N.Y.)
• Benedict seeks to end scandal of schism | Its language will inevitably offend many non-Catholic Christians, few of whom will read it but who will take its exclusive-sounding theology as an implied challenge (The New York Sun)
• The Vatican’s product recall | Defects found in Protestant and Eastern Orthodox sects (Timothy Noah, Slate)

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Tadeusz Rydzyk:

• Call to punish Polish priest for anti-Semitic remarks | The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called on the Vatican to discipline a powerful Polish priest for making anti-Semitic comments (The New York Times)
• Polish priest faces removal call | Polish President Lech Kaczynski and a major Jewish human rights organisation have called on the Catholic church to punish a controversial Polish priest (BBC)
• PM hopes Radio Maryja founder will apologize | PM Kaczynski expressed hope that Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, the founder and director of the Catholic station Radio Maryja will apologize to the First Lady after he offended the presidential couple (Poland.pl)
• Earlier: Polish president ‘a fraudster’ says priest | A Polish priest and broadcaster has branded the country’s president a “fraudster” who is in the pockets of a Jewish lobby, and described the first lady as a “witch”, according to a news magazine (The Scotsman, July 10)

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World Youth Day:

• World Youth Day ‘may entice youth back to church’ | Next year’s World Youth Day celebrations are expected to entice a large number of young people to the Catholic faith. But who will be there to greet them? And how can the church encourage back into the fold the estimated 4.2-million Australians who call themselves lapsed Catholics? (PM, ABC, Australia)
• Church plans to lure back lost sheep | The Catholic Church is drawing up a campaign to entice 4.2 million lapsed believers back to the fold before World Youth Day, the biggest religious gathering in Australian history (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Return of the prodigal parishioners | The Catholic Church has begun rounding up its lost flock (The Sydney Morning Herald)

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The Pope’s books on Jesus:

• Pope to write new book while on vacation | He said he hopes to work on the second volume of the book “Jesus of Nazareth.” (Associated Press)
• An author and his subject | Islam and Christianity may come together in music but the pope, in his book on Jesus, draws one clear dividing line (The Economist)
• Benedict and the biblical Jesus | Richard B. Hays reviews Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration by Pope Benedict XVI (First Things)

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Books:

• No chance | Michael Behe is back. Ric Machuga reviews The Edge of Evolution (Books & Culture)
• Waiting for Harry | Will the Boy Who Lived live? (Alan Jacobs, Books & Culture)
• Unbelievable Hitchens | His new book opposing theism stacks the deck against the faithful. (Robert VerBruggen, The American Spectator)
• Bar opens doors to Mike Jones | Low-key signing after bookstores turn him away (The Gazette, Colorado Springs)
• Reporter asks: Why did God let it happen? | Religion reporter Gary Stern embarked on a 14-month quest, interviewing dozens of the country’s leading religious figures from various faiths to explain these “acts of God.” The result is Stern’s first book, “Can God Intervene? How Religion Explains Natural Disasters” (Gannett News Service)
• A book for no seasons | The forgotten aspects of John Scopes’s famous biology textbook (Garin Hovannisian, The Weekly Standard)

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Charles Marsh:

• Religion and politics don’t mix | Becoming a political power broker is not part of Jesus’ plan. In fact, theologian Charles Marsh argues, it’s nowhere in the Bible (Robin T. Reid, Politico.com)
• God and country | What it means to be a Christian after George W. Bush (Charles Marsh, The Boston Globe)
• Be silent—and read my book | A jeremiad against the “political captivity of the gospel” among American evangelicals (John Wilson, Books & Culture)

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Tony Dungy:

• Book excerpt: ‘Quiet Strength’ | In 2007, Tony Dungy Became the First Black Coach to Win a Super Bowl (Good Morning America, ABC)
• Colts coach hits road to promote memoir | Colts coach Tony Dungy said some football fans may be surprised that his memoir “Quiet Strength,” which hits stores Tuesday, goes beyond Super Bowl tales and delves into his Christian faith (Associated Press)
• Book bears witness to Dungy’s strength | It wasn’t anything he sought. Although he’s a public figure, “I’m private by nature” (Tampa Tribune)
• Dungy’s new book transcends football | The first thing I wanted to do after reading Tony Dungy’s new book, “Quiet Strength,” was renounce my membership in the human race (Bob Kravitz, The Indianapolis Star)

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Audio Old Testament:

• Zondervan’s Bible prequel features honored cast | The Old Testament version will be similar to the New Testament version released last fall and includes dramatic performances set to an original musical score and Hollywood-style sound (The Grand Rapids Press, Mi.)
• Also: The words of God are made flesh | Now, Inspired By … Media Group is back with an Old Testament edition, set to go on sale in November as both a separate audio edition and part of the 72-CD “Complete Bible” edition (USA Today)
• Black stars featured on new audio Bible | Whitaker to voice Moses on new audio version of Old Testament (Associated Press)

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Media and entertainment:

• Are religious films crossing the lines? | Movie marketing campaigns are cleverly co-opting many Christians, one man says (The Times-Union, Albany, N.Y.)
• When festivals begin to fall under religious banners | What should be done when these film festivals are categorized as Muslim, Hindu or Christian ones? (The News International, Pakistan)
• A blogger’s blend of prayer and politics gains influence | David Brody, who writes a blog and covers politics for the Christian Broadcasting Network, occupies a position of influence in the 2008 presidential campaign (The New York Times)
• Blogging all Baptists | Walnut Creek pastor joins nationwide effort to unify moderates, liberals (Contra Costa Times, Ca.)
• Magazine brings ‘modesty to the masses’ | Eliza magazine showcases modest fashion wear (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Religious radio makes inroads with stations and translators | One of the biggest radio operators in Washington, at least in terms of the number of stations, is an organization many listeners have never heard of (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

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Soccer (football):

• Getafe’s promotional video draws criticism from church | Getafe’s use of a series Biblical references in their proposed television campaign to lure season tickets holders for next season drew criticism from the church on Wednesday (Reuters)
• Update: Getafe apologise but stand by controversial advert | Getafe’s advert depicts Jesus Christ on the cross, Moses in the wilderness and Adam in the Garden of Eden, among others, and all are shown refuting their devotion to God saying they would only sacrifice themselves for their team (Reuters)
• A winger and a prayer: the latest way to settle religious divisions | The Clash of Civilisations ended at the weekend with the Christians thrashing the Muslims by six goals to two (The Times, London)

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Music:

• Tribute to gospel legend | Dorsey’s widow, 93, attends musical celebration (Chicago Sun-Times)
• The sound of Hillsong | Joel Houston needed to come to terms with being the pastor’s son before stepping into the spotlight (The Bulletin, Australia)
• Christian artist Camp shows feet planted in beliefs | Whether his wholesome image is inciting goo-goo eyes from the teen crowd at an intimate, small-stage show or he’s strumming like mad on the guitar under thousand-watt stage lights inside big arenas, 29-year-old Jeremy Camp is gallant in sharing his faith (The Northwestern, Oshkosh, Wis.)

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Times Square butt billboard:

• The Rev. ‘Moon’ | Times Sq. church big fights to spank butt ad (New York Post)
• In billboard for bidet, church sees Times Square’s seedy past | A church in Times Square is challenging the installation of a two-story billboard featuring naked derrières painted with smiley faces, saying it is indecent (The New York Times)
• Judge temporarily bars cheeky billboards | In response to a minister’s complaint, a judge on Monday temporarily barred bare buttocks billboards that a bidet company had planned to put up in Broadway’s theater district on a building that houses a church (Associated Press)

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Money and business:

• Church can’t hide its worth | At the Oregon Supreme Court, the LDS church loses a round in a fight to keep its finances secret on religious grounds (The Oregonian)
• Direct mail provides mixed returns for charities | Charities that raise money from direct mail and other mass appeals say they are garnering more dollars from such solicitations than they did in the past, but many organizations face a harder time recruiting such donors and persuading them to give again, a new survey has found (The Chronicle of Philanthropy)
• Christian-themed items are big business | The International Christian Retail Show at the Georgia World Congress Center is flexing $4.6 billion worth of financial muscle in Atlanta this week (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Trade association: Sales of Christian products reach $4.6 billion | A new CBA study shows that 52 percent of Christian products are sold by Christian retailers while general market retailers — including stores such as Wal-Mart and Borders — sold 33 percent (Religion News Service)
• The cult of Chick-fil-A | The fast-food purveyor seeks employees and operators who believe serving chicken is God’s work (Forbes)
• Suit accuses clinic of religious bias | 2 former employees say they were pressured to participate in prayers (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Sunday offering, weekday click | Churches learn to welcome tithes paid online and charged to credit cards (Detroit Free Press)
• Family values, Detroit style | The recent fight over fuel efficiency standards in Congress included a surprise pleader on the side of the auto industry: the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition (The Washington Post)
• Flood-hit farmers get church aid | The Archbishop of York has backed an appeal fund for farmers who lost crops and livestock in the June floods (BBC)
• Morally sound stocks sought | The love of money doesn’t have to be the root of all evil, according to several organizations active in “values investing.” (The Washington Times)
• TV Christians hold on to disabled man’s donation | His wife begs them to return it so she can feed her children (Dispatch, South Africa)
• Also: An empire of God or man? | The manner in which Trinity and Roebert dealt with the Maphuma family raises uncomfortable questions about this church, its ethics and its preaching (Editorial, Dispatch, South Africa)

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Poverty and corruption:

• The eight commandments | In 2000 the world set itself goals to cut poverty, disease and illiteracy. It will take more than aid to meet them (The Economist)
• Are we nearly there yet? | Mid-way through, the UN’s drive against poverty remains half crusade and half charade (Editorial, The Economist)
• Orombi urges church to spearhead anti-corruption war | The Church should lead the fight against corruption, the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi, has suggested (New Vision, Uganda)
• African corruption ‘on the wane’ | African nations have taken the biggest steps in reducing corruption over the past 10 years, the World Bank has said (BBC)

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Zimbabwe:

• Crisis hits Zimbabwe | Churches struggling to help (Baptist Press)
• ‘God has not forgotten Zimbabwe’ | Pastors ministering amid problems (Baptist Press)
• Mugabe attacks on Catholic bishops dash hopes for reconciliation | A prominent Roman Catholic priest in Zimbabwe said Monday that “vulgar” attacks by President Robert Mugabe on senior church officials had extinguished hopes for a reconciliation between Harare and the country’s Catholic hierarchy (Voice of America)
• Regional church leaders say Mugabe regime has lost legitimacy | The Solidarity Peace Trust, a church-based non-governmental organisation, launched a new report on the crisis in Zimbabwe on Tuesday stating there has been increasing state repression against dissenting voices in Zimbabwe (SW Radio Africa)

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Israel:

• Israel to step up Christian tourism | The Tourism Ministry has launched a program to bring Christian “youth pilgrimages” to Israel (The Jerusalem Post)
• Court rejects Jerusalem, Israel, as birthplace on passports | A federal policy that bans Canadians from listing Jerusalem, Israel, as their birthplace on their passports does not violate the Charter of Rights, says the Federal Court of Appeal (CanWest News Service)
• Also: ‘Israel’ banned from Canadian passports | A federal policy that bans Canadians from listing Jerusalem, Israel, as their birthplace on their passport does not violate the Charter of Rights, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal has ruled (The Jerusalem Post)
• Israel gets tough on Sudanese refugees | It seeks to stop immigrants and deport some already there. Critics say it must help those fleeing conflict (Los Angeles Times)
• Christian group urges sanctions on Iran | International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem has launched a worldwide petition urging the United Nations to take stronger measures to confront Iran’s nuclear program and incitement to genocide against Israel (The Jerusalem Post)

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Iraq:

• Baghdad vicar leaves Iraq after threats | The vicar working on the release of five Britons held hostage in Baghdad has fled Iraq because of what has been described as “a serious security threat” (The Times, London)
• Anglican priest flees Iraq amid threats | Canon Andrew White, a British national who ran Iraq’s only Anglican church, left the country Tuesday and returned to Britain after threats against his life, an associate said (Associated Press)
• Fearful first communion for Baghdad’s Christian kids | Amid the danger, Baghdad’s remaining Christians continue to try to preserve the rituals that bind their community together (AFP)

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Christianity and Islam:

• Evangelicals, Muslims meet | Muslims and evangelical Christians are talking — at least behind closed doors at the Egyptian Embassy — according to several guests at a top-secret lunch last week (The Washington Times)
• Moyo Christian, Muslim leaders clash in meeting | The religious row between Christian and Muslim students in Itula Secondary School, which resulted into a bloody clash on July 1 remains unresolved (New Vision, Uganda)
• Also: Religious bigotry wrong | The battle between Muslim and Christian students at a school in Moyo recently, leading to the injury of at least five, cannot go unattended. The issue of who reserves the right to slaughter animals for human consumption has skipped the attention of our legislators and religious leaders over the years, and yet it could cause a worse catastrophe (D.T. Kabwende, The Monitor, Uganda)
• Do business and Islam mix? Ask him | Aiming to present a less threatening face of Islam on the global stage, the Aga Khan, one of the world’s wealthiest Muslim investors, preaches the ethical use of wealth (The New York Times)
• Church warning over terror fear | Fear of terrorism can cause people to draw false conclusions about Muslims, the Archbishop of York has warned (BBC)
• Fatah Islam blamed for Gemayel’s death | Police suspect that an al-Qaida-inspired militant group battling army troops in northern Lebanon was behind the assassination of a Christian Cabinet minister last year, a security official said Saturday (Associated Press)
• Sultan : I love Christians| No plan for jihad (Daily Champion, Nigeria)
• New outrages spur Muslims, at last, to decry cult of death | Too many on both sides have been in denial about nature of threat (Editorial, USA Today)
• We repudiate terrorism | American Muslims aren’t silent about the taking of innocent lives (Ibrahim Hooper, USA Today)
• The right’s dance with Islam | Some U.S. conservatives share disdain for where freedom leads (Cathy Young, The Boston Globe)

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Deaths:

• Church members remember Lady Bird | For so many at St. Barnabas, Lady Bird was simply an extension of their family (KEYE, CBS)
• Litany of Saints prayer delivered as Lady Bird died | The words of the Litany of the Saints — a prayer that calls on holy people from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible — ushered Lady Bird Johnson from this world, according to the priest who was with her and her family as she died (Houston Chronicle)
• Andre Chouraqui, French-Israeli author and politician, dies at 89 | A poet, Chouraqui was best known for translating religious texts, including “La Bible hebraique et le Nouveau Testament” (The Hebrew Bible and New Testament), published in 26 volumes between 1974 and 1977 (Associated Press)
• The cartoonist as tenacious as kudzu | A Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, Doug Marlette was also a comic strip writer, novelist, librettist — and a Southerner through and through (The Washington Post)
• Site: Kudzu (Tribune Media Services)
• Harold O.J. Brown (1933–2007) | “Joe Brown was one of the greatest evangelical theologians of his time, and yet he always put people before his scholarship.” (John D. Woodbridge, First Things)
• Church: Poisoning victim was inspiration | Rodney Burris stayed at the church overnight Friday to guard food donated for the needy. But the church’s new location didn’t have electricity yet, so a rented generator kept the food cold. Authorities said Mr. Burris died of carbon monoxide poisoning from the generator (The Dallas Morning News)

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AIDS:

• Group that targets AIDS in black churches expands focus | Pernessa Seele, the founder and CEO of The Balm in Gilead, told dozens of Washington-area black religious leaders Tuesday that her organization is also focusing on cervical cancer and hepatitis C (Religion News Service)
• How Bush’s AIDS program is failing Africans | The president’s much-lauded AIDS initiative has succeeded in saving lives through treatment. But its abstinence- focused prevention programs have put many more lives in jeopardy (Michelle Goldberg, The American Prospect)

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Missions and ministry:

• Thousands pray for purer nation | At Nashville gathering, faith fights moral decay (The Tennessean)
• A place to stay, and pray | Christian ministries group buys Peppermill Farms (The Indianapolis Star)

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Spirituality:

• Religion and happiness: The fruits, and sorrows, of faith | Belief clearly affects people’s state of mind, but don’t ask how (The Economist)
• Out of the Darkness: More care, less condemnation by religion | Much of the stigma surrounding suicide is rooted in religion. For centuries, the act was largely seen as an unforgivable sin – an instant, one-way ticket to damnation. No more (The Virginian-Pilot)
• Religious bonds divide some parents, kids | Though Gallup polls dating to the ’50s say young adults are less likely to attend services or say religion is very important in their lives, clergy of all stripes say they are seeing a small wave of young adults who are more pious than their parents (USA Today)
• As diet ideas abound, is willpower obsolete? | The importance of willpower in promoting weight loss is becoming an obsolete notion. Is it worth saving? (The New York Times)

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People:

• Christian Exodus leader still planning to move to Upstate | Cory Burnell is not giving up on moving to the Upstate. His next move, he said, is up to God (The Independent Mail, Anderson, S.C.)
• The balance between power and prayer | Weekdays find Erin Houg working as scheduler for Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), but on weekends she has an unusual side job. Houg spends her spare time doing administrative work and technical-media support for the City Church, a nondenominational Christian church in D.C. that began in May 2006 (The Hill, D.C.)
• Victoria Beckham says no religion talk with stars | Victoria Beckham and her soccer star husband might be moving near their friends Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in Los Angeles, but the former pop star is clear about one thing — it’s not about religion (Reuters)
• Did the mobster get religion? | Frank Calabrese Sr. apparently found religion while in prison. Or at least found some messages in the Bible that spoke to him. (Chicago Sun-Times)

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Other stories of interest:

• Museum’s tablet lends new weight to Biblical truth | The cuneiform inscription in a tablet dating from 595BC has been deciphered for the first time—revealing a reference to an official at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, that proves the historical existence of a figure mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah (The Times, London)
• Also: Tiny tablet provides proof for Old Testament (The Telegraph, London)
• Condom, pill shortage risks Philippine birth control | Efforts to slow the Philippines’ rapidly-growing birth rate will fail unless the central government shrugs off religious pressure and provides funding for condoms and pills, health experts warned on Wednesday (Reuters)
• Abortion International | What AI now stands for (Ryan T. Anderson, The Weekly Standard)

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Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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Our most recent Weblogs include:

Priest Must Decide Between Episcopal Priesthood and Islam | Also: Did God smite Evan Almighty? Should police make arrests during church services? And other stories from online sources around the world (July 6)

Can Public Schools Ban Churches from Renting Space? | Plus: European court rules against mandatory religious education, abortion politics in Sweden, and other stories from online sources around the world (July 3)

Another U.K. Jewelry Row | Also: Supreme Court rulings, Canadian Anglicans vote on same-sex blessings, and indulgences as ‘lasting souvenirs.’ (June 27)

Catholic School and Church Attacked as Gaza’s Christians Worry | Plus: Ruth Graham laid to rest, an Episcopal priest converts to Islam (but stays an Episcopal priest), and other stories (June 18)

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The post Tablet Is ‘Proof’ for Jeremiah Passage appeared first on Christianity Today.

1. Sam Brownback’s humble presidential run

“What the world needs now,” Sam Brownback said in a speech to the archdiocese of Denver, “is love, sweet love.” And The Washington Post says Brownback is ready to spread that love as he explores a run for president.

“Instead of getting angry at somebody for opposing you on something, you’re just praying for them,” he says. “You just pray blessings on them, blessings on their family.”

The Post finds this habit of Brownback’s just bit incongruous with his evangelical and conservative Catholic following. (He grew up Methodist and attended a non-denominational evangelical church before joining the Roman Catholic Church.)

Because of his emphasis on compassion, Brownback does not fit the stereotype of the angry Christian conservative. This persona was embodied sensationally by “Pitchfork Pat” Buchanan and his talk of America’s “religious war,” by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who once imagined “rampant” lesbianism in his state’s schools, by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who said abortionists, feminists, gays and pagans helped cause the 9/11 terror attacks. (Falwell later took it back.)

Brownback has teamed up with some of the most liberal members of the Senate to help victims of sex trafficking, and suffering Sudanese. He quotes Bono on the struggles of the poor and encourages college students to take their spring breaks in Africa. He has worked for women’s rights in Afghanistan and for North Korean refugees. When the issue of illegal immigration blew up in the Senate earlier this year, Brownback embraced President Bush’s plan for comprehensive reform, infuriating some conservatives who see it as too lenient. He has pushed for an African American history museum on the Mall, saying he became committed after a “divine intervention” came to him during prayer.

Unfortunately, The Post obviously thinks that Brownback’s bleeding-heart-liberal positions on human rights somehow don’t square with his pro-life, pro-family views.

But Brownback is as evangelical as any churchgoer. Discussing his reading of the Qur’an, Brownback says, “That’s why I love grace so much. And mercy. Think of the burden that is on a person, that you’re going to be weighed. And all of us fall short.” The Post writes,

Once, years ago, he washed the feet of a staffer at a farewell party to demonstrate respect and humility. When he feels his staffers need guidance, he gives them index cards with Scripture encouraging them to follow Christ’s model of servant leadership, or reminding them that “Pride goes before destruction.”

Perhaps it’s Brownback’s humility that makes him a dark horse in the upcoming presidential primaries. But, The Post suggests, his presence could have a leavening effect. “Even if he doesn’t get close to winning, though, his support in the conservative Christian community may affect what other candidates are talking about.” Rob Schenck, a minister and the president of the conservative National Clergy Council says, “He in a way could hold the evangelical and the traditional Catholic vote hostage if the party began to waver on those [social conservative] issues.”

2. Kay Warren: Christians must do more to combat AIDS

Kay Warren, wife of Rick Warren, writes for CNN:

Horrific and startling images confront each of us daily through newspapers, televisions, and eyewitness accounts of those suffering from AIDS. You can do what I did for years — choose to ignore it all because it was too painful — or you can become disturbed — seriously, dangerously disturbed — so disturbed that you are compelled to do something. …

I challenge the worldwide church to take on the global giants of spiritual darkness, lack of servant leaders, poverty, disease, and ignorance. It’s past time for those who claim to be Christ’s followers to join the struggle against the devastation that the HIV virus brings.

Kay and her husband have done much to get evangelicals to “do something” about HIV/AIDS. She also says the rest of the AIDS-fighting community needs to accept evangelical offers of support. “There are people concerned that Saddleback would want to try to convert them from gay to straight,” said Alan Witchey, executive director of the Orange County AIDS Services Foundation.

“Just because they don’t trust us, they’re not going to put us in the game,” Kay says.

It’s another example of the civics lesson some gay activists need to learn. As Christianity Todaywrote in 2003, “By hijacking the AIDS agenda for their political purposes, gay activists are saying no to thousands of willing foot soldiers in the fight against AIDS. We may see more die from HIV/AIDS because gay activists are intolerant of social conservatives.”

3. Harvard scientists attempt to clone humans

Weblog hopes the mainstream media will stop saying that Bush has banned stem-cell research now that a second American university is attempting to clone humans for research. The AP reports, “The privately funded work is aimed at devising treatments for such ailments as diabetes, Lou Gehrig’s disease, sickle-cell anemia and leukemia. Harvard is only the second American university to announce its venture into the challenging, politically charged research field.” The University of California, San Francisco recently restarted a cloning program it abandoned in 2001.

4. Archbishop reinstates “rebel” evangelical

The Anglican wars limp along in England. Richard Coekin declared himself in impaired communion with his bishop, Tom Butler, after, as The Guardian reports, “Butler, together with all the other diocesan bishops and the archbishop, agreed to a statement last July allowing gay clergy to enter civil partnerships providing they gave assurances that their relationships were chaste.” Circumventing his bishop, Coekin then invited a bishop from the Church of England in South Africa (which is not in communion with the Church of England in England) to ordain three deacons. In response, Butler revoked Coekin’s license to minister. The action eventually prompted the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to order Butler to reinstate Coekin.

This could have ramifications in the U.S. as several ministers have requested alternative oversight but are still waiting for an official response. No comment yet at TitusOneNine.

5. Roy Moore loses bid for governor

Incumbent Bob Riley defeated Roy Moore in the Alabama primary race for governor. Even last night, Moore was optimistic despite low poll ratings. “We expect to win,” said Moore. However, Moore gained only 33 percent of the vote, while Riley garnered 67 percent, exactly as polls predicted.

“Moore, 59, was making his first race for public office since a state judicial court ousted him as Alabama’s chief justice in 2003, but his campaign failed to gain traction,” the Associated Press reports.

Quote of the Day

“Oddly enough, those Americans who live in Darwin-denial, the evangelicals and the orthodox, they live as Darwin recommends: They have lots of kids, they raise them well, and when they get old, they don’t mind all that much stepping aside as God or nature intends. But those Americans who do believe that Darwin teaches the truth are having fewer and fewer children, are more and more obsessed about their personal existences, and are living more as individuals. So the people who believe in Darwin are the evidence that Darwin doesn’t teach the whole truth and nothing but.”

Peter Augustine Lawler, interviewed on Mars Hill Audio Journal, vol. 79.

More Articles

Politics | Same-sex marriage | Religion & homosexuality | Education | Ethics | Church life | World Cup ministry | Catholicism | Abuse | Taylor crash | Books | Music | More articles of interest

Politics:

1. Faith-based initiative | Presidential hopeful Sam Brownback strives to be humble enough for a higher power (Washington Post)
2. Alabama governor defeats former justice in primary | In their battle to be the Republican candidate for governor of Alabama, Bob Riley, the current governor, defeated Roy S. Moore, the former Alabama chief justice who drew national attention when he refused a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building’s rotunda and was removed from the bench. (The New York Times)
3. House debating media indecency bill | The U.S. House of Representatives began debate Tuesday on the Senate-passed version of legislation that would increase the fines broadcasters pay for airing indecent speech, with a vote expected on the legislation Wednesday. (Reuters)
4. Louisiana governor plans to sign anti-abortion law | Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s office said Tuesday that she would shortly sign into law a strict ban on abortion that would permit abortion only in the case where a woman’s life was threatened by pregnancy. (The New York Times)
5. Big business, not religion, is the real power in the White House | Bush is again pandering to the Christian right over gay rights. But Democrats should not be distracted from the main enemy (The Guardian, UK)
6. Arkansas officials confident prison faith program is constitutional | Arkansas prison officials said yesterday that they don’t believe a new faith-based prison program will be affected by a federal court’s ruling that the initiative is unconstitutional. (Associated Press)

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Same-sex marriage:

1. British gays want marriage recognition | Two women asking Britain to recognize their Canadian same-sex marriage argued in court Tuesday that their relationship is like that of any other married couple and calling it a civil partnership violated their human rights. (Associated Press)
2. Washington gay-rights challenge fails | Opponents of Washington state’s new gay civil rights law failed to submit enough voter signatures Tuesday to force a statewide ballot on the issue this fall. (Associated Press)
3. Gay marriage amendment carries new support | A constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is headed toward certain Senate defeat, but supporters say new votes for the measure represent progress that gives the GOP’s base reason to vote on Election Day. (Associated Press)
4. Same-sex ‘marriage’ splits black leaders | Black pastors and civil rights leaders yesterday held separate rallies on Capitol Hill, staking opposite positions on a constitutional amendment aimed at banning homosexual “marriage.” (The Washington Times)
5. Waste of front burner | With elections looming, Bush and allies pull out gay marriage to demonize, but ‘threat’ is only imaginary (Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal Constitution)
6. He dares not speak its name | In avoiding the word ‘gay,’ the president defines same-sex marrige as only a hetero issue. (David Link, Los Angeles Times)
7. A civil debate on gay marriage | Only a demagogue believes that the controversy over same-sex marriage can be improved by hurling insults at those who radically want to change the meaning of matrimony. (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe)

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Religion & homosexuality:

1. Christians must do more to combat AIDS, comfort victims | What would Jesus do when confronted by AIDS? (Kay Warren, CNN)
2. Gays have no right to marriage: Christians | Homosexuals had no right to impose their desire for marriage on the majority of Australians, the Australian Christian Lobby said today. (News.com.au, Australia)
3. Kirk gives blessing to gay couples adopting | The Church of Scotland has given its qualified backing to a new law allowing unmarried and gay couples to adopt children. (Edinburgh Evening News, UK)
4. Gay conversion conference criticized | A conference on homosexuality that a national Christian organization is bringing to a Silver Spring church on Saturday is drawing the ire of some community members, gay rights groups and clergy, who say its message is ”dangerous and spiritually disenfranchising.” (The Gazette, Md.)

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Education:

1. District suspends visits by pastors | Policy – Bend-La Pine parents complain about church members meeting with students during lunch (The Oregonian)
2. Patrick Henry students look to future | Most of Adrienne Cumbus’ classes at Patrick Henry College next fall will be taught by TBD—To Be Determined. (Loudoun Times-Mirror, Va.)

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Ethics:

1. Can you teach a person ethics? | Iraqi allegations. Hiring probes. Enron. Right and wrong seem to be elusive concepts (Chicago Tribune)
2. Scientists to try to clone human embryos | Stepping into a research area marked by controversy and fraud, Harvard University scientists said Tuesday they are trying to clone human embryos to create stem cells they hope can be used one day to help conquer a host of diseases. (Associated Press)

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Church life:

1. Archbishop stokes row over status of rebel evangelical | Bishop’s decision reversed as conservative reinstated. Litigation threat may have forced Williams to act (The Guardian, UK)
2. Sheer pride keeps alive Frisian, a cousin to English | With a vague sense of ethnic pride, a vaguer sense that I owed it to my great-grandfather and a complete ignorance of the Frisian language, I attended the 50th and final Frisian worship service in Grand Rapids, Mich., last month. (Chicago Tribune)
3. Feds seize church’s fake $1M bills | The U.S. Secret Service confiscated bogus $1 million bills printed as religious tracts from an evangelical ministry, saying the handbills too closely mimic real money. (Associated Press)
4. What would Jesus negotiate? | Union fights to work at the megachurch-owned Forum (Erin Aubry Kaplan, Los Angeles Times)
5. The Lord and the board | The Grace Place runs what it calls a skateboarding ministry in its parking lot. As many as 40 skaters show up for its 90-minute, Wednesday-night free skate sessions. (Fort Wayne News Sentinel, Ind.)
6. Pastor puts her trust in God as church undergoes rebirth | More than six years ago, the church was going to close because of declining numbers. Today, the congregation has nearly doubled. (Palm Beach Post)

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World Cup ministry:

1. Churches invite fans to take a pew to watch games | Churches across Germany are encouraging soccer fans to swap their barstools and pints for a pew and a prayer, hiring big screens to broadcast World Cup games to their congregations. (Reuters)
2. “God save the team” service for fans | For football fans seeking divine intervention on behalf of their teams or in need of consolation after a crushing defeat, religious pastors will be on hand in each of Germany’s World Cup cities to offer spiritual care. (Reuters)

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Catholicism:

1. Gay marriage is “eclipse of God” –Vatican | The Vatican said on Tuesday that gay marriage, abortion, lesbians wanting to bear children and a host of other practices it sees as threats to the traditional family were signs of “the eclipse of God”. (Reuters)
2. Vatican reiterates family stance | Hits contraception and gay unions (Associated Press)
3. Vatican: Abortion must be punished | In a document by the Pontifical Council on the Family, the Vatican said that unless abortion is punished as a crime it will be seen as a “banal” act. (UPI)
4. Catholic Church seeking ways to keep Hispanic youths in the fold | Some 2,000 Hispanic youth and Catholic Church leaders will gather this week as part of a new, churchwide effort to meet the spiritual and social needs of young Hispanics. (Knight Ridder)
5. China, Vatican talks go on despite dispute | Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen said talks on resuming ties between the Vatican and Chinese government will continue despite a dispute over China appointing bishops without the Holy See’s approval, a newspaper reported Tuesday. (Associated Press)

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Abuse:

1. 2 women file suits alleging abuse by nun | Two women who claim they were sexually abused by a Roman Catholic nun filed lawsuits Tuesday alleging a religious order failed to protect them. (Associated Press)
2. Judge won’t withdraw from church abuse case | A Chittenden County Superior Court Judge won’t voluntarily step aside as the presiding judge in 19 priest sexual abuse cases that are pending against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. (Associated Press)

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Taylor crash:

1. VanRyn’s body is exhumed in Gaylord | She was mistaken for Gaylord woman who survived crash (Traverse City Record Eagle)
2. Body exhumed in crash mix-up case | Surviving student `sitting up,’ dad says (Associated Press)
3. Casket travels home to Grand Rapids | Burial of Laura in tragic mix-up case expected later this week; Whitney makes strides in recovery. (The Detroit News)

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Books:

1. Hating Ann Coulter | The syndicated columnist and TV commentator is certainly near the top of any liberal’s list of most-hated conservatives, and she probably won’t make any new Democrat friends with her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” (The Washington Times)
2. Magazine revisits claim of ‘Da Vinci’ borrowing | Despite having been cleared by several courts, Dan Brown, the author of the blockbuster novel “The Da Vinci Code,” continues to be dogged by allegations that he heavily borrowed material from other sources for the book. (The New York Times)
3. Author, former congressman makes friends across party lines | Tony Hall’s new book “Changing the Face of Hunger” (W Publishing Group, $21.99) achieves the rare, perhaps unprecedented, feat of drawing blurbs from liberal comedian Al Franken and conservative columnist Cal Thomas. (The Dallas Morning News)

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Music:

1. Busted: Sufjan Stevens | Busted Halo discusses faith’s place in art and the public market with one of America’s most adventurous singer-songwriters. (Busted Halo.com)
2. Country stars make room for God in their work | God and religion have always been a part of country music. And the role may be getting bigger. I was amazed when three of the top awards of the recent Academy of Country Music went to songs with stirring messages of faith. (Jim Jones, Knight Ridder)

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More articles of interest:

1. Showing faith in his family | Filmmaker is home to share personal story in ‘Hand of God’ (The Boston Globe)
2. Video game targets Antichrist | A Christian-themed electronic video game will feature battles pitting armies of a One World Government against the forces of God. (The Washington Times)
3. Distant spat plays out in L.A. courts | Children of Nigerian religious leader fight over right to church property even though their faith preaches against legal action. (Los Angeles Times)
4. Assyrian Christians object to their exclusion in Iraq homeland | After years of being persecuted by Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical regime, they were hoping to have their voices heard under Iraq’s new democratic government, the one the United States helped create. But so far, that hasn’t really happened, says Oshana, an Assyrian Christian whose family fled Iraq in 1977, when she was 8. (The Arizona Republic)
5. Bible, yoga strike a pose | As Susan Bordenkircher sees it, Christians for too long have kept yoga on the mat. (Knight Ridder)
6. World religious leaders congregate in Seoul | Leaders of the world’s representative religions are in Seoul to pray for world peace and harmony between religions. (Korea Times, South Korea)

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“The rulings by the Court this June, particularly the schizophrenic decisions on the Ten Commandments cases, have once again demonstrated the desperate need for justices who will interpret the Constitution as it was written, not as the latest fads of legal theorists dictate,” Dobson said. “President Bush must nominate someone whose judicial philosophy is crystal clear.”

Dobson’s press release makes no mention of abortion or Roe v. Wade, nor does a Focus on the Family CitizenLink article about conservatives’ criticism of Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general who is widely seen as Bush’s leading candidate to replace O’Connor.

That criticism—which includes Focus on the Family’s announcement that it would publicly oppose Gonzales—has been loud enough that Bush said publicly, “Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine. When a friend gets attacked, I don’t like it.”

But why are conservatives upset about Gonzales? Some, National Review‘s Ramesh Ponnuru notes, are upset that “he weakened the administration’s brief to the Supreme Court in the University of Michigan racial-preference cases. Solicitor General Ted Olson wanted the administration to say that the use of racial preferences to achieve diversity is constitutionally impermissible. Gonzales overruled him.”

But the big one for religious conservatives is Gonzales’s “record” on abortion.

As a judge, Gonzales has one big strike against him: allowing a Texas minor to receive an abortion without parental notification.

The irony for many pro-life conservatives is that Gonzales’s concurring opinion in that case is largely devoted to defending the originalism that they say they want in a Supreme Court justice.

Gonzales begins his opinion by denying that it reflects his views on abortion. “It has been suggested that the Court’s decisions are motivated by personal ideology,” he complains.

To the contrary, every member of this Court agrees that the duty of a judge is to follow the law as written by the Legislature. This case is no different. The Court’s decision is based on the language of the Parental Notification Act as written by the Legislature and on established rules of construction. Any suggestion that something else is going on is simply wrong.

Legislative intent is the polestar of statutory construction. Our role as judges requires that we put aside our own personal views of what we might like to see enacted, and instead do our best to discern what the Legislature actually intended. We take the words of the statute as the surest guide to legislative intent. Once we discern the Legislature’s intent we must put it into effect, even if we ourselves might have made different policy choices.

The Texas parental notification law, Gonzales wrote, contained significant exceptions. All a girl has to do to avoid telling her parents of her abortion is to show that she’s “mature and sufficiently well informed to make the decision,” that telling her parents “would not be in [her] best interest, or that such notification might lead to abuse of some kind.”

If minors take advantage of those exceptions, it’s the legislature’s job to close the loopholes, not the court’s, Gonzales wrote. “To construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism. As a judge, I hold the rights of parents to protect and guide the education, safety, health, and development of their children as one of the most important rights in our society. But I cannot rewrite the statute to make parental rights absolute, or virtually absolute, particularly when, as here, the Legislature has elected not to do so.”

(Note, by the way, that the phrase “unconscionable act of judicial activism” does not refer to fellow Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, recently confirmed to the 5th District US Court of Appeals, or to her dissent, as some have claimed.)

This case, No. 00-0224 In Re Jane Doe, was messy. And certainly Owen’s dissent—which did not challenge Roe v. Wade—was principled and focused on “strictly a legal issue,” rather than personal biases.

But what can be said about Gonzales? That he’s a judicial activist akin to O’Connor or David Souter? That he’s soft on abortion? That he, as one right-wing online publisher wrote, “would be a disaster. Might as well let the American Civil Liberties Union name the next justice”?

No: What can be said is that he’s really into the separation of powers and eager to interpret the law as it was written, not as the latest fads of legal theorists dictate.

“There are no litmus tests for judicial candidates,” Gonzales told the Los Angeles Times in 2001. “My own personal feelings about [abortion] don’t matter. … The question is, what is the law, what is the precedent, what is binding in rendering your decision. Sometimes, interpreting a statute, you may have to uphold a statute that you may find personally offensive. But as a judge, that’s your job.”

Now, there are many pro-life activists who say he’s wrong. Among them is American Life League president Judie Brown, who says life takes precedence over the rule of law. “Gonzales’s position is clear: The personhood of the pre-born human being is secondary to technical points of law, and that is a deadly perspective for anyone to take,” she wrote to supporters. By supporting Gonzales, Brown said, Bush is “betraying the babies.”

But Dobson and others have taken a very different tack than Brown. They have not made abortion the issue. They have made originalism vs. judicial activism the issue. Which puts them in a bind.

‘Judgments in conformity with the laws’ The Jane Doe case isn’t the only item making pro-lifers nervous about Gonzales. There’s also this reported 2004 exchange with anti-abortion activist C.J. Willkie:

Q: Judge Gonzales, we’re hearing conflicting reports about your position on abortion. Can you tell us where you stand?

A: As a judge, I have to make judgments in conformity with the laws of our nation.

Q: Would you say that, regarding Roe v. Wade, stare decisis would be governing here?

A: Yes. As a judge, I have to make judgments in conformity with the laws of our nation. …

Q: Judge Gonzales, it’s well known that the Clinton administration had a very clear and consistent litmus test in regard to judicial nominations. If that person was not pro-abortion, they were not nominated. In light of this, do you ask your nominees what their position is on abortion?

A: No, we do not. We judge them on a very broad basis of conservatism and constitutional construction.

Q: Many of us feel that the Constitution does not speak to permissive abortion. Would you comment?

A: The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.

Now, some claim that that final sentence (if Gonzales said it and said it as bluntly as that) is evidence that he is a judicial activist. That’s utterly irreconcilable with his judicial writings, such as the Jane Doe case. In any case, the comments are open to interpretation and do not mean that Gonzales would vote to uphold Roe v. Wade.

In fact, Gonzales says, he stands on this point precisely where his predecessor, John Ashcroft, did—as current Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution, Roe v. Wade should be enforced as law.

“You need to be careful about disregarding precedent,” he told The Washington Post in Saturday’s edition. “There are dangers in doing that. There are subtle expectations that arise, as a result of years of precedent, that I think should only be ignored under exceptional circumstances. And I am willing to concede that there are exceptional circumstances. … But I think we have to be very careful.”

A way out Religious conservatives have to be very careful, too. Opposing Gonzales merely because his views on abortion are unknown could seem capricious or hypocritical, especially if you’ve been critical of “judicial activists” making decisions on personal bias. (The judicial campaign of Family Research Council, which opposes a Gonzales nomination, is so far centered on making sure a Supreme Court nominee doesn’t have to declare his or her views on abortion.)

But National Review‘s Edward Whelan suggests another reason Gonzales would be bad for conservatives—he would have to recuse himself from several cases, probably including the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Act. (A Gonzales recusal in that case would almost certainly ensure an invalidation of the ban, Whelan notes.) He may even have to recuse himself “from virtually all the cases of greatest importance to the administration.” That would include the Patriot Act, too, something Bush probably cares more about than the Partial-Birth Abortion Act. (And something on which Christians are quite divided, by the way.)

This gives pro-lifers an opening without compromising their commitments. They don’t have to fight Bush on Gonzales on the abortion front; they can claim to protect Bush from Gonzales, or at least from the legal implications of appointing any attorney general to the bench. Such a shift from ideology to strategy would shift the nomination debate significantly.

Opposing Gonzales for what he “might” do, making wild guesses about what he really believes, or falsely claiming that he’s a judicial activist in waiting is neither honest nor fair. It would also make religious conservative groups look foolish to oppose a judge who so vociferously argued for the very originalist principles they’re ostensibly fighting for.

But it is both honest and fair to point out the limitations of a Gonzales judgeship. The Family Research Council has already walked this line, saying it wholeheartedly supports Gonzales as attorney general .”I think we need to give him time in that office,” said FRC president Tony Perkins.

But for now it’s all just speculation anyway. For today, at least, Gonzales is still just attorney general.

More articles

More on Supreme Court:

• How much sway interest groups will hold over court selection | They can have an effect. But despite the fury, their influence is only indirect (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Ready, set legal activists await Bush’s go | Groups on the right and the left are researching every name rumored as a high court nominee, eager to storm the 24-hour news cycle (Los Angeles Times)
• Bush caught in GOP riptide over high court | Choosing a nominee, or two, who will satisfy competing interests may prove to be a struggle (Los Angeles Times)
• The supreme sales team | As rumors fly about the possibility of more resignations, the White House eyes its right flank (Newsweek)
• Liberals, don’t make her an icon | O’Connor has been the master of self-referential, “I know it when I see it” standards for interpreting the Constitution (Edward Lazarus, The Washington Post)
• Who do conservatives want for the high court? | So, religious and social conservatives don’t like Alberto Gonzales. That begs the question of who, exactly, would make them happy. The answer isn’t as easy as it might seem (Legal Times)
• Philosophy for a judge | O’Connors idea of jurisprudence was to decide whether legislation produced social “systems” that either worked or did not. But that, of course, is the job of the elected branches of government (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post)
• Label litter | On judicial nominees, especially to the Supreme Court, you might think the only thing that matters — that trumps all other considerations — is whether the nominee is for or against legalized abortions (Thomas Sowell, The Washington Times)
• Rulings don’t resolve church, state dispute | There needs to be an Eleventh Commandment for the U.S. Supreme Court: Thou shalt not confuse the public (Editorial, News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.)
• Bush’s judges already making their mark | One level down, dozens of conservative appeals court judges appointed by Bush already are helping to shape the law in ways that ultimately could have as much, and in some ways even more, impact than the nine justices of the nation’s highest court (The Washington Post)

Abortion:

• A court at the crossroads | A pivotal abortion case for the post-O’Connor Court (Terry Eastland, The Weekly Standard)
• Abortion law may not change soon | Activists are engaged in an all-out war, even though the president has yet to name a nominee and even though O’Connor’s replacement alone is unlikely to lead to a reversal of Roe v. Wade (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Virginia delegate tests waters on abortion ban | A conservative Virginia state delegate is testing support for reinstating a ban on abortion that dates back to 1847, in hope that the U.S. Supreme Court eventually will allow states to decide the issue (The Washington Times)
• Abortion in the crossfire | Is Roe really in danger? (Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post)
• Confronting abortion anew | Both sides in the fight see a test case in their struggle to recruit a generation that has come of age after 1973’s Roe v. Wade ruling (Los Angeles Times)
• Unborn children deserve the same love, recognition | Godly and lawfully, the right of life and protection offered to born children should be the very same offered to the unborn (Hilda V. Martin, Daily Press, Hampton Roads, Va.)
• Expectant moms receive faith-based support | Arches New Hope: Led by Moab-area church members, center offers alternatives to abortion (Salt Lake Tribune)
• O’Connor’s exit energizes Va. abortion debate | Virginia’s candidates for governor are bracing for abortion to emerge as a volatile and perhaps decisive issue (The Washington Post)
• Privacy at stake | Abortion isn’t the only reproductive right at stake in the fight over who will replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. There’s also birth control (Editorial, The Boston Globe)
• Abortion rulings difficult to gauge | Cases don’t turn on right to privacy (The Boston Globe)
• In new court, Roe may stand, so foes look to limit its scope | Cases that are likely to reach the court in the next few years may give a new set of justices the opportunity to restrict abortion (The New York Times)

Partial-birth abortion bill unconstitutional:

• Appeals court voids ban on ‘partial birth’ abortions | A federal appeals court yesterday upheld a ruling by a lower court judge striking down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which bars a method of abortion generally used after the first trimester (The New York Times)
• Neb. court upholds partial birth decision | A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a ruling that the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional (Associated Press)

Life ethics:

• Geneva woman says pharmacist judged her, refused to give her pill | A state investigation was opened Friday into reports a pharmacist at a St. Charles drugstore refused to fill a birth control and emergency contraception prescription for a woman, officials said (The Daily Herald, Chicago suburbs)
• Church leaders’ attack on voluntary euthanasia Bill | A massive Church of England Synod vote against a bill that would legalize voluntary euthanasia was not necessarily a “rational response”, it was claimed last night (Daily Post, Liverpool)
• Spain to allow therapeutic cloning, minister says | In an interview in newspaper El Mundo, Health Minister Elena Salgado said the legislation could be effective by next year (Reuters)
• Jack’s death, his choice | President Bush is fighting to overturn the Oregon Death With Dignity law, which gives people like Jack Newbold the option of hastening their deaths (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times)
• Revolutionary fetus sex test raises eugenics fears | Is it a girl or a boy? It’s the first question every new mother asks. And the answer can now be given almost from the moment a woman finds out that she is pregnant (The Telegraph, London)
• Euthanasia stance affirmed in Mexico | Bishops seek law to protect life (Reuters)
• Stem cell legislation is at risk | Backers say promise of new techniques threatens Senate bill’s passage (The Washington Post)
• Euthanasia for babies? | Dutch doctors have proposed a procedure for infant mercy killing. Is this humane or barbaric? (Jim Holt, The New York Times Magazine)

Morning-after pill:

• Survey dismisses morning-after pill fears | Unsafe sex has not increased since the morning-after pill was made available over the counter, researchers said (The Telegraph, London)
• Morning-after pill ‘did not fuel a sex explosion’ (The Observer, London)

Terri Schiavo:

• Scholarship is named for Terri Schiavo | Ave Maria University in Naples sets up the annual award to `assist future priests and laypersons.’ (Orlando Sentinel)
• Gov. Jeb Bush ends Schiavo inquiry | Gov. Jeb Bush has declared an end to the state’s inquiry into Terri Schiavo’s collapse 15 years ago, after Florida’s state attorney said there was no evidence that criminal activity was involved (Associated Press)
• ‘Judicial murder’ and Terri Schiavo | This is the seminal case for whether euthanasia for the seriously disabled becomes embedded in the American way of death (Nat Hentoff, The Washington Times)

Education:

• Ave Maria gets high sign from ABA | Ave Maria School of Law, which opened five years ago with the mission of incorporating Roman Catholicism fully and fundamentally into legal teachings and has been closely watched as a result, is poised to earn the ultimate stamp of approval from its peers: full accreditation from the American Bar Association (Inside Higher Ed)
• Dover official to leave | The man who championed the fight to bring intelligent design into Dover’s biology classroom cited health as reason (York Daily Record, Pa.)
• Keeping the faith | Parents of parochial students shouldn’t pay school taxes (Erin Harrington, The New York Times)
• NEA bolsters gays on policy, practices | The National Education Association ended its four-day convention here with a big victory for members promoting homosexual advocacy, but debate by conservatives seeking resolutions condemning adult-minor sexual contact and supporting respect for “all living things” was cut off (The Washington Times)
• Abortion protesters sue School of Mines | School policies that require demonstrators to get approval to distribute literature violate the First Amendment, according to a lawsuit filed Friday against the Colorado School of Mines in Golden by anti-abortion activists (Associated Press)
• What do we find in a label? | From a Reformed faith perspective, a liberal emphasizes intellectual liberty while at the same time pursuing an in-depth understanding of the spiritual and ethical context of Christianity with both reason and faith (Ken Rogers, News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.)

Evolution & creation:

• Evolving coverage | On the 80th anniversary of the Scopes monkey trial, we look back on the original trial of the century – a case that pitted Darwin against Adam, and redefined the media’s role in the courtroom (On the Media, NPR, audio)
• Scientists hesitant to debate Intelligent Design | Over the years the scientific community has largely decided not to take part in public debates over creationism v. evolution. Now they’re being careful about how they take on Darwin’s latest critics — advocates of “Intelligent Design,” the argument that life is too complex to have evolved without help (Morning Edition, NPR)
• Majority in poll see God as direct Creator of man | Most Americans believe it all starts in heaven: 64 percent of us agree that “human beings were created directly by God,” according to a Harris poll released yesterday (The Washington Times)
• Despite Scopes, evolution still on trial | As Dayton prepares for its annual re-enactment of the trial here eight decades later, debate over teaching evolution lives on (Associated Press)
• Leading cardinal redefines church’s view on evolution | Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has suggested that Darwinian evolution might be incompatible with Catholic faith (The New York Times)
• Creationism special: A battle for science’s soul | 80 years after Scopes, creationist ideas have a powerful hold in the US, and science is still under attack (New Scientist)
• Creationism against Darwinism? No contest | It is an unhappy time to be a Darwinist in the US, but it will take more than the thinly-disguised creationism, “intelligent design”, to defeat evolutionary biology (Editorial, New Scientist)

Tulsa zoo nixes creation display:

• Board nixes creationism show at Okla. zoo | In a 3-1 vote, a city board reversed direction on Thursday and rejected plans to add a creationist exhibit to the Tulsa Zoo (Associated Press)
• It’s all happening at the Tulsa Zoo | Christian creationists won too much of a victory for their own good in Tulsa, where the local zoo was ordered to exhibit a display extolling Genesis’s account of creation (Editorial, The New York Times)

Church & state:

• N.C. judge forbids Quran in witness swearing in | A judge in North Carolina is refusing to allow Muslim witnesses to be sworn in with a Quran. North Carolina law states that an oath must be taken with a hand on the “Holy Scriptures.” At the heart of the debate is whether “Holy Scriptures” can be interpreted to include other religious texts (Weekend Edition, NPR)
• AF Academy needs manners along with religious expression | I read the official Air Force report and possibly saw bad manners or even poor judgment and that cadets could talk about anything academic, but leave the person of Jesus Christ out of the public forum (Chip Harper, San Antonio Express-News, Tex.)
• Academy steps on rights of non-evangelicals | They say it couldn’t happen here. America would never permit a military branch of the government to endorse a specific religious theology. Nor would this country allow the institution to degrade women and wink at rape. Sadly, the Air Force Academy does both (Steve Gushee, Palm Beach Post, Fla.)
• Judge: No gov’t money for Boy Scout trip | A federal judge has ruled that the Boy Scout’s oath to God means the Pentagon can no longer spend millions in government money to ready a Virginia military base for a national scouting event typically held every four years (Associated Press)
• Onward ‘Christian’ soldiers? | U.S. military and its institutions should be free from proselytizing (Moustafa Bayoumi, Knight Ridder/Tribune)

Religion & politics:

• Bush splits from religious right | The only problem with the religious right’s quid pro quo of bartering faith for political influence is that the evangelicals’ God-ordained man in the White House is not playing the faith card anymore (Cynthia Hall Clements, The Lufkin Daily News, Tex.)
• The real question before the court | Should the United States should aim to be a ”good” country — that is, one that strives to be the living embodiment of virtue — or aspire to be a ”great” one: that is, one with a powerful and effective national government capable of building a strong and just society at home and extending America’s responsibilities abroad? (Alan Wolfe, The Boston Globe)
• A grass-roots star rises on the right | For a man who was content two years ago to run a house-painting business, care for his family and tithe to Bay Leaf Baptist Church, Steve Noble has made a quick ascent into the conservative elite (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
• Many Christians seek middle ground | We don’t all fit neatly into the ‘secularist’ or ‘religious right’ camps (Mike MacDonald, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)
• Our religious culture | Kevin “Seamus” Hasson of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty thinks the notion that religion should be expressed only in private — and never in the context of government — is a serious misreading of human nature (William Raspberry, The Washington Post)
• NAACP chair renews attack on conservatives | Earlier Sunday, civil rights advocates and other NAACP officials said blurring the lines between religious groups and politics threatens equal opportunity (Associated Press)
• Ruling on property seizure rallies Christian groups | Conservative Christian groups seeking to galvanize support for a battle over a Supreme Court nomination are rallying around the issue of eminent domain (The New York Times)
• Focus’ family tree sows seeds | Political activism sprouts out of personal ties (The Denver Post)
• Evangelical Christians seeking power | They are playing the game by the rules of politics and not by the insights and convictions of religious faith. Instead of speaking truth to power, they are trying to take power (Anthony B. Robinson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council | Battling against same-sex marriage and activist judges, and raising hell over Terri Schiavo, Perkins has come a long way since his David Duke mail list-buying caper in Louisiana (Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange.com)
• Which power? | Increasingly these days many religious people – and especially some well-known conservative Christian leaders- confuse their own temporal power and influence with the spread of God’s kingdom. (Editorial, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal)

Religion & politics in Australia:

• A different hymn sheet | Hillsong’s youthful staff seem remarkably like Howard Dean’s (Andrew West, The Australian)
• Fading religion fanning fundamentalism, author finds | Fading religious belief and the sidelining of churches from public debate has left Australia with little defence against fundamentalist politics, an academic has warned (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Philippine Catholic bishops refuse to join calls for Arroyo’s ouster:

• 2 church groups back due process for Arroyo | Bishop Efraim Tendero of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches said Constitutional processes should be resorted to instead of making calls or forcing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to resign due to alleged electoral fraud (Philippine Sun Star)
• Philippine church refuses to join calls for Arroyo’s ouster | The Philippines’ influential Catholic church handed President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo a reprieve Sunday when the country’s bishops announced they would not join mounting calls for her to step down over corruption and vote-rigging charges (The Washington Post)
• Bishops give battling Arroyo big reprieve | No single option regarding Arroyo could claim to be morally correct, said Fernando Capalla, outgoing president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, reading from a statement (Reuters)
• Philippines church leaders support Arroyo | The Philippines’ Roman Catholic bishops, who have played a major role in toppling two presidents, gave lukewarm support Sunday to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as she faced calls to resign over an election scandal (Associated Press)
• Philippine bishops give Arroyo a reprieve | Leaders of the Philippines’ influential Roman Catholic Church said Sunday they would not join calls for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to step down over corruption and vote-rigging charges (The Washington Post)
• Bishops seen reluctant to demand Arroyo quit | Catholic bishops appeared to be retreating on Saturday from joining the chorus calling on Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to resign, giving the embattled Philippine president at least a temporary respite (Reuters)

London bombings:

• British religious groups offer prayers, pledge solidarity | In London, churches across the city held memorial services for victims of Thursday’s terrorist attacks. Senior Christian, Jewish and Muslim clerics also gathered and issued a joint statement calling for unity and dialogue between faiths in the aftermath (Weekend Edition, NPR)
• Mosques warned of Muslim backlash | Muslim leaders are writing to hundreds of mosques appealing for help in finding the London bombers (BBC)
• UK faith leaders condemn attacks | Leaders of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths each read out parts of the statement (BBC, video)
• Religious leaders unite to condemn ‘evil’ | Leaders of five of the main faith groups in Britain yesterday issued a joint statement of condemnation of the terrorist bombings in London (The Guardian, London)
• Also: Religious leaders unite to defy terror (The Independent, London)
• ‘Call them criminals, terrorists but don’t call them Muslims’ | The sermon at St Pancras (The Guardian, London)
• Show of resolve as religious leaders try to cool tensions | Britain’s religious leaders held a meeting to help thwart any violence against Muslims following Thursday’s terrorist attacks (The New York Times)
• Crowds pack London churches to mourn | Londoners packed churches across the capital Sunday to mourn the victims of last week’s terror attacks, begin healing and pray for calm as Britain’s top religious leaders cautioned against retaliating against Muslims (Associated Press)
• Episcopal, Muslim clerics condemn attacks | Shiite cleric Ibrahim Kazerooni and the Very Rev. Peter Eaton, dean of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, are collaborating to help Jews, Christians and Muslims coexist (The Denver Post)
• Prayer said key to terror suspect case | A young man charged with lying about attending an al-Qaida-linked terrorist camp was carrying an Arabic prayer in his wallet that federal prosecutors say is significant to their case (Associated Press)
• Muslims pray for London bombing victims | Muslim clerics around the world used Friday prayers to condemn the London bombings and the suspected links to Islamic terrorists, but many layered their messages with outcry against perceived Western injustices that feed Muslim anger (Associated Press)
• Pottering round old churches | Contemplating rural architecture might seem an irrelevant response to the terrorist outrage in London, but there is a particularly good reason why, in this case, that is not so (Christopher Howse, The Telegraph, London)

War & terrorism:

• The label of Catholic terror was never used about the IRA | Fundamentalism is often a form of nationalism in religious disguise (Karen Armstrong, The Guardian, London)
• Evil targets God’s chosen | too many dismiss anti-Semitism as the Jews’ problem or even the Jews’ fault, when in fact it is the most accurate predictor of an evil that humanity will have to fight (Dennis Prager, Los Angeles Times)
• Why the West gets religion wrong | Religion is not and cannot be relativist. No genuine belief in God is just a matter of personal taste or subjective opinion. True religion has always been public and political because it is about forming communities around shared values and the practices that embody them (Phillip Blond and Adrian Pabst, International Herald Tribune)
• Chinese spy infilrates Auckland church | A Chinese spy known as “agent 180” has infiltrated a church group in Auckland and is sending information back to China, claims a former Chinese secret policeman seeking asylum in Australia (Manawatu Standard, N.Z.)

Missionary assassination attempt:

• Missionary from Iowa shot in Brazil | An Iowa Baptist missionary was clinging to life in Des Moines, where he was flown Saturday, after alleged assassins shot him several times July 3 outside the Brazil church he founded (Des Moines Register, Ia.)
• Missionary recovers after attack | John Leonard regains consciousness after being shot near his church in Brazil (Des Moines Register, Ia.)

Israel:

• Palestinians feel like underdogs against King David | An Israeli plan to build a park on land that holds the remains of the City of King David would displace more than 1,000 Palestinians (The New York Times)
• Greece’s involvement in patriarchate concerns Israel | Israeli government officials are troubled by the apparent deepening of Greece’s involvement in the affair of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem (Haaretz, Tel Aviv)

G8:

• Bono, Geldof welcome G8 aid deal for Africa | “Six hundred thousand people will be alive to remember this G8 in Gleneagles who would have lost their lives to a mosquito bite,” Bono said, referring to the difference he thought the extra aid would make to fighting malaria (Reuters)
• Debt relief unnecessary—Okogie | Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie has described the debt relief granted Nigeria by the Paris Club of creditors as unnecessary, adding that proceeds arising from the relief will enrich those at the helm of affairs in the country (Daily Champion, Nigeria)
• Resolute G-8 leaders unveil African aid | Vowing not to be sidetracked by the deadly London bombings, world leaders unveiled a $50 billion package Friday to help lift Africa from poverty and proposed up to $9 billion to help the Palestinians achieve peace with Israel (Associated Press)
• G-8 leaders unveil $50B in African aid | Vowing not to be sidetracked by the deadly London bombings, world leaders unveiled a $50 billion package Friday to help lift Africa from poverty and proposed up to $9 billion to help the Palestinians achieve peace with Israel (Associated Press)
• So many are standing together to end poverty | We have the means to eliminate extreme poverty. What we have lacked is the moral will to make that happen (Peter Rogness, Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Africa AIDS funding:

• Bush gives global AIDS fighters ultimatum | They must pledge opposition to sex trafficking and prostitution or do without federal funds (Associated Press)
• Moral ties attached to US Aids cash | American aid agencies expressed concern yesterday over new rules imposed by the Bush administration making funding for the fight against Aids dependent on a pledge to combat prostitution (The Guardian, London)

Zimbabwe:

• Pope endorses Zim criticism | Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday endorsed the stance taken by Catholic bishops in Zimbabwe in condemning the state-sponsored “clean-up” operation and government’s human rights record (Zimbabwe Independent)
• SA clergy probe Zimbabwe raids | A delegation of South African churchmen has arrived in Zimbabwe to assess the consequences of a recent crackdown on shack dwellers and traders (BBC)
• Zimbabwe’s split opposition | Movements to oust Mugabe are divided, demoralized and cash-strapped. Some fear frustration could lead to violence (Los Angeles Times)
• U.N. envoy meets Zimbabwe president | A United Nations envoy met Friday with President Robert Mugabe and promised to work with the government to help the tens of thousands displaced in a so-called urban renewal campaign that has prompted an international outcry (Associated Press)
• Church leaders planning Harare ‘inspection’ | A delegation of senior church leaders will travel to Zimbabwe on Sunday to meet various organisations about Operation Restore Order, the South African Council of Churches (SACC) said on Thursday (Independent, South Africa)

Sudan:

• Onetime enemies join forces to lead Sudan on rocky road to peace | Sudan elevated a former rebel leader to the vice presidency of the government he had long tried to overthrow, a merging of onetime combatants into a single leadership (The New York Times)
• Sudan rebel leader turns from war to government | John Garang fought without compromise. Now, it might be his most potent weapon (Los Angeles Times)
• Ex-rebel sworn in as Sudan vice president | Although Islamic law remains the rule, the constitution says it will not be applied in the mainly Christian and animist south and removes a requirement that the president be Muslim (Associated Press)

Arson at black churches in Tenn.:

• Tenn. police nab suspect in church fires | Police on Saturday arrested a suspect believed to have set fires that burned two black churches in Tennessee, but investigators said they had no reason to believe the blazes were a hate crime (Associated Press)
• Two black churches burn in Tennessee arson | Seven arson fires broke out Friday in a neighborhood in this small Tennessee town, inflicting heavy damage on two black churches and burning five vacant houses, authorities said (Associated Press)
• No racial motives seen in church arsons | Authorities said there was no evidence that racism was behind seven arson fires that inflicted heavy damage on two black churches — but they were not ruling anything out (Associated Press)

Crime:

• A hate crime that wasn’t | The grievance-mongers’ continued failure to act responsibly and with due skepticism when these cases arise is expected. But the mainstream media’s failure to control its America-bashing reflexes is intolerable (Michelle Malkin, The Washington Times)
• Witchcraft torture three jailed | The Old Bailey trial heard the girl was beaten, cut with a knife and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes at a flat in Hackney, east London, in 2003 (BBC)
• BTK killer blames ‘demon’ for murders | “I just know it’s a dark side of me. It kind of controls me. I personally think it’s a — and I know it is not very Christian — but I actually think it’s a demon that’s within me. … At some point and time it entered me when I was very young,” said Dennis Rader, who was once president of his Lutheran church (Associated Press)
• Anti-abortion extremist gets 19 years | A man who once claimed to be on a mission from God to kill abortion providers was sentenced Thursday to 19 years in federal prison for mailing hundreds of letters with fake anthrax to women’s clinics (Associated Press)

Billy Graham’s daughter facing domestic violence charges:

• Evangelist’s daughter jailed in New Smyrna | The daughter of the world’s most influential evangelist was arrested a week ago in the parking lot of a discount store, accused of domestic battery against her husband (The Orlando Sentinel)
• Rev. Billy Graham’s daughter facing domestic violence charges | The Billy Graham Evangelical Association did release the following statement: “They regret the recent report of an alleged altercation involving Victoria … Unfortunately at this time we do not have details which would enable us to comment further.” (WFTV, Fla.)
• Bible basher | Billy Graham’s daughter charged with choking her husband in roadside row (Daily Record, Scotland)
• Billy Graham’s daughter spends night in jail after ‘throttling’ her husband | The daughter of the evangelist Billy Graham, herself a public speaker and author of religious books, has been arrested and charged with domestic violence after choking her husband in a car park (The Independent, London)

Abuse:

• The Vatican removes 6 priests in New York accused or convicted of sexual abuse | Defrocking is the harshest penalty the Roman Catholic Church can impose on a priest (The New York Times)
• Mater dei, ex-teacher sued in alleged abuse | Former student at the Catholic high school in Santa Ana says she was molested for two years (Los Angeles Times)
• Group seeks tougher laws against priests | The Catholic lay reform group Voice of the Faithful approved a draft resolution Sunday calling for tougher laws against abusive priests and the bishops who have protected them (Associated Press)
• Earlier: Voice of the Faithful: Church abuse scandal may cost $3B | Speaking at the first national meeting of the group in three years, David Castaldi urged leaders of local affiliates to press their bishops for better financial reporting as individual dioceses post large payouts to abuse victims, lawyers and others (Associated Press)
• Calif. diocese to settle sex abuse suits | The Archdiocese of San Francisco has agreed to pay more than $16 million to settle a dozen lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by a once-popular priest (Associated Press)

Catholicism:

• Open door lets hope slide in | Members maintain vigil at parish week after its closing (The Toledo Blade)
• Catholic church workers battle for right to unionize | Unionized workers at five Catholic parishes in Texas say church leaders are guilty of union-busting. The employees are believed to be the first Catholic church workers to reach a collective-bargaining agreement. A panel of canon lawyers is looking into whether the contracts are legal, according to church law (Weekend Edition, NPR)
• The changing face of a shrinking priesthood | Fewer young Americans becoming Catholic clergy (The Day, New London, Ct.)
• Opus Dei shuns Da Vinci Code image | Founded in Madrid in 1928, Opus Dei — Latin for “God’s Work” — is one of Catholicism’s most dynamic and controversial groups (Reuters)
• John Paul II set to be saint within weeks | Pope John Paul II’s closest aide said yesterday that he hoped the late pontiff would be made a saint during World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany next month (The Independent, London)
• Outrage helps sustain vigil | You would never know that St. Frances has been closed for nearly nine months (The Boston Globe)
• Catholic group asks openness of church | Leaders of Voice of the Faithful, the national lay Catholic reform organization founded in a Wellesley church basement three years ago, gathered for the first time outside the Northeast yesterday and vowed to intensify their push for greater financial disclosure by the church and increased lay involvement in the administration of the nation’s largest religious denomination (The Boston Globe)
• Sell art, and keep parishes open | Closing schools and parishes and selling off the real estate to the highest bidder so that we can have more high-priced condominiums is doubly offensive (David D’Alessandro, The Boston Globe)
• Catholic reform group seeks new relevance | The Catholic lay reform group Voice of the Faithful is holding a national meeting to create a lasting strategy for involvement in the church, three years after the clergy sex abuse scandal fueled the group’s calls for change (Associated Press)
• Woman loses her sanctuary | Parish to end role as shelter (The Boston Globe)
• Fathers, husbands, and rebels | Acting outside the Catholic Church, many married priests are attracting a following (Los Angeles Times)

Church life:

• Church brings religion to Valley via big screen | Can a church download salvation from a satellite? (The Arizona Republic)
• A Bible and a backpack | Under the bridge, only four people have shown up for church, but for the pastor it is enough of a congregation (The Orlando Sentinel)
• Residents cling to faith in storm | Each Sunday, the Rev. Dan Morris delivers sermons to uplift and help people. On Sunday, with the threat of Hurricane Dennis looming, his sermon about parishioners protecting themselves hit close to home. (Montgomery Advertiser, Ala.)
• NH’s charismatic Christians seek miracles, healing | More than 100 believers gathered inside Derryfield School auditorium Friday night for a moment of prayer (Union Leader, N.H.)
• Franchising faith via satellite | Oklahoma church hopes its business model, message will fill seats in E. Valley ‘campuses’ (The Arizona Republic)
• Carving out a sacred space | The New Altar at a Potomac Church Hearkens to Ancient and Far-Flung Traditions (The Washington Post)
• A carnival of Christianity | The dominant trend of contemporary Christian theology might be called ecclesiastical fundamentalism (Theo Hobson, The Guardian, London)
• Church has 1 million bees, honey in walls | One could say that St. Mark United Church of Christ is bee-deviled (Associated Press)
• S.C. churches plan service to atone for 1916 lynching | Local churches will hold a reconciliation service next week to apologize for not trying to stop racial strife decades ago, including the 1916 lynching of a wealthy black farmer (Associated Press)
• Tricky diplomacy awaits ambassador | In his new job, R. William Franklin will have to practice careful spiritual diplomacy. Not only will he seek unity between Roman Catholics and Anglicans, he must help suture a potentially lethal wound in his Anglican Communion (The Boston Globe)
• ‘Breakout’ author saw similar focus in churches | Church consultant and author Thom Rainer said his 14th book, “Breakout Churches,” is a product of his own frustration with the slow growth of churches in recent years (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
• Breaking out of the mold, gathering in the fold | Middleburg Heights church thrives on reaching out (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
• Bishops split on new Anglican leader | Clergy and laity voted strongly for Phillip Aspinall, but his peers were almost evenly divided (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• I’ll fight for workers – Anglican head | The new leader of Australia’s 4million Anglicans has quickly stamped his progressive credentials on the post, declaring his personal support for women bishops and warning the churches would not be silenced on industrial relations changes (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Church of England debates women bishops:

• Say a prayer for the Church of England today | The Church must confront its evangelical bigots and embrace women bishops (Cristina Odone, The Times, London)
• Clergy warn against women bishops | A Church of England bishop has warned that hundreds of traditionalist clergy may leave for the Roman Catholic Church if women are ordained as bishops (BBC)
• Churchmen on brink of exodus over women bishops | On the eve of a critical vote on the creation of women bishops in the Church of England, a senior figure has warned he and hundreds of priests will quit if the move is approved (The Times, London)
• Anglicans vote on women bishops | The Church of England’s general synod is due to vote on whether to move towards ordaining women bishops (BBC, video)
• Hundreds of clergy ‘will leave church over women bishops’ | Nearly a quarter of the Church of England’s bishops, including several of its most senior, are likely to oppose moves to consecrate women as bishops at the General Synod in York today (The Telegraph, London)

Religion & homosexuality:

• Mom ties church “untruths” to lesbian daughter’s death | The mother of a 29-year-old lesbian who committed suicide nearly a decade ago told a gathering of gays and their friends and family members yesterday that her daughter died because of the “untruths taught by the church” (The Seattle Times)
• Congregationalists grapple with vote backing gay marriage | In 1972, the denomination became the first major Christian body to ordain an openly gay minister (The Providence Journal, R.I.)
• Church clarifies stance on gay marriage | Statements made to the press indicating that the United Church of Christ is not true to the teaching of Jesus are simply irresponsible and wrong (Diane Prosser, Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.)
• Making the case for full inclusion of homosexuals | A Pasadena priest and lesbian explains her position to the leader of the Anglican church (Los Angeles Times)
• United Church of Christ sees new interest | Daniel Hazard, the church’s webmaster, said that about 22,000 people have clicked on the “find a church” link on its two Web sites, ucc.org and stillspeaking.com. That is about 10 times the normal three-day traffic (UPI)
• Religions not likely to accept gay rule | Some might have wondered if UCC vote was like the “shot heard ’round the world” (Religion News Service)
• Church conference embraces gays | Rally today a response to Focus on Family event (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Homosexuality:

• Does love matter? | The big Christian question about homosexuality is not sodomy but whether these people, too, can experience that love in intimate personal relationships (David O’Brien, The Boston Globe)
• Singling out homosexuality reveals selective reasoning | None of us follows every single teaching, law, precept or passage found in the Bible (Rich Aronson, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
• Va. candidate backs allowing gay adoption | Independent Russ Potts voiced unequivocal support Thursday for allowing cohabiting same-sex couples to adopt children, a stance that sharply distinguishes him from his two party rivals in this year’s governor’s race (Associated Press)
• US seeks to clamp ‘don’t ask’ court foes | Says Congress sets military policy (The Boston Globe)
• Judge urged to dismiss gay military case | A federal prosecutor urged a judge Friday to dismiss a legal challenge to the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay service members, arguing that only Congress can change it (Associated Press)

Civil unions:

• Push endures for gay marriage in N.J. | Members of New Jersey’s gay and lesbian community gathered for a town hall meeting to mark the one-year anniversary of the state’s passage of a domestic partnership law (Associated Press)
• State Senate approves civil unions bill | However, there’s little chance of passage in the House, where Republican leaders said the bill won’t reach the floor for a vote this session (The Oregonian, Portland)
• Oregon Senate passes civil union bill | The state Senate approved a bill Friday that would give same-sex couples most of the legal benefits of marriage, but the civil union legislation appeared doomed in the Republican-run state House (Associated Press)

Marriage & family:

• Big fall in number of families headed by a married couple | The number of families headed by a married couple has fallen by half a million in less than a decade, according to Government statistics (The Telegraph, London)
• Turns out, I can’t help being right | Dear Parents: Finally, your secret is out (Catherine Getches, The Washington Post)
• Working women more likely to divorce | Women working full-time are 29 per cent more likely to get divorced than those who stay at home and raise children (The Telegraph, London)

Spirituality:

• Among the believers | As an atheist’s child, I went to Bible camp looking for answers (Tayari Jones, The New York Times)
• ‘Closing’ necessary to sell goods, not God | “Closing the sale” is a tenet of American capitalism, not Scripture (Mary A. Jacobs, The Dallas Morning News)
• Airport chaplain | The Rev. David C. Southall lives on a wing and a prayer (The Washington Times)
• Time of terror, time of trust | Many Christians, I suspect, also have a distorted image of God. I know this because I did, also (Don Miller, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Ca.)
• Unitarian Universalists debate God’s place in church | God is a controversial word in the Unitarian Universalists Association (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Tex.)
• Staying true to religion in the commercial age | Lay the T-shirts and the slogans behind and delve into the depth and richness of your faith (Garry Koch, Asbury Park Press, N.J.)
• Medical student founds a religion—Universism | Ford Vox and followers claim faith has no absolute truths (Religion News Service)

Money & business:

• Riches beyond beliefs? | Evangelicals are divided on the value of affluence (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Religion helps businesses get word out | Stores find symbols, expressions of faith can be good marketing tools (The Greenville News, S.C.)
• Good books: Churches’ finances must be scrupulous | Financial shenanigans and skulduggery by Christian leaders have done more in the modern era to discredit the church than any other sin (Michael Barrick, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Amana complies with laws of Koran | Fund’s religious restrictions become benefit as it outperforms stock market (The Washington Post)

People:

• Benny Hinn: Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria suspends Lagos president | Controversy has been rocking PFN over an alleged financial mismanagement by organisers of the April 29-May I, crusade held by renowned United States of America preacher, Pastor Benny Hinn in Lagos (Daily Champion, Nigeria)
• Shark-attack victim’s tale inspires others | Book and movie deals, a fragrance line and a popular Web site were the last things on Bethany Hamilton’s mind the moment she lost her left arm to a tiger shark in Kauai, Hawaii (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Acquitted by courts but rebuffed by his neighbors | Ex-HealthSouth CEO gets cold reception upon his return from trial (Bloomberg News)
• Gods and monsters | Prominent Ohio Christian right leader surprisingly open about his disdain for Muslims (Cleveland Free Times, via The Athens News)

Joel Osteen:

• The Joel Osteen phenomenon | Popular preacher is connecting with TV and book fans (The Express-Times, Easton, Pa.)
• Arena of faith | Rockets’ old home to house Osteen’s megachurch (The Dallas Morning News)
• Church’s new home opens door to a new era | ‘Sky is the limit’ once mega-size Lakewood moves to Compaq this week, pastor says (Houston Chronicle)

KOCE sale:

• Christian network asks court for KOCE-TV | Daystar says its offer for Channel 50 was highest. Judges ruled that O.C. college had botched the sale and must seek new bids or keep the station (Los Angeles Times)
• Courtroom drama ahead for KOCE? | After judges strike down the PBS station’s sale, confusion abounds over how to unravel the deal. Worse, the potential for lawsuits seems endless (Los Angeles Times)
• Keeping the faith in public television | I’ve never watched the Daystar Television Network, but I can confidently say its programmers aren’t interested in the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling saga. Probably a little too much punching for a Christian broadcasting station (Dana Parsons, Los Angeles Times)

Film & theater:

• For ‘Doubt,’ a certain magic | Broadway drama seems to have that rarest of attributes: legs (The Washington Post)
• Rosslyn ‘debased by filming of Da Vinci Code’ | A descendant of the family that founded Rosslyn Chapel has condemned the trustees of the medieval church for allowing it to be used in the film of The Da Vinci Code (The Times, London)

Books:

• An almighty market | God is a big business in the publishing world, as long as writers steer clear of any forbidden territory (The Denver Post)
• Textual healing | Paula Fredriksen reviews James J. O’Donnell’s Augustine: A New Biography (The New Republic)
• Find the holy in words | There really is something holy about good writing (Bill Tammeus, The Kansas City Star)
• Bestselling author Philip Yancey signs contract with Zondervan for next major book release | Fall 2006 book on prayer will be his 18th with the company (Press release)
• Back to Narnia | Harry Potter’s mother country (John J. Miller, National Review Online)
• Up, up, and a way | Comic-book heroes exemplify living with a higher purpose (Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.)
• American spirit | E. J. Dionne reviews Noah Feldman’s Divided by God (The Washington Post)
• It’s the deity, dude | Hanna Rosin reviews Naomi Schaefer Riley’s God on the Quad and Christian Smith’s Soul Searching (The Washington Post)
• Very rich hours | Caroline Langston reviews Phyllis Tickle’s Prayer is a Place (The Washington Post)
• Latter-day biker | Rachel Hartigan Shea reviews Jana Richman’s Riding in the Shadows of Saints (The Washington Post)
• Snake oil | Chris Lehmann reviews Steve Salerno’s Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless (The Washington Post)
• Selling rapture | The rise of the Christian right in American politics has added impetus to an already huge and growing market in evangelical fiction (Douglas Kennedy, The Guardian, London)
• The Bible’s brave women, the standards they lived by | Corinna Lothar reviews Naomi Harris Rosenblatt’s After the Apple (The Washington Times)

History:

• Mosaic inspired image of England’s favorite saint | The earliest known template for the image of St George slaying the dragon has been found in Syria, archaeologists believe (The Times, London)
• In Maine, restoring history long hidden | Preservationists believe that a derelict building in Portland, Me., is the nation’s third-oldest surviving structure built as a black meetinghouse (The New York Times)
• Important Saxon find in car park | Mr Watson, from the Museum of London Archaeology Service, coordinating the dig, said: “This is a tremendously important find – an opportunity to re-write the early history of Christianity.” (BBC)
• Saxon rotunda found beneath car park | Archaeologists have discovered an enormous Saxon rotunda in Herefordshire dating from the 10th or 11th century that is likely to be listed as a monument of international importance. (The Times, London)

Music:

• Fest rocks Christian music stereotypes | Lifest aims to show attendees that Christian music isn’t about being ‘stuffy’ — it encompasses genre (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
• Gallagher slams ‘boring’ Bono’s religious talks | Oasis rocker Liam Gallagher has slammed U2 star Bono’s “boring” attempts to convert him to Christianity – insisting he is his own God (Contact Music)

Missions & ministry:

• Ministry says Jesus loves porn stars, too | Two friends start Web site to help those addicted to or damaged by sex imagery (Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Ca.)
• Got faith? | Church helps bail out dairy (The Plainview Daily Herald, Tex.)
• Minister to host ‘exorcism’ summit | The children’s minister, Beverley Hughes, is holding a summit with child protection experts and African church leaders next week in a bid to combat the abuse of children through ritual exorcisms, it emerged today (The Guardian, London)
• Men flock to Breslin to hear Promise Keepers’ message | First day of event draws 4,700 for worship, music (Lansing State Journal, Mi.)
• Missionary targets home front | He grew up on an African mission; now, he’s working the mission fields in his back yard (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• The emerging church | A growing movement is rethinking what Christianity and the church should look like in a contemporary culture (Religion & Ethics Newsweekly)
• Missionary takes on tough test in darkest Telford | Shropshire town is among most secular in Britain (The Guardian, London)

More articles of interest:

• Scientology minder prompts Katie Holmes through first big interview | In her first big interview since her betrothal to Cruise, who turned 43 last week, the actress, 26, responded to every question with gushing platitudes as her Scientologist “minder” looked on approvingly (The Telegraph, London)
• Driving course based on Bible | ‘If you’re Christian, act like it … on the road,’ instructor says (Commercial Appeal, Memphis)
• Black churches oppose hatred bill | Church spokeswoman Katei Kirby said they believed the bill could hinder their freedom to preach (BBC)
• RSS rescues Christian priests | Believe it or not! RSS activists recently rescued 80 Christian priests trapped in an accident in the dense forests of Orissa’s Sambalpur district and even donated blood to save their lives (PTI, India)
• The missing Madonna | The story behind the Met’s most expensive acquisition (Calvin Tomkins, The New Yorker)
• Holy cow! Christians go kosher | Author encourages believers to follow the dietary laws set forth in Old Testament (Chicago Tribune)

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“On Wednesday evening they brought in two trailer loads of bodies,” an anonymous medical worker told Reuters today. “There was one trailer load the previous day. A lot of people were killed. I think it is even more than 600.”

Fighting has also continued between Yakubu Pam, chairman of the Plateau State branch of CAN, and President Olusegun Obasanjo. Pam told the BBC that after yesterday’s confrontation, presidential security agents questioned him for “several hours,” and demanded he apologize for suggesting that Obasanjo hadn’t given enough attention to earlier violence against Christians in the city. Pam says he’s still thinking about it.

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Nigeria bans broadcast miracles:

• Miracle broadcast: NBC begins clamp down | National Broadcasting Commission said yesterday, it would begin clamp down on any radio or television station, which broadcasts unverifiable claims of miracles from Christian Tele-evangelists (This Day, Lagos, Nigeria)
• Ban on miracle broadcast: NBC got PFN’s support —acting DG | The Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, NBC, has said it got the support of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, and professional broadcasters across the country before it embarked on practical steps towards sanitizing the nation’s airwaves even as the body refuted media reports that it has placed a blanket ban on the broadcast of religious programmes in the electronic media (Vanguard, Lagos, Nigeria)

Back to subject index

Shari’ah:

• Nigerian state okays new alcohol penalties | Lawmakers in a mostly Islamic Nigerian state have approved a law calling for Muslims to be whipped and Christians to be jailed if they are caught drinking alcohol, officials said Saturday (Associated Press)
• Christians leave Nigerian city as riot rages | Christians chased out of their homes by Muslims during bloody riots in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano boarded buses to leave town as fresh clashes broke out Friday (Reuters)
• Kano Assembly passes law on Sharia | Under the new law any Christian found consuming alcoholic drinks would be liable to one year imprisonment or an option of N50,000.00 fine or both while any Muslim caught for the same offence would be subjected to 80 lashes (Vanguard, Nigeria)

Back to subject index

Zimbabwe refuses food aid:

• Bishop slams Zimbabwe food claims | One of Zimbabwe’s top churchmen has criticized the government for refusing international food aid, saying the country will be left hungry (BBC)
• Earlier: Zimbabwe halts emergency food aid | The government of Zimbabwe has told international donors that it does not need emergency food aid this year, because it expects a bumper harvest (BBC)

Back to subject index

Sudan:

• U.N. official blames Sudan for violence | The United Nations’ top human rights official charged Friday that Sudan established, armed and supported Arab militias that allegedly expelled more than a million villagers in Sudan’s Darfur province and killed thousands. (Washington Post)

Back to subject index

Religion in India:

• India’s Gandhi sweeps Hindu nationalists from power | “A … secular coalition led by Congress should take the oath in the next few days,” party spokeswoman Ambika Soni said (Reuters)
• Caste aspersions | Is prejudice in India about religion or social standing? (Chloe Breyer, Slate)
• Larger Bench to define what constitutes essential part of a religion | A larger Bench of the Supreme Court will go into “what constitutes an essential part of a religion, with reference to a particular doctrine or religious practice followed by a particular community” (The Hindu, India)

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Indonesia:

• Indonesia goes Islamist? | Do elections portend the radicalization of a moderate Muslim state? (Paul Marshall, National Review Online)
• Three Christians arrested in Indonesia’s Poso district | The Poso police chief, Abdi Dharma Sitepu, says the three were seized during a door-to-door search in the predominantly Christian town of Tentena in Central Sulawesi province (Radio Australia)

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U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom report:

• Nations cited for religious abuses | A watchdog organization on religious liberties recommended yesterday that six nations be added to a State Department list of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom (The Washington Times)
• US religious group slams France for headscarf ban | A semi-official US religious freedom watchdog on Wednesday rebuked France and said it should “reassess” a controversial law banning certain religious garb in public schools, particularly Muslim headscarves (AFP)

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Global Christianity:

• S Korea’s zealous Mid-East missionaries | South Korean Christian missionaries have begun targeting the Muslim world in an effort to win converts from Islam (BBC)
• Philip Jenkins ‘takes five’ | Tracking the global path of Christianity (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

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Sex and human trafficking:

• U.S. group battles sex trade in S.E. Asia | Christian organization gets federal funds (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Don’t legalize | The Czech Republic proposes a Dutch solution to sex trafficking (Donna M. Hughes, National Review Online)

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Sexual ethics:

• When hello really means bi for now | More and more young women are trying out same-sex relationships. And the last thing they want is to be pinned down by labels (The Observer, London)
• Don’t touch me there | How do you persuade teenagers there is value in virginity? Joanna Moorhead compares US-style moral pledges with British sex education, and finds few converts (The Guardian, London)
• Virgins to campaign in Glasgow | A group of American virgins will jet into Glasgow next month to call on teenagers here to hold on to their virginity. (Glasgow Evening Times, UK)
• Teens told a silver ring and a vow of chastity are best way to combat sexual epidemic | Worried that their children are bombarded with words, clothes and pictures that “talk dirty”, six mothers are plotting a revolution against a society seen to be saturated with sex. The women, two Britons and four American expats, from Surrey, will next month launch a very American solution to the “sexual epidemic” afflicting the nation’s teens – a silver ring and a vow of chastity. (The Guardian, UK)

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Chile allows divorce:

• Chile legalizes divorce over opposition | Chile legalized divorce on Friday despite strong opposition from the Catholic Church, which warned the move would be harmful to families (Associated Press)
• Chileans granted right to divorce (BBC)

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Gay marriage:

• Gay Germans settling into civil unions | 3 years into law, debate still rages on how far rights should go (The Dallas Morning News)
• Advocates push for same-sex marriage in North Carolina | More than 50 people gathered in front of the Legislative Office Building in Raleigh on Wednesday demanding same-sex marriages be recognized in North Carolina (News14Carolina, Charlotte)
• Ads fight same-sex union ban | The Log Cabin Republicans began an ad campaign in Colorado yesterday opposing a proposed constitutional amendment to ban homosexual “marriage” and highlighting the efforts of two Republican lawmakers who crafted the amendment (The Washington Times)

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Homosexuality & religion:

• Feeling the wrath of Va. Baptists | Published comments on Bible, homosexuality put professor, university in hot water (The Washington Post)
• Same-sex partner benefits suit filed | A conservative legal group filed suit Thursday against San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales in an attempt to block extension of city-paid health and welfare benefits to same-sex partners of city employees (The Mercury News, San Jose, Ca.)
• Here to stay | We’re here, we’re mildly and tolerantly homophobic, get used to it! (John Derbyshire, National Review Online)
• Turned away from the table | Gay couple told to leave Communion in Warroad parish; priest says church teaching is clear (Grand Forks Herald, N.D.)
• Black churches are mostly silent about gay issues | The Church of God in Christ, one of the few black denominations to publicly address the issue, is headed in the opposite direction (Religion News Service)
• Bible can also justify horrors | Despite furrowed brows and earnest pleadings, the throng of evangelical clergy and family action coalition-types who have appeared on television in opposition to gay marriages, have yet to satisfy the court of plain reason with their arguments (Tom Harpur, The Toronto Star)
• Two men preparing to carry crosses charged with disorderly conduct | Before they could get one of their trademark 10-foot wooden crosses fastened together, two men were arrested by Dayton police officers on charges of disorderly conduct at yesterday’s Gay Day gathering (The Tennessean, Nashville)

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Adoption:

• Chinese parents not tricked, judge says in custody case | A judge in Memphis has terminated the parental rights of a couple who say they were tricked into giving up their daughter, now 5, to foster parents when she was a baby (The New York Times)
• Same-sex adoption negated in state | Oklahoma’s governor signed legislation this week ensuring homosexual couples from other states can’t force Oklahoma to list both partners’ names on a child’s adoptive birth certificate (The Washington Times)

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Procreation:

• Court rules against lesbian egg donor | Woman gets no parental rights to twins (Marin Independent Journal, Ca.)
• The heart’s desire | More and more women are entering the fertility vortex and finding that despite themselves, they will go as far as needed, spend whatever they can scrape up, take out second and third mortgages on their homes, and travel across the country and even overseas for tests and treatments, all in the hope of becoming pregnant (The New York Times)

Ohio man told to quit fathering:

• In Ohio, Supreme Court considers right to procreate | A man behind on child support got orders not to beget (The Washington Post)
• Ohio judge to deadbeat dad: No more kids | NPR’s Janet Babin reports on an Ohio Supreme Court judge who ruled that a “deadbeat” dad must refrain from having more children as part of his punishment for not paying child support. His attorney says the probation requirement is unreasonable (Day to Day, NPR)
• Judge proposes vasectomy pay plan | Men who habitually fail to pay their child support and who choose to have a vasectomy may get some help paying for it under a plan being considered by the Campbell Family Court (The Kentucky Post)
• Meet Sean Talty | Legal documents regarding the case (The Smoking Gun)

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14-year-old’s abortion controversy in Britain:

• Mother angry at secret abortion | A mother whose 14-year-old daughter had an abortion without her knowledge has criticized the law (BBC)
• School sent girl home to have secret abortion | A girl aged 14 was sent to hospital for an abortion without the knowledge of her mother, on the advice of a health visitor at her school (The Telegraph, London)

Abortion:

• ‘If only they had seen Jack before the abortion’ | Jack was born in Hereford County Hospital on April 16, 2000, a year before a late abortion was carried out at the same hospital by the same doctors for precisely the same condition (The Telegraph, London)
• LPD probes deaths as possible abortion | Lufkin Police are investigating whether the deaths of two unborn boys Friday in Lufkin are the result of an abortion attempt by the boys’ father, who has been charged with murder in the case, and mother, a police spokesman said Monday (The Lufkin Daily News, Tex.)
• Pro-lifers step-up attack on Lutheran General’s policies | They have been picketing and protesting for 10 years with no reaction from the hospital (Niles Herald-Spectator, Ill.)
• U.S. weighs in on Uruguay abortion vote | Rep. Chris Smith says he hopes that he played a small part in stopping Uruguay from becoming the first Latin American nation besides Cuba to legalize abortion. Critics say he was meddling in the affairs of another country (Associated Press)
• Abortion doctor pleads innocent to federal conspiracy charge | An abortion doctor pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a federal charge of conspiracy, the last count remaining from a 2001 conviction for extorting Marion County that an appeals court later threw out (Associated Press)
• Curate postpones cleft palate late abortion action | Joanna Jepson, the Church of England curate who mounted a legal challenge to the late abortion of a fetus with a cleft lip and palate, has agreed to a police request to postpone her High Court action (The Telegraph, London)
• Kerry’s wife planned abortion in 1970’s for medical reasons | Teresa Heinz Kerry told a television interviewer this week that she had planned to have an abortion in the mid-1970’s after discovering that cortisone she took while unaware of her pregnancy could cause birth defects but that she had a miscarriage the night before the scheduled procedure (The New York Times)

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Morning-after pill:

• Should ‘morning-after’ pill be over-the-counter? | Religious leaders respond (Los Angeles Times)
• 2 FDA officials urged to resign over Plan B | Lawmakers call decision political (The Washington Post)
• The politics of contraception | Last week, the FDA decision demonstrated that our society is still terribly divided about the role of women and their sexuality in a modern society (Ruth Rosen, San Francisco Chronicle)
• New plans | The FDA is within its rights to remain cautious about a controversial drug. But if the agency wants to preserve its reputation for making decisions based on sound science, it will stick to this proposal and grant Barr the license to sell the drug as soon as the information or a suitable plan becomes available (Editorial, The Washington Post)

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Life ethics:

• Choosing life at all costs | When Jill Stanek began working at Christ Hospital, she assumed her duties as a nurse wouldn’t conflict with her Christian values. She assumed wrong (Intelligencer Journal, Lancaster, Pa.)
• Republicans for stem cell research | The Bush administration’s restrictions on federal funds for embryonic stem cell research are so potentially damaging to medicine that they are encountering opposition even among the administration’s own conservative supporters (Editorial, The New York Times)
• McGreevey signs bill creating stem cell research institute | Gov. James McGreevey of New Jersey signed legislation Wednesday to establish the nation’s first state-supported stem cell research facility (The New York Times)
• Governor’s signature places Jersey in forefront of stem cell research (The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.)
• White House to discuss stem cells with House | Members of Congress who have been lobbying the White House to loosen restrictions on research with human embryonic stem cells have been promised a meeting with a White House representative next week. Several Hill-watchers said it would be the first face-to-face meeting between lawmakers and the White House on the issue in more than two years. (Washington Post)
• Bishop bans fundraising that harms embryos | Local Catholic students who raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society will have to ensure their donations are not used to fund research that uses human embryos to find cures for such diseases as leukemia (National Post, Canada)
• Scaled-down U.S. delegation to AIDS conference protested | Congressional letter objects that workshops and seminars become “religion-bashing sessions” (USA Today)

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Euthanasia:

• Euthanasia suspected at hospital | Fourteen in 18 suspicious deaths at a hospital in the French town of Besançon arose through “practices that can be described as euthanasia”, a report leaked to the French media says (The Guardian, London)
• Florida judge authorizes removal of feeding tube | In a strongly worded rebuke of Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature, a state circuit court judge on Thursday struck down a law that empowered the governor to prolong the life of a severely brain-damaged woman against her husband’s wishes (The New York Times)
• Fatal prescription spurs calls to end assisted suicide | Opponents of assisted suicide say the revelation that a depressed Oregon cancer patient was prescribed lethal drugs under that state’s Death With Dignity Act is reason to shut down the nation’s only legal assisted-suicide program (The Washington Times)

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Catholic politicians & communion:

• Religion Today: The Kerry Communion backlash | This latest confrontation has been building for several years (Associated Press)
• Pro-choice legislator will leave his church | Kenny cites his conflict with Catholic teaching (The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.)
• Vatican’s abortion edict a shadow over Kerry candidacy | Although reprimands from church leaders have centered on abortion, there have been no public tussles over the death penalty, also opposed by the Catholic Church (Media General News Service)
• Kerry will cross bishops’ path here | Sen. John Kerry plans to be in Denver next month. So will hundreds of Catholic bishops. The result could be a defining moment in the presidential campaign (The Denver Post)
• Burke stays the course on Communion, other issues | Despite the concerns of some non-Catholics and Catholics alike, including Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke said Thursday that he is more convinced than ever that Catholic politicians who support policies contrary to church teaching should not be allowed to receive Holy Communion (La Crosse Tribune, Wis.)
• Kerry takes communion on Mother’s Day | Democrat John Kerry attended Mother’s Day Mass on Sunday and took communion although some Roman Catholic leaders say he should not receive it because his abortion-rights stance violates church teachings (Associated Press)
• Communion becomes a test of faith and politics | In one sense the argument is really about how you define being faithful—to religious authority, to the Constitution or to both (The New York Times)
• Archbishop sets Eucharist rule | Oregon’s Catholic leader asks those at odds with church issues to abstain from Communion (The Oregonian)

Colorado:

• Bishop draws line for voters | Communion tied to politics (The Denver Post)
• Bishop would deny rite for defiant Catholic voters | The bishop of Colorado Springs has said that American Catholics should not receive communion if they vote for politicians who support practices that defy church teachings (The New York Times)
• Full text: Bishop Sheridan’s Pastoral letter (Diocese of Colorado Springs, PDF)
• Bishops gird for ‘retreat’ | Two controversies likely to dominate Englewood meeting (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)

New Jersey:

• Catholic lawmakers say personal beliefs can’t sway decisions | Archbishop’s stance puzzles local politicians (The Jersey Journal)
• N.J. politicians: Church is seeking too big a role | Roman Catholic politicians in New Jersey, including one who left the church yesterday, are expressing anger at what they say is an attempt by church leaders to force them to decide between their government oaths and their religion (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Newark archbishop pressures and angers officeholders over antiabortion decree | Five days after setting off an emotional bout of soul-searching among New Jersey’s Roman Catholic elected officials, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark said on Monday that he did not mean to attack anyone when he published a letter stating that it was dishonest for Catholic officeholders who favor abortion rights to receive communion (The New York Times)

Opinion:

• An enlightened bishop | Howard Hubbard is right to resist the trend of denying certain politicians Communion (Editorial, The Times Union, Albany, N.Y.)
• Denying communion | Catholic Church digging a big hole (Stu Bykofsky, Daily News, Philadelphia)
• Wenski: No ‘wafer’ if you ‘waffle’ | Bishop speaks to pro-abortion politicians `who insist on calling themselves Catholics’ (Thomas Wenski, The Orlando Sentinel)
• Eucharist rule tests all Catholics | Neither self-interest nor money explains why a few American bishops won’t serve communion to public figures who support abortion policies (Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News, Denver)

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Religion & politics:

• Attempts to legislate morality are politics, pure and simple | If you want to oppose gay marriage because of your religious beliefs, that’s fine. That’s your right, but don’t force your beliefs on everyone else. (John Sonderegger, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Rev. Moon’s curtain call | For several decades the Unification Church—not a Christian Church, but more of a theocratic movement with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon at its head—has played a significant role in supporting the Christian Right and the Republican Party (Bill Berkowitz, AlterNet)
• Rep. King blasts Vatican over Iraq comments | U.S. Rep. Peter King expressed outrage Thursday at the claim by a top Vatican official that the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal was worse for America than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks (Newsday)
• Deadly sins? | For the first time in four decades, the presidential election features the “Catholic question” (Mother Jones)
• Democrats aim for more gay delegates | Democratic parties in 15 states and Puerto Rico have set numerical goals for gays and lesbian delegates at the party’s national convention this summer, double the number that set a standard in 2000 (Associated Press)
• Calera mayor will rescind Dianetics Month proclamation | When Mayor George Roy signed a proclamation to that effect last month, he didn’t know he was endorsing a controversial religious movement (The Birmingham News, Ala.)
• Group presses judicial hopefuls | Georgia judicial races are usually sleepers, but this year the Christian Coalition is drawing voters’ attention to the candidates (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Survey to ask judges about stances on issues | Candidates to receive questionnaires from Christian Coalition of Georgia (Associated Press)
• Campaigns push conservatism | Commissioner, legal executive seek positions to encourage a return to traditional values (The Detroit News)
• The deepest divide: God, guns, and gays | In the struggle for swing voters, “values” issues are about to take center stage (Business Week)
• Endorsement exposes faulty logic | With his enthusiastic endorsement of pro-choice stalwart Arlen Specter, R-Pa., pro-life champion Rick Santorum, R-Pa., has, arguably, done more for the cause of abortion rights than either Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Tom Daschle, D-S.D., or John Kerry, D-Mass., will ever be able to achieve (Editorial, National Catholic Reporter)

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President Bush:

• Bush pushes compassionate side of agenda | Trying to showcase the softer side of his political agenda while banking more money for the Republican Party, President Bush is highlighting religion-oriented initiatives aimed at helping the poor (Associated Press)
• Bush courts Catholics in swing states | Many Democrats also conservatives (Chicago Tribune)
• Presidential politics and the evangelical movement | President Bush has become the most prominent evangelical Christian in America at a time when evangelical Christianity has become the pre-eminent religious bloc in the country (ReligionLink , Religion Newswriters Association)
• Abuse photos undermine Bush’s religious rhetoric | Church leaders object to casting God on U.S. side (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Mrs. Bush joins Pataki in prayer and politics | Mixing piety with Republican politics, Gov. George E. Pataki welcomed Laura Bush as the guest of honor at his annual prayer breakfast on Tuesday, using the occasion to praise both God and the president (The New York Times)
• Also: Bacon, eggs and Pataki, for a prayer | Is it okay to charge $1,000 for a prayer breakfast? (The New York Times)
• The perils of a righteous president | Faith without doubt leads to moral arrogance (Joe Klein, Time)

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War & terrorism:

• Solace on the site of disaster | The architects who will compete to design the new St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed on Sept. 11, face several big challenges (The New York Times)
• Overdosing on Islam | Compulsive Islam has soured some Iranians on religion, and on the mullahs in particular (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times)
• Group wants U.N. to take over in Iraq | The National Council of Churches, which has been highly critical of the war, acknowledged that Christians disagree on the issue, but said that giving control to the U.N. was the only way to create “lasting peace” (Associated Press)
• Hamill hailed at Miss. church service | Former hostage Thomas Hamill was greeted with hugs from fellow churchgoers Sunday as he attended services with his family. (Associated Press)
• “Me Christian! Me Christian!” | A chance encounter with an Iraqi priest. (National Review Online)
• Is God on our side anymore? | Two things impressed me about the about the men of the USS Kadashan Bay: their patriotism and belief in God. (Bertrand J. Adams Sr., Juneau Empire, AK)
• Image spurs faithful at annual visit | Deborah Cerda said she usually arrives five minutes late for Mass at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church. Yesterday, however, she was 15 minutes early for the noon Mass. The reason for her promptness was the Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. (New Brunswick Home News Tribune, NJ)
• Salvation Army officers reflect on Iraq mission | Salvation Army Lt. Cols. Mickey and June McLaren spent January and February in Al Amarah in southern Iraq. There, they worked to build schools, create jobs and raise the standard of living for the town’s 300,000 residents. (Rockford Register Star, Ill.)

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Abu Ghraib prison:

• No preservatives | Abu Ghraib is the fruit our culture has spent a generation preparing (Joel Belz, World)
• General who made anti-Islam remark tied to POW case | The U.S. Army general under investigation for anti-Islamic remarks has been linked by U.S. officials to the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, which experts warned could touch off new outrage overseas (Reuters)

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Religion in prison:

• Prison system sued over religion policy | A convicted rapist has filed suit against the state prison system, claiming he isn’t allowed to preach Christianity to fellow inmates. (Newsday, NY)
• Religious study may cut prison violence | Officials are crediting religious studies with cutting inmate violence at a prison routinely torn by race-based gang attacks (Associated Press)
• Religion in the News: Lawtey, Lawtey, God Almighty | Lawtey, about 30 miles southwest of Jacksonville, was transformed in December from a regular prison to one welcoming inmates who seek a religious life, regardless of faith (Associated Press)
• Prison system sued over religion policy | A convicted rapist has filed suit against the state prison system, claiming he isn’t allowed to preach Christianity to fellow inmates (Associated Press)

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Crime:

• Religion in the News: Letting the prodigal pastor return | St. John Baptist says John T. Brown can return to his post after he finishes serving a four-year prison sentence for sexual assault charges (Associated Press)
• Drunken priest shoots mayor dead | A Catholic priest shot to death the mayor of a town in western Mexico early on Wednesday after the pair got drunk and began punching each other during a religious festival, state officials said (Reuters)
• 8 Mexican men sentenced in priest’s death | A Mexican court sentenced eight drug-gang members to 40 years each in prison for their roles in the 1993 shooting of a Roman Catholic cardinal at a Guadalajara airport, officials said Friday (Associated Press)
• Police satisfied priest is dead | Police say they are satisfied a priest wanted in connection with child sex abuse allegations is dead (BBC)
• Arrest made in Madonna vandalism | Kyle Maskell wanted to be somebody (The Tampa Tribune, Fla.)
• Fla. man charged with breaking windows | A high school senior was arrested Monday on charges he used a slingshot to shatter office windows that thousands believed bore the image of the Virgin Mary (Associated Press)
• Teen’s arrest is a shock to his friends | Those who know the teen accused of vandalizing the Virgin Mary building say he has never been destructive (St. Petersburg Times, Fla.)
• L.A. judge throws out priest’s libel suit | A judge on Wednesday threw out a libel suit filed by a Roman Catholic priest who alleged a national victims rights group defamed him by publicizing claims he molested a woman three decades ago (Associated Press)

Ponzi schemes & fraud:

• Calif. firm accused of pyramid scheme; marines, churches invested | Chicago D&P “a classic Ponzi scheme,” says SEC (Fox News)
• Alleged Ponzi scheme put into receivership | A federal judge placed an alleged real estate scam into receivership Tuesday, hoping the move will help clean up a financial mess that has entangled at least 200 investors and churches (Associated Press)
• 2 clergymen lived richly off churches, charges say | The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago charged Catholic and Pentecostal pastors with filing false tax returns and under-reporting money skimmed from church funds (Chicago Tribune)

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Abuse allegations:

• Deaf pupils accuse nuns of abuse at Mass. school | Roman Catholic nuns subjected students at a Boston-area school for the deaf to sexual, physical and mental abuse — including rape — according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday (Reuters)
• Priest relieved of duties | The Rockford Diocese reacts to charges of sexual abuse from a female in Geneva (Rockford Register Star, Ill.)
• Jesuit free speech plea in abuse rejected | Massachusetts’s highest court ruled Thursday that a Roman Catholic order cannot claim constitutional protection of religious freedom to withhold personnel files of a priest charged with sexual abuse (Associated Press)
• 4 claim priest abuse in suit | Class-action status against Detroit archdiocese sought (The Detroit News)
• Priest’s libel suit is dismissed | Former Los Angeles cleric had sued a victims’ rights group that backed his accuser (Los Angeles Times)
• Local priest on leave in online child sex probe | Feds, police raid offices of church (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Pastor jailed for sex crimes | A church minister whose charisma and “pop star” status earned him a fortune has been jailed for three and a half years for sex offences against two members of his congregation (Reuters)
• Sex attack pastor gets three years | Douglas Goodman, who presided over Victory Christian Centre, one of Britain’s largest congregations, was yesterday jailed for sex attacks on members of his flock (The Guardian, London)

Catholic church deals with scandal:

• SJC says probe of church files OK | Ruling would affect sexual abuse cases (The Boston Globe)
• Archbishop is `troubled’ by sex-abuse surveys | Mansell expresses concerns about independence of sexual-abuse reviews (The Hartford Courant, Conn.)
• Sex-abuse panel assails U.S. bishops | The independent board accuses Catholic prelates of stalling on efforts to protect children (Los Angeles Times)
• Archdiocese sued over abuse | Cover-up alleged; suit could be class action (Detroit Free Press)
• Rift between bishops and lay board raises trust issue | The new head of the 13- member National Review Board says bishops are returning to “business as usual” as media attention shifts away from the sex abuse scandal (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Vatican bars US sex abuse priest | Paul Shanley, 73, and another accused priest were relieved of their duties, the Archdiocese of Boston said (BBC)
• Bishops accused of backsliding in sex abuse scandal | Lay review board seeks action (The Washington Post)
• Sex abuse panel says U.S. bishops manipulated it | A lay panel heading an investigation into sexual abuse in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church has accused the country’s bishops of manipulating it and backsliding on promises, according to a letter made public on Tuesday (Reuters)

Denver Archbishop defends abuse reforms:

• Chaput rebukes inquiry panel | Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput has rebuked a board of prominent Catholic lay people investigating the clergy abuse scandal, suggesting the group has overstepped its bounds and issued “implicit threats.” (The Denver Post)
• Chaput rebuts letter | He defends reforms in clergy sex scandal (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• Open bishop talks urged | Group targets discussions of abuse scandal (The Denver Post)
• Watchdogs assail Chaput | Group plans to focus on bishops critical of abuse reform panel (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)

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Catholicism:

• ‘Almost a miracle’ | Lucky find turns up a Catholic relic (Religion News Service)
• Is communion a proper place for atonement? | Sacramental theology supports both a view of the sacred meal as essentially a reward for good behavior and as a means of grace for sinners (Steve Gushee, Palm Beach Post)
• Virgin on Mexican wall is no miracle, church says | Mexico’s Catholic Church ruled out any divine origin for an image on a hospital wall that thousands of pilgrims are flocking to venerate in the belief that it shows the country’s patron saint (Reuters)
• Church aide puts closures at 80-85 | A top aide in the Archdiocese of Boston has been privately telling audiences she meets with that she expects 80 to 85 of the 357 parishes to close this year (The Boston Globe)
• Restoring the focus on faith | First communion: Church tones it down (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
• Retirement means an end to ancient Mass | A Huntington Beach parish valued the 6th century service in Latin. It was used worldwide until a change in the 1960s (Los Angeles Times)
• A new kind of feminist | Catholic roots sprout into women’s movement (The Denver Post)
• Archbishop addresses synod | Northern Ireland’s Catholic and Church of Ireland archbishops have helped create trust among the two communities, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said (BBC)
• School bars boy for late baptism | A boy who can trace his Catholic ancestry back almost 1,000 years has been barred from his local primary school for being baptised “too late” (BBC)
• Mary getting a makeover from some experts | The Mary who is emerging isn’t a meek Madonna. She is a modern, multitasking mama fighting for social justice. She is a healer. She doesn’t disappear after her son is crucified. She moves his ministry forward, teaching until she is in her 50s. (The Dallas Morning News)
• New bishop criticized for comparing critic to convicted pedophile | The new bishop of the Springfield Diocese apologized Thursday for hurting the feelings of alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse by comparing an outspoken priest and critic of church policies to a convicted pedophile (Associated Press)
• Bishop dissolves fund for priests | The new head of the Springfield Catholic diocese has dissolved a fund established by his predecessor for the support of priests accused of sexual misconduct, and has also removed an outspoken critic from a diocesan advisory board (Associated Press)
• Church, state, and dinner | Catholic leaders of the New York Archdiocese are considering whether Senator John Kerry should be barred from the Al Smith dinner, one of the city’s grand political events, because Mr. Kerry, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and other views at odds with church teachings. This would be regrettable since the Al Smith dinner, at its best, exemplifies pluralism and tolerance (Editorial, The New York Times)
• A spot of paint at a church, and the art mirrors life | Since 1868, all the images of the Madonna at Our Lady of Victory, the Roman Catholic church on Throop Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, had been white. Then in 1994, along came the Rev. Martin Carter (The New York Times)

Protestants and the rosary:

• Prayer in the round | Ecumenical ‘rosaries’ help Protestants form a tangible connection (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Attraction to Mary leads author to create own version (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Vatican warns against interfaith marriages:

• Vatican discourages interfaith marriages | Marriages between Catholics and non-Christians should be discouraged, particularly between Catholics and Muslims, the Vatican said in an official document on immigration published on Friday (SAPA, South Africa)
• Vatican warns Catholics against marrying Muslims | The Vatican warned Catholic women on Friday to think hard before marrying a Muslim and urged Muslims to show more respect for human rights, gender equality and democracy (Reuters)

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Christians & Jews:

• Messianic Jews gather this weekend | This weekend, about 300 Messianic Jews will gather in Sacramento for the first Western Regional Conference of Messianic Jews, called “The Heritage of the Lord” (The Sacramento Bee)
• Rabbis criticize evangelicals in Israel | Prominent Israeli rabbis are for the first time speaking out against Israel’s profitable alliance with evangelical Christians in the United States who have funneled tens of millions of dollars to the Jewish state (Associated Press)
• Christian groups complain ties with Israel ‘worst ever’ | Christian organizations in the Holy Land say ties with the Israeli government are the worst ever and have accused Israel of denying visas to some clergy – making them unwelcome in the place of Jesus’ birth (Reuters)
• Also: Poraz promises solutions | In response to the Christian organizations’ letter, Interior Minister Avraham Poraz met with church representatives yesterday and agreed on various measures to provide temporary relief until a permanent solution to the visa problem is found (Haaretz, Tel Aviv)
• Christian Zionists win Jews for GOP | Die-hard Republicans’ zeal for Israel boosts party’s appeal with unlikely voting block (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Judge dismisses suit claiming defamation by Jews for Jesus | Edith Rapp sued the religious movement for claiming she converted to the organization’s beliefs (Associated Press)
• Rabbi sends mixed messages on funding from Christians | The ongoing battle in the religious sector over the status of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a fund that transfers millions of dollars a year to Israel from Christian donors around the world, has seen a new development over the past fortnight (Haaretz, Tel Aviv)

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Church life:

• Members sue church leaders 2nd time | Issues include lack of regular meetings, access to records (The Huntsville Times, Ala.)
• Charting a new course | Some longtime members of Roanoke’s First Baptist Church say they feel driven away by the recent changes under the new leadership of the Rev. James Austin (The Roanoke Times, Va.)
• Power battle roils Greek Orthodox church | If Greek Orthodox Christians hope to retain power within their church, they need to band together and demand it, church leaders said Saturday at an Oak Brook forum (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Gower’s heaven says ex-primate | Church-going villagers in an idyllic part of Wales are becoming used to seeing one of the world’s most famous religious figures in their local parish (The Western Mail, Wales)
• Assembly discusses churches’ problems | The three-day Lutheran meeting in Riverside is set to talk about demanding issues (The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Ca.)
• First Baptist gains Burmese pastor | Members of First Baptist Church who have welcomed Burmese refugees for more than 23 years now have a Burmese associate pastor. (Battle Creek Enquirer, Mich.)
• For Lutheran church, God’s love flows through eBay | A Lutheran church in Wauconda, Ill., has found a 21st century way to raise money for a new sanctuary — hawking members’ trinkets on eBay (Religion News Service)
• Prayerful beginning | An expansive new church for Calvary Chapel members is almost ready to open in Aiea (Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
• In less than four years, a megachurch has grown amid wooded mountains | Word Alive International Outreach averages 1,700 to 1,800 worshippers at its weekend services (The Birmingham News, Ala.)
• Developer hopes to buy church to give to other church | Parishioners say sale may not be legal (WMUR, Manchester, N.H.)
• Rural churches face new crisis over empty pews | Average congregation size: 14 (The Times, London)
• Amish roll with change | More Amish are working off the farm, operating small businesses and coming into contact with an outside world obsessed with speed and convenience. The Amish also are opening up to once-banned forms of technology — all changes that will influence generations to come (Associated Press)
• Mistakes cited in deadly church blaze | Improper equipment and firefighters’ reluctance to damage a historic church may have contributed to the spread of a fire that collapsed the church, killed two firefighters and injured two dozen others, investigators said (Associated Press)

Churches’ changing language:

• Church’s bilingual services have an unusual twist | Immanuel Presbyterian in Koreatown uses Spanish, English, and a combination of the two (Los Angeles Times)
• Prayers in Pr. George’s take on a new dialect | Immigrants’ churches thrive as others languish (The Washington Post)

Weddings & funerals:

• Spring thaw allows for burials in Alaska | As the spring thaw softens ground that has been frozen hard as granite by the long Alaska winter, cemeteries start burying people who died during the past seven months (Associated Press)
• Weddings: Going to the chapel? | Church consolidation plans have sent couples scrambling for alternative wedding sites (Newsweek)
• Bow wow vows | Should pets really have a part to play at wedding ceremonies? If they must, says Justine Hankins, but for goodness sake keep them away from the altar (The Guardian, London)
• Aisle find a way! | It was a dream come true for the couple who are the first residents of Amberley Court private nursing home in Edgbaston to become husband and wife. (Evening Mail, UK)

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Methodism:

• Methodist finds support after speech | Hinson ‘separation’ suggestion thrust him into spotlight (The Huntsville Times, Ala.)
• Tiny town has huge stature for Methodists | Deep in horse country, beneath a water tower topped by a cross, lies a small town that’s changing a big church (Gannett News Service)
• United they stand | Methodists find a way of staying together (Editorial, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
• Methodists ponder how to grow West | In the church’s 12-state Western region, where liberals dominate the leadership, membership has declined 22 percent in the last 20 years while the region’s population has grown 47 percent (The Denver Post)
• Written constitution plan to avoid Church split | A written constitution is being considered by the Anglican Church in an attempt to prevent it splitting over the issue of homosexuality (The Telegraph, London)
• Methodists vote overwhelmingly against call to split the church | The vote, on the closing day of the church’s quadrennial General Conference, was primarily a symbolic measure meant to signal anguish at the conservatives’ initiative (The New York Times)

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Anglicanism:

• Church rebels over gay dean | A conservative evangelical church in Barnet made history this week by refusing to pay its diocesan ‘tax’ in a rebellion against the appointment of an openly gay Dean of St Albans (Barnet & Potters Bar Times, England)
• Virginia diocese split over gay bishop | After Virginia Bishop Peter J. Lee became one of 62 bishops who voted last summer at a church convention to approve Bishop Robinson’s consecration, 24 parishes staged an economic boycott of the diocese (The Washington Times)
• Archbishop’s wife urges family rethink | Jane Williams, the theologian and wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, suggested last night that the traditional model of the family promoted by the church might be outmoded in tackling modern social problems (The Guardian, London)
• Archbishop’s wife in family values plea | Divorce and infidelity have “ravaged” British families much as war and Aids have destroyed lives in the Third World, the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury said last night (The Telegraph, London)
• Go forth, muscular Christians | The battle of the faithful within Anglicanism has claimed its latest victims (Chris McGillion, The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Parents in tears as choir’s 130 years of tradition wiped out | Is it a sign of Phillip Jensen’s “antipathy towards mainstream Anglicanism”? (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Response: No crusade here | There are certain matters in The Sydney Morning Herald‘s article about last Sunday night’s meeting that require clarification (Chris Moroney, Anglican Media Sydney)
• A prize for the best blasphemy | The Church Times has, perhaps surprisingly, been running a blasphemous caption competition (Christopher Howse, The Telegraph, London)
• Female moderator promises to cast light on ‘heavy’ Kirk culture | “I think the church’s mission is a very serious matter, but we can take ourselves too seriously on various occasions,” says Alison Elliot (The Herald, Glasgow)
• Kirk must improve links with US, says new moderator | The Church of Scotland needs to improve its transatlantic links in light of the war on terrorism, Kirk leaders warned yesterday (The Scotsman)
• Episcopal bishop sanctioned; wed gay mate | The Episcopal Diocese of California has sanctioned a retired bishop for marrying his same-sex partner during a church ceremony in San Francisco, according to a published report (Associated Press)
• Bishop disciplined for same-sex union | The Episcopal Diocese of California has punished a retired bishop for marrying his same-sex partner at a church ceremony last month in San Francisco. (Associated Press)

Former Archbishop Lord Carey:

• Carey’s war fears over Islam and the West | Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, warned yesterday that the violence in Iraq could spiral into a full-scale “clash of civilizations” if religious leaders failed to act (The Telegraph, London)
• Carey makes fresh Islam speech | The former Archbishop of Canterbury has made a fresh speech on Islam weeks after linking the religion to violence (BBC)
• ‘I don’t recognize the way the Church is described’ | Carey dismissed the media portrayal of a church split between radicals and traditionalists as inaccurate (The Western Mail, Wales)

Online church:

• First web-pastor appointed | The Church of England has appointed its first web pastor to oversee a new parish that will exist only on the net (BBC)
• In cyberspace, can anyone hear you pray? | Churches are having to use their imagination to attract new members. The 3D virtual-reality Church of Fools is just one idea, but does it have any chance of building a congregation? (BBC)
• 3D church opened to woo Internet faithful | Christians in Britain opened a zany 3D Internet church on Tuesday, billed as a first chance for believers to log on and worship interactively (Reuters)

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Ministry:

• Promise Keepers to shift mission away from faith | Promise Keepers officials say they intend to change the focus of their Christian men’s ministry after a survey they commissioned found that most men do not consider matters of faith a top need (Religion News Service)
• Evanston pastor ‘crusades’ for renewal | When a young man was shot execution-style in front of the Rev. Peter Matthews’ church on Fairfax Avenue six weeks ago, the minister knew he had to try to help bring an end to the violence ravaging the neighborhood (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
• Tent-city organizers decline aid from churches | Homeless advocates who plan to launch a new tent city near Bothell next week politely turned down offers of sanctuary from local churches last night (Seattle Times)
• Churches offer to swap golf tips for prayers at Open | Organisers believe golf is an ideal hook to get youngsters interested in religion (The Times, London)
• Happy souls dull hunger for heaven, says evangelist | Australians were hard to reach with the Christian message because life here was so good, a national conference on evangelism was told yesterday (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Thailand’s gold rush for God | Missionaries are working hard to bring salvation to tribal people in Chiang Rai’s highlands (Asia Times)

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Missions:

• A drive to spread the word of Jesus | Couple journeys country on bike to bring salvation (Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC)
• A beautiful deal | Never stop converting (Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review Online)
• Calls for tolerance untenable for some | A belief that other faiths are not legitimate prompts some Christians to support blocking a Muslim speaker (The Oregonian)
• Christian aid groups in Iraq face clash of religious beliefs | Scholars say American missionaries viewed as invaders by many Muslims (The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.)
• Missionary couple try to plant new faith, not culture, in Nigeria | It’s Christianity, but not ”Western” Christianity, that two Lebanon missionaries attempt to present to Muslims in Nigeria (The Tennessean, Nashville)

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Christian schools:

• Judge rules in favor of Heartland | A federal judge has ruled Heartland Christian Academy “suffered irreparable harm” from two Northeast Missouri juvenile officers and issued a permanent injunction against juvenile officer Mike Waddle in a 163-page opinion released Tuesday (Quincy Herald-Whig, Mo.)
• Judge bars future raids of Christian reform school | U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber issued the permanent injunction Tuesday in a 163-page opinion favoring northeast Missouri’s nondenominational Heartland Christian Academy (Associated Press)
• Churches warn on faith schools | Church schools set up to serve a social mix of children will become “uncontrollably middle class” if the government presses on with moves to charge for school bus travel, MPs were warned yesterday (The Guardian, London)
• Southern Baptists eye exiting public schools | A resolution urging Southern Baptists to remove their children from public schools has been proposed by an Alexandria man for the denomination’s annual convention in Indianapolis next month (The Washington Times)
• Making the case for parochial schools | Sending a child to parochial school isn’t always easy. Tuition can be steep. The environment can be insular. But if they gave parochial education a serious look, countless American parents would find that the values it promotes are their values, and the truth it inculcates is their truth (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe)

School prayer:

• Manatee board votes to settle prayer suit | The settlement allows the School Board to open its meetings with a non-sectarian invocation (Sarasota Herald Tribune, Fla.)
• Schools settle prayer lawsuit | Invocations continue (Bradenton Herald, Fla.)
• Board ought to give thanks | Members should firmly commit to nonsectarian invocations (Editorial, Sarasota Herald Tribune, Fla.)
• Will all honor School Board prayer deal, and leave out Jesus’ name? | Unless the board is careful to make sure that everyone who gives an invocation before a school board meeting understands the deal and promises to honor it, the legal battle will begin again (Tom Lyons, Sarasota Herald Tribune, Fla.)

Education:

• District 4 discusses religion at school | Anderson School District 4 workers were told they have to remain neutral in any religious expression at school or when they act in an official capacity (Associated Press)
• Teacher who spoke of religion back on job | Anderson District 4 Superintendent Gary Burgess said Monday that Jean Byce would remain a teacher’s assistant, but switched her to a fifth-grade classroom (Associated Press)
• Making a difference | Nonprofit group brings Christian education to children, among its other good works (The News-Sentinel, Ft. Wayne, Ind.)
• Accommodating Muslims in public school: where to draw the line? | If at all possible, no American of any faith should have to choose between following conscience and enjoying benefits of public education (Charles Haynes, First Amendment Center)
• No degree for White House speaker | Mount St. Mary’s College says it has withdrawn an honorary degree promised to its commencement speaker, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, amid a faculty-led protest over his support for the death penalty (Associated Press)
• Commencement speakers assailed | Conservative Catholics lobby schools (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Colo. governor signs college voucher plan | The money can go to religious schools, as long as they are not “pervasively sectarian” (Associated Press)
• Gays 1, phobes 0 | The passion of the Westminster school board (R. Scott Moxley, OC Weekly)

Homeschooling:

• Reading, ‘riting, reverence | Many Christian home school parents think schools separate learning from its religious roots (The Toronto Star)
• Home schooling: Risky course | One thing that has never sat well with me is the concept of home-schooling children for religious reasons (Jason Alston, The Daily Dispatch, Henderson, N.C.)

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Church & state:

• Monument shalt go | The Duluth City Council agrees to settle the lawsuit that demands removal of the much-debated Ten Commandments monument from city property (Duluth News Tribune, Minn.)
• Ten Commandments suit wears on Wash. town | Everett has spent close to six figures defending itself against a lawsuit that seeks $1 in punitive damages and the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the front of the police station (Associated Press)
• It may take prayer to stop these folks | Until recently, I have found it hard to believe that anyone could get elected around here who thinks the Minnesota religion could be anything other than worshiping the Minnesota Vikings. But I have had my head in the sand (Nick Coleman, Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
• Marriage ban legit, but not for religious reasons | “Because it’s in the Bible” is never a good enough reason for passing restrictive laws in a secular society (John Bogner, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.)
• ‘Under God,’ and under the Constitution | Nation’s pledge can coexist with the freedom to remain silent (Kenneth W. Starr, Los Angeles Times)
• La Mesa council to continue invocation | But no sectarian prayer will be said (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Founders thanked God, so modern lawmakers can, too | the fact that there is a Creator and that we owe a duty to the Creator is accepted by the founders as a truth. There is a Creator under our Constitution  (Bob Kleve, Grand Forks Herald, N.D.)
• The Church … or the ship of state? | Sunday was a big day at our house. Michael Jr. had his first holy communion. As a parent, I was very proud. But as a lawyer, I was a little worried (Michael Smerconish, Philadelphia Daily News)
• Religious literature allowed in city buildings | Leaflets with religious references are permitted in Honolulu’s government buildings, under a settlement reached in a lawsuit that the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission had declined to pursue (Pacific Business News)
• Turkey orders sermons on women’s rights | Reforms preached in 70,000 mosques (Chicago Tribune)
• Hallelujah! Shops sell booze before Sunday lunch | To the thousands of Scots who prefer a supermarket trolley to a church pew on Sunday mornings it has been a constant source of irritation, an unwelcome reminder of the nation’s Presbyterian past (Scotland on Sunday)

Religion & politics in Canada:

• Judge Harper’s policies, not his religion | Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper says the federal Liberals are trying to paint him as a religious zealot. He says that’s bigotry, and he’s right (Editorial, Ottawa Citizen)
• Canada breeds religious acrimony | The Canada we knew 20 years ago really must be dead. Montreal’s Gazette reported this weekend that Canadians now expect religion — religion! — to be the greatest source of social conflict in Canada in the coming years (Colby Cosh, The National Post, Canada)
• Devout Liberal MPs ask Martin to condemn party tactics on religion | Devout Liberal MPs are appalled by their party’s attempt to demonize the Conservatives as a bunch of extreme religious zealots and are urging Prime Minister Paul Martin to repudiate the “inappropriate” and “hypocritical” election tactic (Canadian Press)
• Canada breeds religious acrimony | The Canada we knew 20 years ago really must be dead. Montreal’s Gazette reported this weekend that Canadians now expect religion — religion! — to be the greatest source of social conflict in Canada in the coming years. (National Post, Canada)

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Religious freedom:

• EMT sues ambulance company over firing | An emergency medical technician fired by an ambulance company for refusing to help drive a woman to an abortion clinic sued her former employer Friday, claiming religious discrimination (Associated Press)
• Endres’ lawyer argues ‘Hobson’s choice’ to Supreme Court | Riverboat assignment for state trooper still at issue (South Bend Tribune, Ind.)
• Mich. school region settles yearbook case | ACLU got school district to apologize to a high school valedictorian whose yearbook quote was removed because it was a Bible verse (Associated Press)
• House urges Vietnam to release priest | The House on Wednesday urged Vietnam to immediately release a Roman Catholic priest who was detained three years ago after writing a report describing the lack of religious freedom in that country (Associated Press)
• Lawsuit against the University of Utah cites collision of religious and speech rights | A Mormon woman who says she was forced out of a theater program at the University of Utah because she would not read from a script with profanity argues in a lawsuit that the episode violates her constitutional right of free speech (The New York Times)
• Calls for tolerance untenable for some | A belief that other faiths are not legitimate prompts some Christians to support blocking a Muslim speaker (The Oregonian)

Nativity scene in Palm Beach:

• No deal on Nativity in Palm Beach | Despite six hours of negotiations, the town of Palm Beach and two residents failed to settle a lawsuit over placing a Nativity scene on Royal Poinciana Way (Palm Beach Post, Fla.)
• What childishness is this | You would think that a dispute over a Nativity scene that began before Christmas would have been settled by Easter (Editorial, Palm Beach Post, Fla.)

Witch threatens suit:

• Mayor spared a hex debt | A witch support group has dropped its action against a suburban mayor after he denied saying the local witches were evil (Herald Sun, Melbourne, Australia)
• Earlier: Witch to sue mayor | Taxpayers will foot a $50,000 bill so that a transgender “witch” may sue a suburban mayor for outing her (Herald Sun, Melbourne, Australia)

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Marilyn Manson to play Jesus?

• Marilyn Manson playing against type | Will Marilyn Manson play Jesus? (MSNBC)
• Earlier: Marilyn Manson now going door-to-door trying to shock people (Satire, The Onion, January 31, 2001)

Film & theater:

• ‘Saved!’ tackles faith through teenagers’ eyes | To me, “Saved!” is a love note to faith, fairly simple and a little confused (Cathleen Falsani, Chicago Sun-Times)
• ‘Passion’ DVD due Aug. 31 | Gibson has said in interviews that he may let the movie stand on its own on the DVD, but the Pax network ran a primetime special on the making of the movie that could be included. It featured Gibson and most of the cast and crew on the set and in subsequent interviews similar to those typically featured in DVD bonus features (Variety)
• Divine DVD | ”Passion” DVD sets Aug. 31 release date. Expect few, if any extras (Entertainment Weekly)
• Zondervan to distribute ‘Passion’ video to Christian bookstores | The world’s largest publisher of the Bible will help Christians take home the “Passion” (Associated Press)
• Faith, fact, and fiction | The controversial Mel Gibson film on Christ’s last hours opens in India, even as a best-selling novel challenges orthodox Christianity’s perceived misogyny (Frontline, India)
• Debating the existence of God – while doing backflips | Most theatergoers don’t expect to get a lesson in moral philosophy with their Playbill. But one of Broadway’s recent additions offers enlightenment – with a dash of three-ring circus (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Hollywood missing the point with ‘religious’ movie | “The Passion” speaks reverently about the central figure of the Christian faith. “Saved!” appears to mock Him, or at least satirize His followers, portraying them as hypocrites and superficial dunderheads, which is how most of Hollywood sees Christians (Cal Thomas)

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Music:

• True love waits | There is more to Rebecca St James than simply keeping her pants on (Anna Smyth, The Scotsman)
• Music piracy is wrong, any way you cut it | As computer-impaired as I am, I know enough about right and wrong to know what to call self-professed Christians who go to church Sunday morning, then download free tunes Sunday night (Ken Garfield, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)
• A full-power Bach ‘Passion’ | You didn’t need Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” or a big-screen Crucifixion scenario to be instantly drawn into the saga of Jesus’s last days when J. Reilly Lewis led the Washington Bach Consort on Sunday in Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” (The Washington Post)
• We know Bono’s Christian by his love | Can we get off this jag of downgrading a guy for some four letter words and a little drinking, when basically he’s spent most of his life in the excessive world of rock ‘n’ roll standing up for bedrock Christian principles such as caring for the impoverished and oppressed (Rich Copley, Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.)
• He dares to be radical | Calvin Wilby, more commonly known as Prodigal Son, has distinguished himself in the gospel music industry as the radical Christian, who is determined to use his talents as a hardcore deejay to preach and spread the gospel (Jamaica Gleaner)
• Gospel music going in the wrong direction | Gospel singer and songwriter, Patrick Coombs has a strong warning for greedy gospel singers who step on others in their search for the almighty dollar, and it is contained in his new release, called A Spiritual Protest (The Jamaica Observer)

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Sports:

• Radio talk show host reflects the good side of sports | “This is not a Christian sports show,” says Frank Giardina of Sports Spectrum. “It is a sports talk show that features Christians” (The Grand Rapids Press)
• Seeking an amen from admen | Some industry executives wonder whether there can be too much of a God thing, whether Dwight Howard’s public expression of his beliefs might give pause to companies who otherwise would quickly sign him to multi-million dollar product endorsement deals (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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Books:

• Prophecy theory | Local Christian author believes the war in Iraq is part of the ‘last days’ as described in the Bible (Norwich Bulletin, Ct.)
• Abortion, the family enhancer? | Liza Mundy reviews Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century by Alexander Sanger (The Washington Post)
• On the da Vinci trail | Three tour companies, at least, have grabbed onto the very popular coattails of Dan Brown’s novel (The New York Times)
• A litany of horrors | Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal magazine, reviews Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal by David France (The Washington Post)
• The spiritual revolution that changed the political configuration of Europe | Michael Dirda reviews The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch (The Washington Post)
• ‘I dare you’ | Madeleine L’Engle on God, “The DaVinci Code” and aging well (Newsweek)
• Growing up in a one-church town | Imagine the rebellious hero of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye set down in Manitoba Mennonite country and you are on the way to understanding the black humour of Miriam Toews’s latest novel (The Globe and Mail, Canada)
• Christian fiction | Thrillers, romance, science fiction are all part of growing book market (The Express-Times, Bethlehem, Pa.)

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Media:

• Should the Tribune have cleaned up Ald. Mell’s language? | About half a dozen readers communicated their displeasure with Mell’s use—abuse?—of the name Jesus Christ and, in some cases, with the Tribune’s decision to print it (Don Wycliff, Chicago Tribune)
• Program prompts Billy Graham to repeat belief about Christ | Billy Graham still believes Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, contrary to the impression left by a PBS “Frontline” special (Baptist Press)

NPR covers new religions:

• New religions, part I: A survey | As religions adapt and arise to reflect the changing times, NPR begins a four part series on new religious movements. NPR’s Barbara Bradley Hagerty introduces the series with a look at the trends, and why new religions may be influential, even if short lived (All Things Considered, NPR)
• New religions, part II: Toronto Blessing | NPR’s series on new religious movements continues today with the fastest growing Christian church. The Toronto Blessing is a Pentecostal church, in which the worshippers display a personal, physical connection with God through manifestations such as speaking in tongues and barking like dogs (All Things Considered, NPR)

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Spirituality:

• Northwest seen as ‘unchurched’ yet religious | While fewer people in the Northwest than anywhere else in the country say they belong to a religious institution, most here do identify with some religious tradition, according to a new book examining faith in Washington, Oregon and Alaska (Seattle Times)
• Pilgrims flock to Texas town to view Jesus image | Religious pilgrims have come to this Robstown, Texas, by the hundreds to glimpse an image of Jesus they say is weeping inside a wood-framed house (Associated Press)
• A piercing question when it comes to body adornments | While many in the industry say most people get pierced for fashion reasons, there are those for whom piercing holds spiritual, if not religious, connotations. (The Delaware County Times, Penn.)

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National Day of Prayer:

• What would Jesus do? It’s a good question | This is America, so even a National Day of Prayer must become a spectacle (Mike Lafferty, The Orlando Sentinel)
• In Your name, Lord, we prey | Lord, I’m sorry I missed last week’s National Day of Prayer. It looked like a rally of evangelical conservatives pushing a political agenda. (Jim Spencer, Denver Post)
• Nearer whose God? | The National Day of Prayer Task Force may limit its proceedings to whomever it wishes. But that doesn’t mean it was wise to do so (Editorial, The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Praying in the USA | Where the National Day of Prayer comes from—and where it’s going (Erin Montgomery, The Weekly Standard)

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Bible:

• A Bible with no thees and not a lot of shes | Edwin Blum, the general editor of the Holman Christian Standard Bible, spent nearly eight years poring over every jot and tittle from Genesis to Revelation (Religion News Service)
• Speech patterns | Familiar biblical passages in different translations (The Dallas Morning News)

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Business:

• Take your beliefs to work, speaker says | About 75 Tallahassee businessmen and spiritual leaders recently got a pep talk on the importance of seeing their jobs not merely as work but also as opportunities for ministry (Tallahassee Democrat, Fla.)
• In pursuit of the almighty dollar | Dateline investigation: Inside story of business that attracts people with promise of easy money (Dateline NBC)
• Quixtar disputes TV report | Quixtar rejected Dateline NBC’s assertion that it runs a “scam” where few get rich and many lose money buying high-priced business support materials such as motivational cassettes and videos (The Grand Rapids Press, Mi.)
• Investors unsure about sharia | Uncertainty over which investments are compliant has been highlighted by a study which claims that some equity funds are not conforming to the rules (Financial Times)
• Jesus chic is latest fashion trend | A slew of designers and boutiques have been jumping on the Jesus bandwagon, offering everything from T-shirts to belts paying homage to the Lord (Fox News)
• Local Curves seeks distance from founder | For a chain that advertises a safe haven for woman, Curves has had to fend of recent criticisms about founder Gary Heavin’s political connections (Cambridge Chronicle, Mass.)
• Related: SF Chronicle admits errors in columns about “Curves” by Rosen and Carroll (ChronWatch)
• Also: Corrections (San Francisco Chronicle)

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People:

• Moderation in all things | For a pioneer, Dr Alison Elliot has a surprisingly bemused air (The Scotsman)
• Going his way | Death comes to the monsignor (William McGurn, The Wall Street Journal)
• Woman mauled by lion tells church of ordeal |  ‘Is this real, or is it a nightmare?’ Anne Hjelle says she wondered during the attack as she rode a mountain bike in an Orange County park (Los Angeles Times)

Prince Charles examines Eastern Orthodoxy:

• Has Prince Charles found his true spiritual home on a Greek rock? | Visits spark claims of royal’s commitment to Orthodoxy (The Guardian, London)
• Charles’ mystical retreat | sun, fine wine and absolutely no women (The Mirror, U.K.)

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Mystery:

• Bletchley Park tries to crack a 250-year mystery | Do 10 letters at stately home lead to Holy Grail? (The Independent, London)
• Bletchley veterans tackle ‘toughest puzzle yet’ | Enigma code solvers try to unravel 1748 inscription on estate’s shepherd monument (The Guardian, London)

Mormon temple in Manhattan:

• Its new Manhattan temple is a first for Mormon church | It’s also inside an existing building and doesn’t have the soaring spires normally associated with such a place of worship (Los Angeles Times)
• Modern Mormonism | Membership is increasing — and diversifying — as a new temple opens in Manhattan (Newsday)

More articles:

• Religion news in brief | Trying to postpone the ELCA’s gay vote, Ivory Coast denomination becomes part of United Methodist Church, Muslim families to sue over alleged mistreatment of pupils, and other stories (Associated Press)
• Religion news in brief | National Review Board leader will depart next month, Bishops who defied Episcopal Church rules set conditions for meeting colleagues, Greek church head is defiant in dispute with world Orthodox leader, Christian leaders, peace activists denounce ‘Christian Zionism,’ and other stories (Associated Press)
• Devilish digits | Marc Abrahams reveals mathematical proof that Mikhail Gorbachev is the Antichrist (The Guardian, London)
• Sacred spaces: government lands and religion | Summer takes vacationers to government parks and historic sites where religion and history sometimes clash, raising the question, “Whose history is it, anyway?” (ReligionLink , Religion Newswriters Association)

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At a Beaverton City Council meeting last May, councilor Cathy Stanton noted the prayer breakfast, scheduled two days later. “She explained this was sponsored by a group of businessmen in the area and not by any local jurisdiction,” say the minutes for that meeting. “She noted anyone was welcome to attend.”

But councilor Fred Ruby found the invitation “concerning,” and said it was inappropriate and unconstitutional for city officials to promote attendance at the breakfast. The meeting itself, he said, was “insensitive to non-Christian citizens” and probably illegal.

The following week, after the prayer breakfast had taken place, the debate continued. This time, it was new resident and local United Church of Christ pastor Mary Sue Evers who complained. “She said Jesus offered a whole-hearted inclusion and acceptance, and she believed to exclude others in his name was not to be as Christian as possible,” say the minutes. “She suggested in this community many forms of spirituality could be honored, and she hoped events like this would be inclusive of all the diversity in Beaverton.”

As it turns out, this had been Ruby’s concern all along. Responding to another citizen’s challenge to his comments the previous week,

Ruby said he originally was concerned because the Mayor’s Executive Assistant was on the planning committee for the event and he observed promotional posters for the event posted in City Hall.  He said he resolved the issues with the Mayor; the Mayor assured him city staff had not worked on the program on city time.  He said the Mayor had instructed staff to remove unauthorized posters.  He said he accepted that the program met the requirements of the Constitution; whether or not it violated the spirit of the Constitution was a subject of principled differences of opinion.  He said the most important issue was that the program should reach out to all faiths in the community.

Let’s summarize. Critics of last year’s event conceded that the prayer breakfast was not a government-sponsored event. However, they wanted to pressure the Christian group to change its theology, which accepts ecumenical but not interfaith prayer.

Forcing the issueThis year, that pressure escalated. Beaverton Mayor Rob Drake, citing “controversy about the event’s inclusiveness last year,” invited a local Jewish rabbi to offer the event’s opening prayer, and a Muslim leader to offer the closing prayer.

The organizers, the Beaverton-Tigard Chapter of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship & Concerned Citizens, voted 7-to-1 to rescind the invitation to the Muslim.

“The Muslims are not part of the Judeo-Christian tradition,” communications director Peter Reding told The Oregonian. Board members, he said, were uncomfortable with the idea of praying to Allah.

“It’s just broken my heart,” Drake said. “I thought we had found openness and the ability to honor diversity.”

Drake, who was scheduled to speak at the breakfast, said he wouldn’t attend at all. This was followed by similar withdrawals from other mayors and city officials throughout Washington County. Another speaker, Oregon Air National Guard Col. Garry Dean, also pulled out.

“The Oregon National Guard does not and cannot support an organization that excludes others based on religion,” said spokeswoman Misti Mazzia. “When it comes to any discrimination against anyone, that’s a no-brainer in the military.”

The third speaker, local business leader Steve Hanamura, said he’d keep his commitment, but reluctantly. “You guys are wrong in what you did, but I’ll stand by you,” he told the event organizers.

When it became clear that few, if any, mayors would attend, the board canceled the event altogether. “The purpose of the event is gone,” explained registrar Roy Dancer. Other prayer events in the city scheduled that day (May 5 is the National Day of Prayer) will continue. It may not happen next year, either, he said. “It’s in limbo. If it’s going to be held next year, some fences need to be mended.”

‘Vitriolic’ explanations Drake said he received about 600 responses at City Hall about his decision to withdraw. “And you can count on two hands the negative comments,” he said. “I appreciate the community’s outpouring of support for diversity, tolerance, and understanding.”

Ah, yes. Diversity, tolerance, and understanding. That is, a diversity that doesn’t include people who believe the Muslim Allah is not the Christian God, a tolerance that says Christians must pray with Muslims, and an understanding that doesn’t see why a non-governmental prayer event sponsored by a Christian organization doesn’t include prayers from all faiths.

The controversy will likely continue, since it’s clear that this debate got quite heated. When breakfast spokesman Peter Reding explained that “everybody is invited to come to the breakfast,” but that the breakfast has a “Jewish-Christian tradition only on the dais,” the executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon called those comments “vitriolic.” Diversity, tolerance, and understanding, indeed.

The Oregonian, which has already published many opinionpieces on the debate, piles on in an editorial today. “The event itself was divisive,” the paper says. Mayor Drake and others who withdrew “deserve praise. … They have taken a stand for Washington County residents of all faiths.”

Well, except for those who believe that not all faiths are equal when it comes to praying to God Almighty.

The paper says the organizers were wrong to call the event a mayors’ prayer breakfast “because it gives the erroneous impression that this is an event that has the full support of elected officials, which it plainly does not.”

Of course, the organizers may have thought that a breakfast meeting organized with the intent of praying for mayors, with a mayor speaking at the event, might have warranted the title.

Still, The Oregonian (which, by the way, does not have the full support of Oregon’s state government, despite its title) says the prayer breakfast organizers are free “not only to worship as they see fit, but also to behave in ways that many others would find offensive, or at least rude.”

But apparently the newspaper has absolutely no qualms with government officials telling religious believers how they should pray and to which deity those prayers should be directed. The paper also seems to be untroubled by the fact that Mayor Drake, not the breakfast organizers, took it upon himself to invite the Muslim leader.

One thing is clear: this county and its officials certainly do need prayer.

More articles

Abortion rights activists protest:

• Hughes defends remarks on abortion rights march | Presidential adviser Karen Hughes responded yesterday to criticism that, in a television interview, she had compared participants in Sunday’s abortion rights march in Washington to terrorists, calling that interpretation “a gross distortion” of her remarks (The Washington Post)
• Hundreds of thousands march for abortion rights | Hundreds of thousands of abortion rights supporters protested Bush administration policies in the nation’s capital (The New York Times)
• Abortion rights marchers decry global setbacks | Protesters hold one of the biggest rallies seen in Washington as they seek to renew a movement hit by years of reversals in the U.S. and abroad (Los Angeles Times)
• Antiabortion rally confronts huge march | Groups trade accusations, insults along Pennsylvania Avenue (The Washington Post)
• Abortion-rights march targets Bush | Abortion-rights activists turned out by the hundreds of thousands Sunday, packing the National Mall with a sea of pink signs and a warning to the White House that they will go to the polls in November (Chicago Tribune)
• A family’s march to redemption | Three generations join abortion rights rally in honor of woman who died (The Washington Post)
• Among the pagan ladies | One could call the Sunday “March for Women’s Lives” a festival of paganism, but that’s probably not fair to ancient pagans (George Neumayr, The American Spectator)
• “Abort Bush” | The activists at the March for Women’s Lives take partisan shots–and extol the joys of abortion (Erin Montgomery, The Weekly Standard)
• Bush beware on abortion issue | The huge outpouring at the pro-choice rally on Sunday should send a signal to George W. Bush that he’s in more trouble than he thinks (Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive)
• We’re f*****’ feminists! | An angry gathering in Washington (Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review Online)

Other abortion issues:

• Abortion opponents post gains since ’95 | Laws have limited access to procedure (The Washington Post)
• U.S. drops bid for N.Y. abortion records | Government lawyers on Monday dropped their effort to obtain abortion records from a New York hospital, telling the judge they did not want to delay a ruling on the constitutionality of a new law banning some abortion procedures (Associated Press)
• Against abortion but in favor of choice | The parallel views that abortion is wrong and that it should be legal are fairly common among Hispanics, according to a national survey released in 2002 by the Pew Hispanic Center (The New York Times)
• Nurses set to perform abortions | Controversial call to cut waiting times (The Observer, London)
• Abortion, motherhood, and mental health: Medicalizing reproduction in the United States and Great Britain | By contrasting post-abortion syndrome with postnatal depression, Ellie Lee provides a fascinating and excellent interrogation of modern day abortion and motherhood within the United States and Britain (British Medical Journal)
• Abortion trials and tribulations | The partial-birth abortion trials are a telling backdrop for the drama that unfolded this weekend. As abortion activists gather to protest the new threat to that most abstract notion of “choice,” their champions, the abortion providers, will tell courts what that really means. (Cathy Cleaver Ruse, The Washington Times)
• Teachers battle NEA over politics | State affiliates of the National Education Association, a sponsor of last weekend’s pro-choice March for Women’s Lives, are fighting members who have invoked federal antidiscrimination laws against the union’s use of their dues to support abortion, contraception and homosexuality (The Washington Times)
• Teresa: Abortion ends a life | Teresa Heinz Kerry says she’s pro-choice but believes abortion is “stopping the process of life,” it was reported yesterday (New York Daily News)

Life ethics:

• White House to pull support for conference | The Bush administration is scrapping plans to sponsor a major global health and reproductive rights conference that features liberal advocacy groups, including several pro-choice organizations and MoveOn.org (The Washington Times)
• Pharmacists’ moral beliefs vs. women’s legal rights | The American Pharmacists Association maintains a two-part policy (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Cases test law giving legal rights to fetuses | A state law grants a fetus full legal status as a person, allowing prosecutors to charge two counts — and perhaps the death penalty — against someone who kills a pregnant woman (Houston Chronicle)
• Church backs condom use | The Church of Uganda says it supports condom use among the youths to control the spread of HIV/Aids (The Monitor, Kampala, Uganda)

Catholic politicians & communion:

• Catholics question abortion focus | Some want church to address issues such as death penalty (The Washington Post)
• Pro-choice politicians ‘not fit’ for Communion | Vatican stance could affect Kerry (The Washington Post)
• Vatican steps into U.S. political fray | Issue of Catholics’ view on abortion touches on Kerry’s candidacy (NBC News)
• Activists oppose Catholic Church’s antiabortion stance | Before the March for Women’s Lives, protesters demonstrated outside the Vatican Embassy (The Washington Post)
• Pro-choice stance seen undeserving of sacrament | The Vatican ratcheted up the debate yesterday as to whether pro-choice Catholic politicians should take Communion when a top-ranking prelate said such a person “is not fit” to receive the sacrament (The Washington Times)
• Cardinal cautions Catholic politicians | Abortion view tied to Communion (The Boston Globe)
• Politicians unmoved by edict on Mass | Edicts from the Vatican and a suggestion by a cardinal that Holy Communion be denied pro-abortion politicians prompted some local Catholics and Catholic lawmakers Saturday to say the church is overstepping its bounds (The Hartford Courant, Conn.)
• Cardinal weighs sanctions for politicians | Roman Catholic politicians who advocate policies contrary to church teaching on abortion and other issues may risk sanctions that fall short of denial of Holy Communion, the head of a U.S. bishops task force examining the problem said Tuesday (Associated Press)
• Vatican rules out liberalized liturgy | A senior cardinal says politicians who support legal abortion must be denied Communion (Los Angeles Times)
• Should politicians obey their church’s doctrines? | Should religious leaders press politicians more to adhere to their faith’s teachings, including going so far as to bar them from church institutions and sacraments? Religious leaders respond (Los Angeles Times)

John Kerry & the Roman Catholic Church:

• Vatican cardinal signals backing for sanctions on Kerry | Francis Arinze said in a news conference in Rome yesterday that a Roman Catholic politician who supports abortion “is not fit” to receive communion (The New York Times)
• Kerry is given communion despite stand on abortion | The Paulist Center’s Father Joe Ciccone paid no heed to the admonition from Rome (Los Angeles Times)
• Kerry’s Catholic problem | When Mr. Kerry and other Catholic politicians say they accept church teaching but selectively deny it when it comes to abortion, they place the state above the church and man above God (Cal Thomas)
• Vatican ought to give Kerry some more room | The Bible doesn’t give us a point-by-point political platform. Instead, it offers a set of principles, such as ensuring justice for the poor, loving one’s neighbor as one’s self and sowing peace. It is up to us to determine how those ideals translate into politics (William McKenzie, The Dallas Morning News)
• Abortion issue pushes Kerry’s faith to fore | A cardinal’s stance against Communion for Catholic officials who back abortion rights sets off a political and religious furor (Los Angeles Times)

Religion & politics:

• G.O.P. Senate race in Pennsylvania heats up | Patrick Toomey’s campaign plans to tap into a statewide network of anti-abortion groups and evangelical churches to energize his supporters. At the forefront of the effort is Focus on the Family’s James Dobson (The New York Times)
• Religion has growing role in election | Bush, Kerry camps track faith, morality issues (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Their will be done | Frontline explores the impact of George W. Bush’s born-again Christianity on his presidency (Newsday)
• For God’s sake | The strong influence of the Christian right on US policy will only increase if George Bush wins a second term (Philip James, The Guardian, London)
• ‘The President of Good & Evil’: Find the moral | Peter Singer is led, on issue after issue, to a double conclusion: Bush’s views are not intellectually defensible, and his behavior shows he doesn’t believe in them anyway (The New York Times Book Review)
• Evangelicals adapt to change | Many here cite misunderstandings (Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, N.Y.)
• Reflections on U.S. religious wars | We’re at war, all right, but not just against terrorism. We’re fighting an even more massive and ultimately divisive conflict: our internecine battle over America’s religiosity and the extent to which we want our secular laws dictated by certain religious beliefs. (Bonnie Erbe, Scripps Howard News Service)
• Bishop accuses FO of unlawfully buying church used as embassy | A church of England bishop yesterday accused the Foreign Office of unlawfully buying a church and compound used as the British embassy in Algiers (The Telegraph, London)
• India ruling party plays down Hindu roots | But the Hindu agenda remains deeply embedded in BJP politic (Associated Press)
• Politics, piety, and the Catholic vote | Personal piety and religious observance are not prerequisites of national leadership (Editorial, National Catholic Reporter)
• Faith on trial for candidates | Catholic officials’ abortion litmus test spawns questions on propriety (The Denver Post)
• Flawed theological position on the war | Bush is not “theologian in chief” — although it appears that that may not be entirely clear to him (James L. Evans, Mobile Register, Ala.)

Religion & politics in Zambia:

• Unite nation, KK urged | The three church mother bodies in Zambia have challenged first Republican president Kenneth Kaunda to help unite the country (The Times of Zambia)
• We shall conquer the many difficulties facing Zambia—KK | The Church has asked Dr. Kaunda to help reduce the tension in the country (The Post of Zambia)

Religion & politics in Europe:

• Europe’s new age of enlightenment? | With the 10 new EU member states, the religious map of Europe is also changing dramatically, bringing aboard Catholics, the Orthodox Church and Protestants. What role do churches play in these countries today? (Deutsche Welle, Germany)
• Church leaders speak out against BNP | Christian leaders in the north of England have told worshippers to deal an electoral blow to the “racist” British National Party (BNP) in the run-up to European elections (Reuters)
• Churches urge voters to reject the BNP (The Guardian, London)

Ten Commandments & the pledge:

• Christian organization wants church in state | Texas Rally’s purpose is to uphold the acknowledgement of God as the source of laws in the United States and break down the wall between church and state. Concerned Americans in Action rallies and educates Christians to protect their rights (The Allen American, Tex.)
• Moore brings argument for ‘Christian America’ | America has been “deceived” into forgetting that this is a Christian country whose laws are based on the word of God, the former chief justice of Alabama told a group of conservative Christians Friday night (The Advocate-Messenger, Danville, Ky.)
• Will Moore play a role in November? | Though he hasn’t said it yet, my hunch is that Moore will soon announce that he is running for president on the Constitution Party ticket (Todd Kleffman, The Advocate-Messenger, Danville, Ky.)
• McDermott omits ‘God’ from Pledge | Rep. Jim McDermott, Washington Democrat, yesterday did not say the words “under God” as he led the House in its daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance (The Washington Times)

Dinner prayer at VMI permanently blocked:

• Court won’t reinstate prayer at school | The Supreme Court said Monday it will not consider reinstating mealtime prayers at a state-funded military college, turning aside an appeal from Virginia officials who wanted to preserve the tradition (Associated Press)
• Supreme Court rejects appeal on VMI supper prayers | A divided U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that reading a prayer before supper to Virginia Military Institute cadets violated the constitutionally required separation of church and state (Reuters)
• Justices won’t hear military-college appeal on dinner prayer | The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the State of Virginia to permit the Virginia Military Institute to return to the practice of dinner-hour prayers (The New York Times)
• Supreme Court lets stand ban on VMI prayer | The decision let stand last year’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which said the 50-year tradition of cadets standing at attention and praying violated their First Amendment rights (The Washington Post)
• High court bickers over prayer case | Justices will not review VMI decision (The Toledo Blade)
• Va. college still can’t say grace | Supreme Court’s refusal is the latest rejection of VMI’s effort to retain a dinnertime prayer (Los Angeles Times)
• Justices won’t hear prayer case appeal | VMI loses bid to maintain its supper custom (The Boston Globe)

Muslim prayers in Detroit:

• Hamtramck okays prayer call over heated objections | Unanimous vote passes measure; critics cite privacy (The Detroit News)
• Hamtramck prayer okay prompts outrage | The Hamtramck City Council’s unanimous approval Tuesday night of a plan to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast on loudspeakers five times a day in Arabic has outraged many of the city’s Polish Catholic residents (Detroit Free Press)
• The muezzin’s call in Hamtramck | If city leaders truly want to encourage the American melting pot, they should probably prohibit all outdoor noise offenders, bells and chants, and leave any exhortations to soap-box orators (Barrett Kalellis, The Washington Times)
• Cultures collide in diverse Hamtramck | Uproar over Islamic call to prayer pits tolerance, tradition (The Detroit News)

Religious freedom:

• Canadians allow Islamic courts to decide disputes | Sharia gains foothold in Ontario  (The Washington Post)
• Christian group alleges “violation” Constitutional right | Alleging threats to security and freedom of churches, institutions and individuals in India, the Federation of Indian-American Christian Organisations of North America has charged the “right wing extremist” Hindu bodies as also BJP-led government with “violation” of Christians’ Constitutional right to religious freedom (PTI, India)
• Southeast Asia’s persecuted Christians | Religious persecution is one growing crisis that should not be overlooked by Washington and the West (Editorial, The Washington Times)
• Amish man returns to Canada | An Amish man from Canada who had challenged a United States policy requiring him to submit his photograph with his application for citizenship has returned to his family home in Ontario after federal courts refused to let him stay in the United States while his lawsuit proceeds (The New York Times)
• Earlier: Amish man loses emergency appeal to stay in U.S. | A Canadian man living in Pennsylvania is told he may not stay in the United States while he appeals immigration rules requiring a photograph with his citizenship paperwork. Daniel Zehr is Amish, and he says his faith forbids having one’s picture taken because of the Bible’s prohibition of graven images (All Things Considered, NPR)
• Jehovah’s Witnesses banned in Moscow | A local court in Moscow bans the Jehovah’s Witnesses from practicing their religion in Russia’s capital, saying that followers of the religion endanger public health and “inflame religious divisions.” But Jehovah’s Witnesses say they are victims of religious discrimination (Morning Edition, NPR)
• Moscow to ban Witnesses | Prosecutors call zealous group a ‘totalitarian sect,’ Russia’s 133,000 believers brace for more restrictions (The Toronto Star)
• Firing employee for anti-gay harassment was not religious discrimination, Ninth Circuit says | Evelyn Bodett’s admitted statements to a female subordinate, the court held, supported Cox Communications’ assertion that it fired Bodett for violating its anti-harassment policy rather than because of her religious beliefs (Metropolitan News-Enterprise, Los Angeles)

War & terrorism:

• In Iraq, biblical times always near | Local soldiers say they’re humbled, awed by the sights (The Huntsville Times, Ala.)
• Chapel embraces role as 9/11 monument | A sanctuary for workers at ground zero prepares a new exhibition, which will tell the story of the 238-year-old Trinity chapel (The New York Times)
• ‘Forged in adversity,’ a memorial for St. Paul’s | While the world awaits a memorial at the World Trade Center site, Trinity Parish installed its own this week in the yard of St. Paul’s Chapel, just across Church Street. And it sounds beautiful (The New York Times)

Crime:

• Priest charged with killing put on leave; review set for claims | Bishop Blair’s action bars the 66-year-old priest from public ministry – including celebrating Holy Communion or any other sacrament (The Toledo Blade)
• Also: Parishioners back priest in nun slay case | Supporters of a Roman Catholic priest charged with the 1980 killing of a nun rallied around the cleric Monday, trying to raise money for his release and legal defense (Associated Press)
• Back in Argentina, priest faces ‘dirty war’ charges | An Argentine priest is charged with 19 counts of murder and 33 of abduction and torture, crimes dating to the military dictatorship of the 1970’s (The New York Times)
• Church marks year since arsenic poisonings | No one has been charged. (Associated Press)
• Ancient tombstones stolen | Gwent police are investigating after more than 70 tomb stones were stolen from a church in south Wales (BBC)
• Samaritan who took killer’s confession is made to quit | A Samaritans volunteer was forced to resign after telling police that a caller had confessed to murdering a woman, a court heard yesterday (The Telegraph, London)
• Cleburne church vandalized | At Crossroads Baptist Church at 110 N. Caddo, vandals knifed a computer monitor, littered the floor with glass, threw books from shelves, poured water throughout the area, knocked sound equipment off counters and dumped a second computer onto a floor, a police report states (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Tex.)
• Born-again thief raided churches | A serial burglar who claimed he had found God after doing a course in Christianity turned on the people who helped him and plundered a string of churches (Reading Evening Post, England)

Abuse:

• Sexually abusive priest to stand trial | A judge ruled Monday there is enough evidence to hold a trial on prosecutors’ bid to keep child-molesting former priest James Porter locked up indefinitely as a sexually dangerous person (Associated Press)
• Award in Lutheran case could be reduced | As much as $25 million of a nearly $37 million jury award in a sexual abuse case could be covered by an earlier settlement. (Associated Press)
• Priest cleared of charges | A retired Rancho Cucamonga priest who had been under investigation for sexual abuse before prosecutors declined to press charges can return to the ministry, officials with the Diocese of San Bernardino said (Los Angeles Times)
• Woman tells of sex assault as she read the Bible at beauty spot | Detectives in Edinburgh are hoping an appeal on BBC Crimewatch may help them catch the sex attacker (The Herald, Glasgow, Scotland)

Religion & education:

• When religion in schools meant spilled blood | For two months in 1844, Philadelphia was torn by riots. Nativist mobs marched on Irish Catholic neighborhoods; Irish residents fired from rooftops. Two Catholic churches and whole blocks of the city were attacked and burned. More than 20 people died (The New York Times)
• Religion in schools | If, as is strongly hinted at, the executive insists that religious observance must continue in non-denominational schools to be within a broadly Christian context, it will be flying in the face of moves in England to recognise the increasingly secular nature of British society (Editorial, The Herald, Glasgow, Scotland)
• A film on school board fracas by one who’s close to subject | Documentary on Westminster’s war over gender, bias, and religion is being made by the sympathetic son of a criticized trustee (Los Angeles Times)
• Religious materials banned for B.C. home schooling | Home-schooling parents are fuming after the B.C. Education Ministry ordered thousands of them to stop using faith-based materials — or any other “unofficial” resource — when teaching their children at home (Vancouver Sun)
• Question-mark over religious observance in the classroom | Background on the review into new guidelines (The Herald, Glasgow, Scotland)
• Trial to decide case of religious song | A federal judge ruled that a case about the difference between student-led prayer and a student’s private religious beliefs deserves a civil trial (Daily Press, Hampton Roads, Va.)

Church buildings:

• Church shops for property where a store stands | Disputes involving the federal religious land-use law have arisen in commercial and retail areas as well as in residential neighborhoods (Los Angeles Times)
• Neighbors divided | A religious land-use law designed to protect institutions fuels some zoning disputes (Los Angeles Times)
• Ruling goes against ‘outdoor’ church | Judge won’t lift an order by Huntington Beach that a minister says forces alfresco worship (Los Angeles Times)
• Casting the first stone at non-Christian ‘brothers’ | Something about “Christians” fighting tooth and nail for a small, public station simply does not sit well with me (Lolita Harper, Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, Ca.)
• Sacred space but earthly challenges | The beliefs they espouse may be eternal, but the grip that churches and synagogues have on their property can be transitory (The New York Times)
• Church’s land plan set for approval | The Crossing has revised its proposal to the Planning Commission, which should do the trick (Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, Ca.)

Church life:

• Christian churches growing in Russia | In St. Petersburg, home to 4.5million people, there are only about 8,000 who regularly attend evangelical or Protestant churches. A larger number identify themselves as Russian Orthodox, but most are atheists or agnostics (Lincoln Journal Star, Neb.)
• Church sign reveals unfortunate bigotry | I was surprised at the message at Socastee Original Freewill Baptist Church (Kerry Cook, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.)
• City’s hunt for comical clerics | The nation’s self-styled comedy capital is looking for gurus who can raise a giggle or clerics who have their flocks rolling in the pews (BBC)
• Bats put congregation in a flap | A church which dates back more than a thousand years may be forced to close after an invasion of rare bats (BBC)
• Closing parishes could complicate wedding plans | The Archdiocese of Boston is calling on priests to assist brides and grooms whose weddings must be relocated because of upcoming parish closings (Associated Press)
• House of worship offers gays sanctuary, support | What started as a group of people who met casually at a couple’s home once a week to sing and pray became a full-blown church (Al Día, Dallas)
• Church moves to organize, build | Religious leaders are working on a legal framework that would unite thousands of born-again Inuit Christians in a new Canadian church (CBC North, Canada)
• Patriarch brings out his big stick | The badly soured relations between the Church of Greece and the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians took a dramatic turn for the worse on Saturday when Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios threatened to solemnly censure Archbishop Christodoulos if he goes ahead with controversial plans to elect new bishops today for three northern Greek sees. (Kathimerini, Athens)
• Growing town crowding in around church | For more than a century, the fieldstone house of worship at Route 66 and North Main Street has stood as a spiritual haven for generations of Christians (The Hartford Courant, Conn.)

Anglican Communion:

• Episcopal leader offers ‘inclusionary’ service | The Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr., Episcopal bishop-elect of Ohio, is planning an “inclusionary” consecration service tomorrow in Cleveland in which priests and bishops have been invited to take part in a procession with their wives, husbands, children, and “partners” (The Toledo Blade)
• What women want | Anglicans continue to constrain the ministry of women clergy (Judith Maltby, The Guardian, London)
• Episcopalians in R.I. seek foreign ties | Upset about the ordination of a gay bishop, a local group gathers to guild a connection with Anglicans overseas (The Providence Journal, R.I.)
• Kirk dilemma: two million believers, 240,000 worshippers | A new report yesterday highlighted the membership difficulties facing the Church of Scotland, now at its lowest point at 571,000 (The Herald, Glasgow, Scotland)

Gay Anglican dean opposed:

• Gay row dean attacks prejudice in church | Sermon points out that slavery was defended on the basis of scripture (The Guardian, London)
• Campaign begins against gay dean | Blair accused of trying ‘to move church in more liberal direction’ (The Guardian, London)
• Gay cleric faces new pressure to step down | A group of more than 40 evangelical clergy and laity in the diocese of St Albans said that they were “dismayed” by the appointment of Jeffrey John to the post as Dean of St Albans (The Telegraph, London)
• Gay cleric storm brews | Prominent clergyman Reverend Robert Donald has said he is “disturbed” by the appointment of gay cleric Jeffrey John to the post of Dean of St Albans (This is Local London)
• Evangelicals threaten to ‘ruin’ Church of England over gay canon | Evangelical Anglican churches are threatening the Church of England with financial ruin in protest at the appointment of Canon Jeffrey John, a homosexual, as the Dean of St Albans Cathedral (The Telegraph, London)
• Gay cleric under pressure to quit | A group of around 40 evangelical clergy and laity in the St Albans diocese met on Tuesday to express their “dismay” at his appointment (BBC)

United Methodist Church:

• Methodists see U.S. ‘racism’ as members’ visas denied | Leaders of the United Methodist Church accused Washington of “racism” on Tuesday after dozens of African and Asian church members were barred from attending a special conference of the third-largest Christian denomination in the United States (Reuters)
• Methodists urge civility ahead of debate on gays | The United Methodist Church pleaded on Tuesday for civility and respect as its members prepared to debate church policy on homosexuality, an issue that threatens to tear apart the third-largest U.S. Christian denomination (Reuters)
• Methodists to vote on building in D.C. | A long-standing dispute over the use of the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill will be put to a vote this week when United Methodists gather in Pittsburgh to revise their church bylaws (The Washington Times)
• For her traditional beliefs, she plays politics in pews | Patricia Miller is a devoted Methodist. She’s also devoted to keeping the denomination from relaxing its view on homosexuality (St. Petersburg Times, Fla.)

Catholicism:

• The end of the Pius wars | It was a long and arduous struggle, vituperative and cruel, but, in the end, the defenders of Pius XII won every major battle. Along the way, they also lost the war (Joseph Bottum, First Things)
• Pope lays down law with recipe for perfect Mass | The Vatican has issued new guidelines on the celebration of Mass in a bid to stamp out what it sees as abuses that have been creeping into the most important rite of the Roman Catholic liturgy (The Independent, London)
• Catholic group asks for married priests | Representatives of priests in at least nine dioceses, from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Long Island, have announced the birth of a new nationwide effort to allow married men in the Roman Catholic clergy (The New York Times)
• Pope puts six people on path to sainthood | Among the six was a paralyzed lay woman, Alexandrina Maria da Costa of Portugal, who the Vatican says lived the last 13 years of her life eating only the bread and wine of Communion (Associated Press)
• Vatican appoints nun to senior post | Sister Enrica Rosanna, an Italian nun, was appointed to the post of under-secretary at a Vatican department called the Congregation for Consecrated Life (Reuters)
• Storied convent soon will go silent | After 122 years, Monroe-based order will shutter Detroit home (Detroit Free Press)
• Nuns becoming a rarity in Catholic schools | Family’s memories reflect a steady decline of religious since mid-1960s (The Times, Munster, Ind.)
• The last sister | The principal of St. Andrew the Apostle School is retiring, marking the end of century-long tradition of nuns at the school (The Times, Munster, Ind.)
• Vatican’s Swiss Guard keys into 21st century | The Swiss Guard, whose members in their Renaissance uniforms make a picturesque show of protecting the Pope and the few hundred other residents of Vatican City, has entered the modern world, by courtesy of the US company Motorola (The Independent)

Mormonism:

• Mormons open temple doors to share beliefs |One of the hottest tickets in New York right now is just off Broadway: a tour of a new Mormon temple. It’s a rare glimpse of the architecture of a unique, often-misunderstood religion, a sense of the sacred expressed in light and mirrors and enveloping silence (USA Today)
• Some businesses see Utah as not welcoming | Some employers and politicians — mostly Democrats — are warning that Utah’s Mormon conservatism is driving away business (Associated Press)

Prayer for sick illegal?:

• When calls for prayer trample personal privacy | Disclosing details of members’ health could pose legal problem for churches (The Washington Post)
• Law prompts new guidelines | The implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, in April 2003 raised questions about religious communities’ practice of publicizing members’ illnesses (The Washington Post)

Prison ministry:

• An infusion of religious funds in Fla. prisons | Church outreach seeks to rehabilitate inmates (The Washington Post)
• Putting faith behind bars | Religious leaders on faith-based prisons (Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, Ca.)
• Pastor wants communion wine OK’d for inmates | You can have the body of Christ in prison — just not the blood (Wisconsin State Journal)

Missions & ministry:

• Graham dedicates centre | Evangelist Franklin Graham was in Calgary yesterday to officially dedicate a $9-million headquarters for two Christian organizations, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association of Canada and Samaritan’s Purse Canada (Calgary Sun)
• More young people turning to short-term evangelical work | The numbers of college-age volunteers entering mission work appear to be on the rise (Religion News Service)
• Design students behind controversial billboard | While some churchgoers thought the campaign was too light-hearted or irreverent, the billboards were designed to reach people outside the church who didn’t usually think about the significance of Easter (Massey News, Massey University, New Zealand)
• Local mission veteran takes ministry in new direction | The only way Bill Deans of Mount Pleasant would agree to become head of an international missions agency was for the board to require all the staff, including him, to work without a salary (David Munday, The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.)
• Trip to deliver Bibles harrowing | Chuck and Helen Todd of Revival Fires travel with 13 into unforeseen danger (The News-Leader, Springfield, Mo.)
• Episcopal Church wants to bring generosity home | The L.A. Diocese might consider turning land gifts into housing to help ease a regional crisis (Los Angeles Times)
• Poll: Religion failing many men | Promise Keepers releases survey (The Denver Post)

Missions in Afghanistan:

• Bishop’s interfaith aid mission | The Bishop for Birmingham revealed that his father raised two orphan Muslims as he flew off to lend his support for interfaith aid projects in Afghanistan (Birmingham Post, England)
• Bishop visits Afghan aid workers | The Bishop of Birmingham is to visit Afghanistan as part of an inter-faith mission to support religious aid workers (BBC)

Nontraditional ministry:

• New places for sharing spirituality include some with taps and spirits | More and more, church groups are meeting in bars or other nontraditional locations to reach out to people who might feel a little intimidated by churches and those who don’t feel spiritual in traditional settings (The Tennessean, Nashville)
• `Emerging churches’ are gaining momentum | More reaching young people with creative, nontraditional methods (Religion News Service)

Christian business:

• Tough going for little stores | For years, Christian stores found a comfortable niche. But these entrepreneurs are disappearing, even as Christian retail sales soar (The Arizona Republic)
• Values have values | Robert Cooper, a former investment banker who owns Bisson Moving and Storage, is a founder of CLIMB, Christian Leaders in Maine Business. Cooper and Bisson employees developed a core set of values they try to bring to the workplace: competence, respect, integrity, stewardship and service (Portland Press Herald, Maine)

Books:

• Harry Potter’s new rival | ‘Shadowmancer’ is a Christian option for fantasy readers (The Baltimore Sun)
• ‘The Spiral Staircase’: Goodbye to God. Also hello | The chief accomplishment of Karen Armstrong’s memoir is not the revision of a historical cliche. It is, rather, the creation of a self (The New York Times Book Review)
• Having a devil of a time selling your book? Try this | Apparently a spiritual angle is as good for sales as it is for souls (Henry G. Brinton, The Washington Post)
• Believe it or not | Making a patriotic case for those of little faith. Christopher Hitchens reviews Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers (The Washington Post)
• Writing for Godot | The Bible foretold it. The war in Iraq proves it. The end is near, says Christian activist and best-selling novelist Tim LaHaye, and he’s writing as fast as he can (Los Angeles Times)
• The attack on secularism | The new book “Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,” by writer and social critic Susan Jacoby, is a historical work but it is also an unabashed polemic on an acutely topical issue: the role of religion in public life in modern-day America (Cathy Young, The Boston Globe)
• Living with purpose | A philosophy of faith and service moves hearts and minds (Chicago Tribune)
• The First Crusade by Thomas Asbridge | How can you love your enemy and kill him? Contrary to our modern assumptions, finds Murrough O’Brien, Crusader knights worried about such a paradox (The Independent, London)

The Bible:

• What would Jesus read? | While there have been other teen Bibles, none of the old crop relied so heavily on pop culture to sell their message or addressed girls and boys separately (U.S News & World Report)
• In love with the word | Adam Nicolson paints a compelling portrait of Jacobean England in his history of the making of the King James Bible, Power and Glory (The Guardian, London)
• Publishers work overtime to lure turned-off youths to the Bible | For many of today’s teens, the Bible, human history’s most important book, is so “yesterday.” Ignorance abounds, and worsens with each generation. Blending spiritual, cultural and profit-making motives, publishers are cleverly attacking that gap, repackaging and sugarcoating Scripture with add-ons and hot formats. (Associated Press)

Left Behind:

• Sacred mysteries: What’s all this about Rapture? | Belief in The Rapture in its dispensationalist sense might seem harmlessly eccentric. But it is notable that, from the Marcionists of the second century to the Fifth Monarchy Men of the 1660s, obsessive and individualistic interpretation of apocalyptic Scripture has led to the splitting of Christians into sects – and not seldom outbreaks of blinkered violence (Christopher Howse, The Telegraph, London)
• Left Behind author still ‘stunned’ | An interview with Jerry Jenkins (The Arizona Republic)
• Up, up, up with people | They feel fine. ‘Rapture ready’ crowd predicts end of the world (The Village Voice)

The Code breakers:

• Defenders of Christianity rebut ‘The Da Vinci Code’ | Word that the director Ron Howard is making a movie on the book has increased the intensity of rebuttals from churches and Bible scholars (The New York Times)
• Code breakers | “The Da Vinci Code” and its discontents (John J. Miller, The Wall Street Journal)
• More books on market set out to debunk ‘Da Vinci Code’ | When a book is as popular and as profitable as The Da Vinci Code, there are often many books that attempt to capitalize and respond to the desire for more (The Tennessean, Nashville)
• Dan Brown debunked | Amy Welborn decodes a sensational best-seller (The American Spectator)

Music:

• A producer’s record crop | T Bone Burnett has mined a mountain of roots music (The Washington Post)
• Integrity gaining power in Christian entertainment | Many business announcements in Nashville’s entertainment industry have involved downsizing and consolidation. But one company has brought good news to town — in more ways than one (The Tennessean, Nashville)
• Modern-day messiah | Michael Tait and the cast of ‘!Hero’ tell the tale of Jesus with a contemporary edge (The Tennessean, Nashville)

Television:

• Making it all right for psalm | Welcome to televangelism, British style (Financial Times)
• Lighten up about those TV lesbians | Television relies on stereotyping to communicate and The L Word is no different (Jo Chichester, The Sydney Morning Herald)
• What? Morals in ‘South Park’? | Depending on whom you asked, “The Passion of the Jew,” proved that the show’s still got it or that it’s made a comeback or that it’s better than ever. In any case, it was good (The New York Times)
• Crossan examination | John Dominic Crossan has been a popular guy recently (Milford Daily News, Ma.)

Nigeria bans televised miracles:

• No ban on religious broadcast, says NBC | National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has refuted rumours making the rounds that it has placed a ban on the broadcast of religious programmes on radio and television stations, describing it as “deliberate misinformation and ploy to fan the embers of religious sentiments capable of causing disaffection among the populace” (This Day, Lagos, Nigeria)
• Why FG banned miracle broadcast—NBC | The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has assured Nigerians that the recent ban on miracle broadcasting does not translate to ban of broadcast of religious programmes on radio and television stations as is believed in certain quarters (Daily Trust, Abuja, Nigeria)
• Yisa, NBC boss:We won’t allow anyone to deceive Nigerians | Director-General of the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Dr. Silas Yisa has said that his commission has an axe to grind with TV stations which fail to regulate the religious messages aired on their stations by religious bodies to conform with the NBC Code (Vanguard, Lagos, Nigeria)
• As NBC threatens miracle preachers: The bitter war persists | Till today, the controversy rages on in Nigeria as many ask the propriety or otherwise of the NBC stopping those television preachers. Or on how it is able to distinguish between fake and real miracle preachers (Vanguard, Lagos, Nigeria)
• Okotie: Nobody can stop us | Evangelist and Pastor of Household of God, Reverend Kris Okotie in this encounter reacts to threat of ban on miracle preachers on television (Vanguard, Lagos, Nigeria)
• My advice to miracle preachers, by Okonkwo | Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria President, Bishop Mike Okonkwo has said that the PFN as an umbrella body of all pentecostal churches in Nigeria is concerned that members who engage in miracle claims should do so with proof in order not to endanger the credibility of the body (Vanguard, Lagos, Nigeria)

Film & art:

• My passion for ‘Brian’ | Blessed are the Pythons for poking fun at inflexible faith (Jack Mathews, New York Daily News)
• Jesus takes center stage in popular culture | Jesus Christ has become too big for church. He’s stepping out as a pop culture superstar, a leading man on page and screen (The Journal News, White Plains, N.Y.)
• Artists for censorship | An argument for the uselessness of culture (Tim Cavanaugh, Reason)
• Modern folk masters express their devotion through art | The santos tradition began in Spain (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Artist depicts God’s work as big and small | In Lee Hodges’ vision, God is in the details—and in the great, galactic glories (The Dallas Morning News)
• Christian film ‘Touch’ draws intense interest | Actors flocked to auditions for the movie, to be shot soon in Lake County (The Orlando Sentinel)

The Passion:

• `The Passion’ puts some believers on the outside | Some Christians They prefer not to view the film, because of its violent and gory nature or its traditionalist orientation, but feel pressure from pastors and other Christians to go (Chicago Tribune)
• The Times: Mel’s cross to bear | Though dedicated to fairness, the New York Times has relentlessly lashed Mel Gibson and his hit film and denigrated its defenders (Peter Bart, Variety)
• Box office miracles are hard to repeat | But with the success of ‘The Passion,’ you can bet Hollywood will try (The Dallas Morning News)
• Kintop to harp on faith to sell Christ’s Passion in India | In a bid to make Mel Gibson’s controversial movie “The Passion of the Christ” a big hit in India, its distributors plan to mobilise the opinion of the Christian clergy in the country (PTI, India)
• Gibson’s idiotic vision | Is The Passion anti-Semitic? It’s hard to say, because it’s difficult to take this film seriously (Lysiane Gagnon, The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
• Jesus film stirs passions of Arab Christians and Muslims | While Christian Arabs, including Palestinians, are examining questions of faith, many Muslims appear to be taking an interest because of an upsurge in anti-Israeli feelings now sweeping across the Middle East (Scotland on Sunday)
• Gibson`s `Passion` is hot in Kerala | It’s expected to do better than Titanic (Sify, India)
• ‘The Passion’ — and its controversy — lives on | It’s breaking box office records at home and abroad, still sparking controversy, and some folks say it’s even triggering a few miracle (Jim Jones, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Tex.)
• Israel cinema to show Passion | An art house cinema in Israel will show The Passion of the Christ after commercial distributors in the Jewish state refused to handle it (BBC)

Prayer & spirituality:

• Report: One-third of Americans pray for good health | Study participants said they prayed most often for overall wellness rather than a specific illness (WIS, Columbia, S.C.)
• Mayor prays for city’s ills | Hundreds of Christians from across Los Angeles join Hahn to express their hope and faith at the 31st annual prayer breakfast (Los Angeles Times)
• Praise the green god from whom all blessings flow | There is something religious about environmentalism, so there’s no surprise it has a founding holy day (Rex Murphy, The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
• Praying the rosary not just for Catholics anymore | Lutheran adapts practice to bring it to new people (Religion News Service)
• Survivor displays an unshakable faith | Frances Myers’ home was leveled, pieces of her past scattered, but hope lives in devastated town (Chicago Tribune)

Search for Noah’s Ark:

• Noah’s Ark quest heads for Turkey | American and Turkish explorers are hoping to discover traces of Noah’s Ark on the slopes of Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey (BBC)
• Spark of Noah’s ark | Israel is the nation most often mentioned in the Bible. But do you know which nation is second? It is Iraq (Robert N. Mullins, The Seattle Times)

No impeachment for judge’s custody ruling involving former lesbian couple:

• Lawmakers back off on judge’s impeachment | Colorado lawmakers today soundly rejected a plan to impeach Denver District Judge John Coughlin because of his ruling in a child custody case involving a lesbian couple, saying he apparently made the best decision possible (Associated Press)
• Earlier: Extremists have judge in their sights | If the legislature destroys a quarter-century of exemplary jurisprudence to satisfy the anti-gay agenda of extremists, it won’t be any God most of us recognize (Jim Spencer, The Denver Post)
• Panel refuses to impeach judge | Anti-homophobia ruling had raised cry of illegal activism (The Denver Post)
• Judge’s job is spared | House panel drops impeachment effort tied to custody case (Rocky Mountain News)

Gay marriage:

• Proposal to leave weddings to churches | A proposal is put forth in Massachusetts that would take the state out of the marriage business altogether. Couples, of any sexual orientation, could receive civil unions from the state, but actual marriage would be left to religious institutions (All Things Considered, NPR)
• 1 of 3 in California favor gay marriage | The state is more open to the idea than the nation as a whole, less likely to see issue in moral terms (Los Angeles Times)
• Move to block gay couples who marry overseas | As Canada and some US states push ahead with laws allowing gay marriage, the Federal Government is planning to “put it beyond question” that such unions would not be recognised in Australia (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Gay marriage debate simmers in Ohio | The mayor of Cleveland Heights, one of Ohio’s most liberal cities, works closely with gay-rights activists. Yet looking ahead to Election Day in this crucial swing state, he has blunt advice for them on the topic of gay marriage: Tread lightly (Associated Press)
• Oklahoma to vote on marriage amendment | Supporters of traditional marriage claimed a victory in Oklahoma last week, while supporters of homosexual “marriage” made headway in California (The Washington Times)
• Gay rights group taps conservatives | The Human Rights Campaign is working to defeat the proposed federal marriage amendment through a multimillion-dollar effort that includes taking advantage of the division among Republicans over the issue (The Washington Times)
• The many meanings of marriage | As Oregon considers same-sex unions, religious leaders, anthropologists, historians and others add perspective (The Oregonian)
• Living a lie no longer | It’s probably the most difficult thing they’ve ever had to do … how local homosexuals in heterosexual marriages overcame denial to follow their hearts (The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Ca.)
• Holy war over gay marriage: Should government take sides? | Government has no business promoting one religious view of marriage over all others (Charles Haynes, First Amendment Center)
• These United States | Will same-sex marriage lead to incest and polygamy? Let’s hope so! (Julia Gorin, The Wall Street Journal)

Gay marriage opposition:

• Thousands protest legalizing same-sex marriage | Asian Americans, Christians rally in Sunset District (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Conservative ads focus on gay marriage | To date, the references have been made gingerly, so much so that commercials typically mention preserving the “sanctity of marriage” or “protecting marriage” rather than opposition to gay marriage (Associated Press)
• Gay ‘marriage’ ruling contested | A bipartisan group of Massachusetts lawmakers yesterday filed a lawsuit challenging the authority of the state’s highest court to legalize same-sex “marriage” through its rulings (The Washington Times)
• Same-sex ban needed | We want to explain the convictions we hold regarding same-sex marriage/civil unions, the constitutional amendment in question, and why we hold these convictions (Terry Fox and Joe Wright, The Wichita Eagle)

Gay rights:

• Anti-gay T-shirts spark suspensions | In response to “Day of Silence,” some students wore shirts saying, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Another said, “Homosexuality is a sin.”  They were suspended for violating a dress code that prohibits clothing “offensive to any race, religion, or gender” (Watauga Democrat, Boone, N.C.)
• TUC loses gay rights appeal | Trade unions have lost their High Court battle for a ruling that new equality regulations are flawed because they fail to protect lesbian and gay workers from discrimination by “faith-based” employers (The Scotsman)
• Earlier: Unions challenge sex equality ‘loopholes’ (PA, U.K.)
• When gay lost its outré | Homosexuality has gone mainstream — but with the daggers sheathed and sex unmentioned, it’s a dull party (Los Angeles Times)

Homosexuality & religion:

• Seminar explores question of homosexuality and religion | Led by the first openly gay Episcopalian bishop and the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, a group of priests and rabbis gathered last week for “groundbreaking’ discussions about homosexuality and faith at a time when the issue is causing great division (Pasadena Star News, Ca.)
• Gay rabbi, priest lead interfaith Bible study | The religious leaders discuss interpretations of Scripture on homosexual behavior (Los Angeles Times)

More articles:

• Poll shows support for slot machines | A new poll of Cleveland voters shows 70 percent support placing slot machines at Ohio racetracks, with profits funding education initiatives, but considerably less support further gambling expansion (Coshocton Tribune, Oh.)
• Last victim of Christmas flood found | The remains of 11-year-old Edgar David Meza were 15 miles from a church campsite in the San Bernardino Mountains where 14 were killed (Los Angeles Times)
• Director aspires to more for Ichthus | Festival organization reaches out in new ways (Herald-Leader, Lexington, Ky.)
• Jews just aren’t prepared for all this love | Have you ever had people you’ve just met tell you that they love you? It happens to me all the time (Geoffrey Dennis, The Dallas Morning News)
• Racial divide still strong in religion | But some say situation is just a result of choice (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• Saved by the church bell | In a bid to diversify, carmaker AMO ZIL began producing church bells, capitalizing on a revival of religion in post-Soviet Russia and a shortage of bells after most were destroyed decades ago when the Bolsheviks seized power (The Washington Times)
• New Pew Trusts merging works into one body | The Pew Charitable Trusts are pulling their major polling, research and information projects into a single organization to save on administrative costs (The New York Times)
• Petrarch – the poet who lost his head | Italian who defined the sonnet at centre of medieval whodunit (The Guardian, London)
• Religion news in brief | Split over gays looms before Methodist meet, Judge bans Boy Scouts’ use of public land, European Christianity celebrated, Presbyterian Court rejects dues penalty (The Washington Post)

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The post Day of Prayer Breakfast Canceled Over Inclusiveness Debate appeared first on Christianity Today.

“There’s been an ongoing investigation in this case,” Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County prosecutor’s office, told the King County Journal. “After receiving additional information, we came to the conclusion that we could not prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Deputy prosecuting attorney Erin Ehlert said almost exactly the same thing in speaking to The Seattle Times, and said she wouldn’t elaborate “out of respect for the (alleged) victims and their families.”

Charges against a third boy, who had been accused of twice raping one of the other girls’ cousins twice, were dismissed in August after the accuser reportedly recanted.

It’s clearly a tragedy—but without the facts, Weblog has no idea precisely whether it’s a tragedy for the boys, the girls, or both. Still, as CT mentioned earlier, youth-peer sexual harassment and sexual abuse is serious and not rare.

More articles

Anglican woes (news):

• Episcopal parish in an uproar over dismissal of its priest | An Episcopal priest who clashed repeatedly with the diocese over its election of a gay bishop has been removed from his Rochester church (Associated Press)
• Earlier: Two N.H. congregations seek outside help | Members of at least two Episcopal churches are asking an out of state diocese to supervise their congregations after an openly gay man was consecrated as bishop of New Hampshire. (Associated Press)
• Gay bishop describes recent developments | Answers to frequently asked questions (Associated Press)
• Setback for Bishop Ingham in Canada dispute | Canada’s House of Bishops last week directed Ingham stay legal proceedings against the ACiNW clergy and cede alternative Episcopal oversight for conservatives in New Westminster to a Bishop mutually agreeable to all parties (The Church of England Newspaper)
• Americans cut funds to Uganda churches | Out-going Church of Uganda Archbishop Mpalanyi Nkoyooyo yesterday said he had received warnings from American church aid organizations and charities about Ugandan opposition to the bishop (New Vision, Kampala, Uganda)
• Nigerian archbishops meet on major decision | All the 10 archbishops in the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) yesterday held a lengthy closed door meeting at the Church House (Vanguard, Lagos, Nigeria)
• The last straw? | After months of unheeded warnings, liberal Episcopal churchmen consecrate openly gay bishop Gene Robinson; conservatives in the ECUSA now have the next move (World)
• Name dropping: Episcopal school weighing a change | Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry, a refuge for conservative seminary students, may change its name (World)
• Church explores gay debate | A Church of England document is urging a full debate on homosexuality (BBC)
• Church of England ‘obsessed’ with sexual sin |The Church of England has an “unhealthy obsession” with sexual sin, a panel of bishops suggested yesterday in a document exploring cross-dressing, bisexuality, gay marriage and homosexual clergy (The Guardian, London)
• Rector disillusioned with state of Episcopal church | An Episcopal rector has left the WNC Diocese, saying the church has strayed from strict interpretations of the Bible, including allowing gays in the ministry (Ashville Citizen-Times, N.C.)
• Rowan plea for unity over gay bishop | Sections of the worldwide communion turned their backs on America over the consecration of Gene Robinson (The Guardian, London)
• Lambeth’s fragile peace shattered | Dr Williams will need a miracle to heal worldwide schism (The Daily Telegraph, London)
• Archbishops condemn ‘choice’ | The “new realignment” of the 70-million-member Anglican Communion began in earnest this week as about half of the denomination’s 38 archbishops condemned the U.S. Episcopal Church for its consecration Sunday of the world’s first openly homosexual bishop (The Washington Times)
• Day the Church split | Worldwide Anglicanism split in two yesterday after conservative leaders representing up to 50 million worshippers angrily rejected the Church’s first openly homosexual bishop (The Daily Telegraph, London)
• African Anglicans fear cost of split | The Nigerian Anglican church yesterday led the developing world’s chorus of criticism of Gene Robinson’s consecration but held back from cutting all links with its sister church in the United States (The Daily Telegraph, London)
• Gay bishop is put on blacklist by Anglicans | Kenya’s Anglican Church wrote to all its dioceses yesterday, barring them from dealing with the gay Bishop Gene Robinson of the United States (The Nation, Nairobi, Kenya)
• A gay bishop, and a revolt in some pews | Misgivings in the Maine diocese echoes larger Episcopal rifts after Sunday’s ordination (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Split church hopes to muddle on | The split over the choice of the openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in the US seems unbridgeable (BBC)
• Worshipers faithful despite controversy | Parishioners express mixed reaction to first openly gay Episcopal bishop, but most choose not to leave (Los Angeles Times)
• Indian Christians won’t accept a gay head | An informal survey (Mid Day, Mumbai, India)

Anglican woes (opinion):

• The limits of inclusiveness | As they watch the argument among Episcopalians about the consecration of a gay bishop, Catholics must be thinking: we told you so (George F. Will, Newsweek)
• Gay bishops threaten our foundations | Liberalism has pushed its dogma to a kind of logical conclusion (Janet Daley, The Daily Telegraph, London)
• Gay U.S. bishop wrong | It is all right for the Church to disagree with homosexuals, but not right to persecute or exclude them, for we are all sinners (Editorial, New Vision, Kampala, Uganda)
• Rift embarrasses church | Protesters fail to put scripture in perspective (Harry T. Cook, Detroit Free Press)
• Divisions and incongruities | We are out of sync with each other and have been so for some years (William Murchison, The Washington Times)
• What they said about Bishop Gene Robinson | A roundup of newspaper editorials (The Guardian, London)

Ten Commandments, crucifixes, and other icons:

• Cherokee okays Commandments | All discussion held behind closed doors (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
• Citizens may pay in Ten Commandments case | Alabama’s suspended chief justice says he is fighting efforts to have taxpayers pay attorneys fees for the people who sued to remove his Ten Commandments monument from a state courts building. (Associated Press)
• Moore packs church | Commandments battle inspires cheering crowd (Pensacola News Journal, Fla.)
• Moore’s appeal | Thank goodness, Supreme Court said no (Editorial, The Birmingham News, Ala.)
• Uphold the Constitution, and not a judge’s ruling | Pryor’s defense of “moral duty” and being “bound by law” reminds me of the defense the Nazis used during the Nuremberg trials (Kelly McBinley, Mobile Register, Ala.)
• MCLU: City grounds not holy ground | The group wants the biblical monument removed from Duluth city property (Duluth News Tribune, Minn.)
• ACLU won’t challenge Sparks mayor’s ‘God Bless America’ signs | Nevada ACLU president Richard Siegel says he finds the signs acceptable because they are not specific to any religion (Associated Press)
• Religious debates stir | Public grounds no place for church items, say critics (Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune)
• Minister offers to buy city land for anti-gay monument in Idaho | Fred Phelps says he got the idea after learning that Rupert’s American Legion post was seeking to purchase the land for a Ten Commandments monument (Associated Press)
• Faith and fury | Clashes over crucifixes and head scarves in public schools show that Europeans are still searching for the fine line that separates church and state (Time Europe)
• Italian newspaper sells cross as ‘gadget’ | We’re not giving it away out of the fear that someone, not interested in the symbol of Christianity, might throw it away. It’s not nice to throw away the cross,” says editor (Zoomata.com, Italy)
• Judge suspends crucifix verdict | An Italian judge has suspended a court order to remove crosses from schools after an education ministry appeal. (BBC)

Pledge of Allegiance:

• Worshiping the state in school | Patriotism is in, and religion is out. But what’s the difference, really? (Jonathan Zimmerman, The Christian Science Monitor)
• ‘One nation … indivisible’ | Michael Newdow is a puzzle (Scott K. Fish, Portland Press Herald, Maine)

Free speech on campus:

• Religion is at center of yearbook battle | Fountain Valley High blocked seniors’ attempt to spell out Christian messages in photograph (Los Angeles Times)
• Also: Students walk out over Jesus T-shirt flap | Group asked not to wear shirts in yearbook photo (Associated Press)
• Also: It’s not the message, it’s the messengers | By your deeds shall ye be known, not by your T-shirts. (Dana Parsons, Los Angeles Times)
• On campus: Free speech for you but not for me? | As campus officials look for ways to accommodate the growing diversity of their student bodies, an increasingly vocal number of students — most of them white and predominantly conservative or Christian — say there is little room for their opinions and beliefs (USA Today)
• Orlando school avoids lawsuit, allows controversial parade floats | An Orange County school avoided a lawsuit Wednesday after school officials agreed to allow a homecoming parade float that replicates the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statute and another that urges students to “Let Jesus Rock Your Night Away.” (Associated Press)
• Let us pray | A lawsuit challenging school prayer in the small Tangipahoa Parish town of Loranger has many baffled—and, in some cases, hurt. (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, La.)

School vouchers:

• Hate speech or religious conviction? Voucher fight, round 2 | Justice Breyer warned school-voucher programs could cause problems for religious schools; he was right (Charles Haynes, First Amendment Center)
• Choose: Private or public | When government supports religious schools, both are corrupted. (Editorial, Palm Beach Post)

More education:

• Vote in Texas is one for the science books | State board, in what is seen as a rebuke to religious conservatives, adopts high school biology texts that teach the theory of evolution (Los Angeles Times)
• Earlier: Religion, science may turn a page over textbook in Texas | Conservatives want the state to reject a biology book or require editing of parts on evolution. Some say it may open the door to creationism (Los Angeles Times)
• Texas adopts controversial biology books | 11-4 vote approves texts despite criticism from some scientists and religious activists who say the books fail to present criticisms of evolution (Associated Press)
• Earlier: Environment, biology texts at issue in Texas | Author sues state board of education members, claiming suppression of his environmental viewpoints; board also to vote next week on texts teaching evolution (Associated Press)
• The big chill at the lab | Traditional Values Coalition is attempting to discredit 200 scientific researchers and challenge or revoke their federal grants (Bob Herbert, The New York Times)
• Also: Questioning grants | Can weighty scientific matters like prostitutes who ply their trade in truck-stop parking lots be understood only by Ivy League-trained doctors and scientists? (Andrea Lafferty, letter, The New York Times)
• Student religious groups question Maranatha lawsuit | Leaders of several campus groups said the University’s nondiscrimination policy benefits student clubs (The Minnesota Daily, U. Minn.)
• Oahu kids get ‘other’ survival kits | The “Real World” project offers tips on birth control and anti-war material to counter The Jesus Project (Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
• Evangelist: Ban Halloween in schools | Mark Poff of New Harvest Ministries’ Preaching Christ Church in Kingsport said he hopes to garner 3 million signatures on the petition he is circulating (Associated Press)
• Of stars and heaven: Dual worlds for a man of faith and learning | Nick Knisely is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church and adjunct professor in the physics department of Lehigh University (The Express-Times, Easton, Pa.)

Bible and theology:

• Do you believe in the concept of sin? | Readers respond (The Washington Post, part 2)
• From Noah’s curse to slavery’s rationale | The enigmatic tale in Genesis 9 describing how Noah cursed the descendants of his son Ham with servitude remains a way to explore the complex origins of the concept of race: how and why did people begin to see themselves as racially divided? (The New York Times)
• The real Mary Magdalene? | Despite Mary Magdalene’s reputation as a “bad girl,” the Bible never even hints that she was an immoral person, let alone physically intimate with Christ (Jen Waters, The Washington Times)

Missions and ministry:

• Jews for Jesus ‘insults’ rabbis | The three Palm Beach rabbis are united in their disdain for the upcoming Jews for Jesus recruitment campaign in Palm Beach County (Palm Beach Daily News, Fla.)
• Also: County Jewish organizations protest evangelical attempt (Boca Raton News)
• A man with a message | Luis Palau: 50 years of making the case for Christ (The Oregonian)
• Churches get together to help school | Pastors are involved in restoring an old school house on the district’s property, ultimately giving the district more classroom space (Antioch Review, Ill.)
• Finnish congregations concerned about fate of missionary money | Financiers interested in share of domestic projects (Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland)
• Bo gets first religious radio station | Tower is placed at the top of Mount Zion in the Aladura Hills by Kennedy Section in Bo, Sierra Leone, with the intended purpose of making the gospel reach a greater number of people through radio broadcasts and hence facilitate its spread among Christian families and communities (Standard Times, Freetown, South Africa)

Gen, Boykin:

• Christian soldier | Lt. Gen. William Boykin is inspiring faith in some and doubt in others (The Washington Post)
• Pastor sensed no anti-Muslim tilt in Boykin’s talk | “Virtually all of our church members who heard the speech in its entirety share none of the negative impressions that have surfaced in the press” (Stu Weber, The Oregonian)
• Should Bush administration officials be disciplined for remarks? | Religious leaders respond (Los Angeles Times)
• Give Boykin the boot now | A man who spouts off inappropriately about Islam and Allah and believes the United States is under attack because it is a “Christian nation” has no business performing the duties of deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence (Editorial, The Denver Post)
• Christian soldier marches against the reigning ranks | The president can never win the war on terror as long as one of his top generals is working against him (Bill Press, Nashville City Paper)

Islam:

• Chapel’s stab at tolerance backfires with area Muslims | It’s easier said than done, but can we all get along? (Diane Evans, Beacon Journal, Akron, Oh. Note: Ms. Evans doesn’t correctly paraphrase this CT editorial.)
• Christians and Muslims | An Italian article may represent a shift, if not a break, in the long-standing Vatican policy of silence on the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries (Diana West, The Washington Times)
• When the wise guys aren’t very wise | The wise guys want the president to pander to the Islamists who are so busy grieving over a dirty look in the checkout counter at Safeway or dog feces dropped on the doorstep of a Muslim day care center in Kansas City they can’t find the time to be outraged by the murder of American soldiers in Baghdad (Wesley Pruden, The Washington Times)
• Muslims reach beyond religion with a belief in home schooling | For the past two decades, home schooling has largely been a trend among evangelical Christians who have felt marginalized by the public schools and wanted to have a more active role in their children’s education. But increasingly, the option has become attractive to Muslims, particularly with the scrutiny they have experienced since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. (Washington Post)

Interfaith relations:

• Yoga for teachers rouses ire of Croatian bishops | The Croatian Bishops’ Conference said the program would “make an unacceptable favor to an organization and its founder who wants to introduce Hinduistic religious practice in Croatian schools.” (Reuters)
• Interfaith gathering for peace plan | Long Island religious leaders representing Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths met recently to endorse the Alexandria Declaration, a document that denounces political killings in Israel and the Occupied Territories as a desecration of God’s name (Newsday)

Ecumenism:

• Pope thanks Putin for helping boost Orthodox ties | But the courtesy visit, Putin’s second in three years, was not expected to pave the way for the 83-year-old pontiff to fulfill his long-hoped-for trip to Russia any time soon (Reuters)
• Russia church hails Putin-Pope meeting | Tensions have increased markedly after communist restrictions on religion ended along with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union (Associated Press)
• Putin meets Pope at Vatican | Russian President Vladimir Putin has voiced hope for improved understanding between the Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches, following an audience with Pope John Paul II. (BBC)
• Holy help from Putin? | Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Rome Wednesday and Thursday opened one of the most ironic prospects thus far in the past 1,000 years of church history (Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI)

Church life:

• Silence, please | Dictates and double standards among the Lutherans (Mollie Ziegler, The Wall Street Journal)
• A house of God makes room for two cultures | St. Gabriel’s, once mostly black, adjusts to growing Latino presence (The Washington Post)
• Preacher restrained over church | The Court of Appeal has restrained a former Anglican Church of Kenya cleric from demolishing a church over a land dispute (The East African Standard, Nairobi, Kenya)
• Orthodox Christians meeting in Cleveland praise efforts to produce unity within church | The dream of an American Orthodox Christian Church that transcends ethnic and national boundaries is being realized on the grass-roots level despite efforts by foreign prelates, say leaders of a lay group (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
• Lutherans gather in the Cape | Representatives coming from across continent (The News-Press, Ft. Myers, Fla.)
• In church’s past, hope for its future | Play to benefit restoration of abandoned building (The Washington Post)
• Acting on faith | Biblical heroes taught through drama (South Bend Tribune, Ind.)
• Noisy churches offend Brazilians | The local authority is planning to visit all churches in the city of Fortaleza will be inspected and ordered to install soundproofing (Ananova, U.K.)
• 30 years of unfettered faith | Chinese church installs new pastor, marks a milestone (The Indianapolis Star)
• Ecumenical entrepreneurism | Shuffling religious real estate takes a special breed of interfaith (The Dallas Morning News)

Catholicism:

• The crusaders | A powerful faction of religious and political conservatives is waging a latter-day counterreformation, battling widespread efforts to liberalize the American Catholic Church. And it has the clout and the connections to succeed. (Boston Globe)
• Proposal to ban clapping during Mass brings cultural differences into focus | In Kenya, and especially in Nairobi, mass is a lively affair, as the worshippers sing and dance to rhythmic drumming and percussion instruments, stamping their feet and clapping, albeit with evangelical fervor (The Nation, Nairobi)
• Religion Today: Annulling annulments? | Traditionalists, progressives, even loyal Roman Catholic insiders have unkind things to say about the annulment process. Yet church leaders say their method of dissolving marriages — now used by tens of thousands of Americans each year — is better than any alternative (Associated Press)
• In New Jersey, Seeing the Virgin Mary in a tree stump | Officials with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson will ultimately decree whether the hand of God had something to do with any images suggested by the stump (The New York Times)
• Catholic order lets disabled women serve | Since it was founded in France in 1930, the Roman Catholic order of Benedictines of Jesus Crucified has opened the doors of religious life to women whether they are sick, handicapped or healthy (Associated Press)

Abuse:

• Catholic donations rise, despite sex scandal | The reported rise in Catholic giving is doubly remarkable because it took place during an economic downturn (The Washington Post)
• Catholics in survey seek accountability by church | Three of every four Roman Catholics who regularly attend Mass say they want their church to be more financially accountable in the wake of its sexual-abuse crisis, according to a new Gallup survey, and one in four say they did not respond this year to financial appeals from the national church (The New York Times)
• Abuse scandal prompts U.S. checks on lay Catholics | The clergy sexual abuse scandal that erupted nearly two years ago is forcing not just priests but also employees and volunteers in Roman Catholic dioceses across the United States to undergo background checks and attend workshops on how to prevent future cases of molested children (Reuters)
• D.C. archdiocese issues abuse data | 26 priests identified as likely molesters (The Washington Post)
• Wis. archdiocese changes abuse mediation | The Milwaukee Archdiocese plans to sell church property and set up a $4 million fund to compensate people who have been molested by priests (Associated Press)
• Priest molested 5 others, suit filed after settlement alleges | A year after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles quietly paid $1.5 million to settle a sexual-abuse claim against a priest, five more men stepped forward Wednesday claiming that they had been molested by the late Father Clinton Hagenbach (Los Angeles Times)

Abuse?:

• Church defends couple charged with starving four adopted children | After a week’s hesitation, the church of the Collingswood couple charged with starving four of their adopted children issued a statement on Friday attacking prosecutors and the state’s child welfare agency, saying they had torn apart a “totally innocent and loving family” (The New York Times)
• Religious leaders stand behind ‘spanking minister’ | Oliver’s supporters, like Donald Morris, executive director of the Christian Community Commission Inc., portray Oliver’s actions as a spanking and necessary discipline, not abuse (New Haven Register, Conn.)
• Also: 2 cops testify in spanking trial | The Rev. Walter Oliver told cops he spanked two young boys with a belt “with a smile and with love, to direct them to the correct path,” a city police officer told a jury Thursday (New Haven Register, Conn.)
• Earlier: Minister: God behind spankings | Walter Oliver is charged with two counts each of assault and risk of injury to a minor for beating two child parishioners of his former church in New Haven (Associated Press)

Crime:

• Burglar returns haul to church | A Romanian who robbed a church decided to turn himself in when he found a Bible among the stolen goods (Ananova, U.K.)
• O.C. church founder and friend convicted of fraud in donations | Gabriel Bernardo Sanchez of the First Church of Life defrauded donors of as much as $9 million since 1993, ostensibly for such charitable causes as AIDS research, homeless shelters, veterans’ aid and children’s services (Los Angeles Times)

Terri Schiavo:

• Playing God | For 13 years Terri Schiavo has been in a coma – with her husband, her parents, the Christian right and now the president’s brother locked in a bitter struggle over her fate. This week could see a final decision on whether she lives or dies (The Guardian, London)
• Family’s lawyers weigh in on Schiavo suit | ACLJ asked that the Schindlers be allowed to directly intervene in the lawsuit filed by Schiavo’s husband (Associated Press)
• Right to life, or death, divides nation | There is a video called Big Eyes doing the rounds in Florida and it is not easy to watch. (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• Schiavo case deserves less-reckless handling | Those who are absolutely certain they know all the answers in this case simply are not acquainted with the complexity of the issues (Leo Sandon, The Tallahassee Democrat, Fla.)
• Who controls your life or death choice? | It wasn’t the volume of mail that surprised me when I protested “Terri’s Law.” After all, the case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman back on a feeding tube, had been put before a national jury. The vast majority of my e-mailers seemed to believe that the few minutes of edited video represented the 24/7 reality of her last 13 years. (Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe)
• Deciding ‘quality of life’ | I do not have a law degree, but I would have thought that the ultimate violation of anyone’s bodily integrity is to starve a person to death. (Nat Hentoff, The Washington Times)

Life ethics:

• Life starts after 14 days, say Anglicans | The head of the Anglican Church in Australia says objections to IVF, genetic testing and stem cell research should fall away. (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• Death after abortion pill reignites safety debate | Opponents renew drive to ban drug woman took (Washington Post)
• Another abortion attack | The ban seems blatantly unconstitutional, and a high-profile court deliberation might awaken a new generation to the stakes for reproductive freedom (Editorial, The Boston Globe)
• U.N. postpones debate on human cloning | Action derails bid for a vote on a U.S.-backed measure calling for a moratorium (The Washington Post)
• Also: U.N. shelves vote on cloning ban | Panel decides to put off a decision until 2005. The U.S.-backed proposal also seeks to restrict research involving human stem cells (Los Angeles Times)
• Also: U.N. delays human cloning vote (The Washington Times)
• Updated: U.N. delays any treaty on human cloning (Associated Press)
• French doctor expected to be charged in assisted suicide case | In a surprising twist to a euthanasia case that has captivated the nation, the head doctor of the intensive care ward where a French paraplegic, Vincent Humbert, died six weeks ago is expected to be charged with premeditated murder for injecting Mr. Humbert with poison. (The New York Times)
• Aborted fetus’ DNA brings rape conviction | A man has been convicted of raping his cousin—who was 12 years old at the time—after DNA tests on the girl’s aborted fetus indicated he was the father. (Associated Press)

Sexual ethics:

• Porn goes mainstream | Hard as it is for some to believe, Hollywood has always had its standards, but lately they’ve become more like guidelines (Dave Berg, The Washington Times)
• Looking beyond lust | In a sex-saturated culture, Joshua Harris says he believes “lust may be the defining struggle for this generation.” (Emily Louise Zimbrick, The Washington Times)
• Sexual and gender issues high on agenda of Lutheran Synod | Initiatives made to embrace and shun gays in Church (Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland)
• Southern Baptists battle gay rights | Southern Baptist Convention leaders are aggressively pursuing their fight against the ”homosexual agenda” on several fronts. (Associated Press)

Gay marriage:

• N.J. court bars gay marriage | A state judge in New Jersey ruled yesterday that same-sex couples do not have a right under the state’s constitution to marry—the second state court to make that decision since a gay rights decision by the US Supreme Court last June put new emphasis on the issue. (Boston Globe)
• Wis. governor gets bill limiting marriage | Wisconsin legislature has sent a bill defining marriage as a contract between a man and a woman to Gov. Jim Doyle, who says he opposes the measure because it is divisive and duplicates existing law (Associated Press)
• Pastors petition against same-sex marriage | Christians, Muslims unite (The Ledger, Lakeland, Fla.)

Politics and law:

• Holding the wrong hostage | The current debate in the Senate about completing action on the Charity Aid, Recovery and Empowerment Act of 2003 (CARE Act) is an example of a misguided legislative kidnapping (Gary Andres, The Washington Times)
• Tennessee’s ‘Choose Life’ license plate challenged in federal court | ACLU, Planned Parenthood say anti-abortion plate discriminates against residents with an opposing viewpoint because there is no car tag available with their message (Associated Press)
• Making his case for conservatives | Jay Sekulow is preparing to dance with the devil (The Virginian-Pilot)
• The price of liberty | The Act of Settlement must not be repealed, because a Roman Catholic monarchy would destroy our religious and civil liberties (Adrian Hilton, The Spectator, U.K.)
• Poll: Don’t do it | An overwhelming number of Barbadians—616—out of 667 have said resoundingly they are opposed to Government’s wish to decriminalise homosexuality and prostitution (Barbados Daily Nation)
• Christians in America also have a stake in Mideast peace (David Crumm, Detroit Free Press)
• Both gubernatorial candidates are Catholic | Religious divisions in state voting fade (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
• Also: Governor hopefuls say faith personal | But some say beliefs have political effect (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
• Also: Religious rift in politics fading | But what went virtually unmentioned in Louisiana’s campaign for governor is the religion of both candidates (Associated Press)

Sundays and holidays:

• Politicians, observers comment on alcohol vote | Opinions differ on meaning of widespread support for Sunday alcohol sales (Mobile Register, Ala.)
• Classes may be held on Good Friday | In September, the system was criticized for scheduling a hurricane makeup day on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur (News14 Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.)
• Also: Wake school board criticized again on schedule | The board was criticized this fall when it scheduled a makeup day on Yom Kippur. The latest controversy stems from a plan to hold classes on Good Friday during the 2004-2005 school year (Associated Press)
• Church opposes trading reforms | Victorian government wants to soften trading restrictions on religious holidays (AAP, Australia)

George Bush:

• Bush says God chose him to lead his nation | Book reveals how President’s religious and political beliefs are entwined – and claims he did pray with Blair (The Observer, London)
• Bush’s faith-filled life | President’s conversion, ‘sense of divine calling’ and struggle with sobriety are subjects of forthcoming book (Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange.com)

Persecution:

• In Uzbekistan, religion is victim of war on terror | Imagine the police forcing a gas mask onto your head and shutting off the air supply – because you are “guilty” of hosting Bible studies in your own home (Lawrence A. Uzzell, The Christian Science Monitor)

Graham Staines:

• Who was this Staines really? | Staines was courting disaster with his extremely provocative actions (Chitranjan Mahopadyay, News Today, India)
• Dara film with Bajrang help | Hindu radicals plan movie to counter one about Graham Staines (The Telegraph, Calcutta, India)
• Indian legislator ‘proud’ of Australian missionary killer | A state legislator from India’s governing Hindu nationalist party says he is “proud” of the man who has been condemned to death for the mob deaths of Australian Christian missionary and his two children four year ago. (Daily Times, Pakistan)

Film:

• Critics of Gibson film claim harassment | Two Catholic scholars said they have received hate mail in response to their comments (Associated Press)
• It seems everyone’s finding religion in ‘The Matrix’ | The Matrix Revolutions presents a veritable smorgasbord of religious references that viewers have picked over since the original’s 1999 release (Albany Times Union, N.Y.)
• Also: Religion reloaded a matrix of faith | People find ideas about religion, philosophy, free will in movie trilogy (The Tennessean, Nashville)
• ‘Tis the season to be funny | Elf rekindles the Christmas spirit (Steve Beard, National Review Online)
• Also: Elf: Men in tights | Movie storytelling & Christians (Roberto Rivera, Breakpoint)

Music:

• Man in Black plays on | Johnny Cash’s diverse audience inspires tributes from Christian and mainstream publishers (Publishers Weekly)
• “!Hero: The Rock Opera” meaux | It’s not “Jesus Christ Superstar” for a new millennium, just a new marketplace (The Washington Post)
• Winans stays true to calling | Singer’s smooth style breaches the barriers of race and religion (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.)
• Jonny be good? | New album, new life and belief in God give singer Lang a different perspective (Sioux City Journal, Ia.)
• Adding a little jazz to the faith | The Jazz Celebrations concerts at First Lutheran Church brings high-quality jazz to Glendale without the distractions of a nightclub. Rio Soul is scheduled to perform Sunday (News-Press, Glendale, Calif.)
• P.O.D.: ‘Payable On Death’ | On the heels of P.O.D.’s well-received “Satellite,” the born-again Christians turn in another rap/metallic collection that’s surprisingly melodic and heartfelt as it preaches morality in a corrupt world (New York Post)
• Setting the Gospel music record straight | Because Christians in Zambia and other parts of the world still clash over what Gospel music is or should be, it is necessary to remind all interested parties about those things that are more important than endless debate (Charles Kachikoti, The Times of Zambia)

More pop culture:

• ‘Thou shalt not laugh’ isn’t in Ten Commandments | The Door‘s message to the church is basically, “Loosen up and fly right” (Cathleen Falsani, Chicago Sun-Times)
• Christian magazine becomes Relevant | When Cameron was a student at Oral Roberts University, he noticed there were no Christian magazines out there for him (Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.)
• The volatile notion of a married Jesus | After a meeting with clergy, ABC rushed to make changes to “Jesus, Mary and da Vinci” (The New York Times)
• ‘Survivor’ gives credit to Savior | Mike Skupin used show’s spotlight to start ministry (The Toledo Blade, Oh.)
• Theme park for Dracula rises from the dead | Controversial plans to build a Dracula theme park in Romania have been resurrected again just months after it seemed they were dead and buried for good (Scotland on Sunday)

Books:

• Couple keeps community ‘Jammin’ with Christian bookstore in Hopewell | Adding candy and snacks helped bring in the kids (The Progress-Index, Petersburg, Va.)
• Raiders of the Good Book | New prophecy fiction series introduces a Bible Belt Indiana Jones (New York Daily News)
• Couple’s new book examines the family | ‘God’s Playbook’ gives plenty of advice (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
• The door to a new church | After the pain, the gain. David L Edwards hails Diarmaid MacCulloch’s scholarly account of Christianity’s definitive schism, Reformation (The Guardian, London)

The Purpose Driven Life

• Churches read a good book along with the Good Book | By all observations, The Purpose Driven Life does not contain any new ideas about the meaning of life, a topic that has been the subject of countless books before it. So why are millions around the world, including more than 1,000 West Sound residents, reading Pastor Rick Warren’s work? (The Sun, Bremerton, Wa.)
• 40-day study has religious purpose | The book, The Purpose Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For, has taken a large swath of the nation by storm (Seattle Times)
• ’40 Days’ formula inspires churches | Best seller resonates among Christians (The Denver Post)

Bruce Wilkinson:

• Where Jabez doesn’t cut it | ‘I had to repent,’ says Bruce Wilkinson, when he realized he hadn’t followed God’s command to help people in need (Beliefnet)
• Earlier: Mr. Jabez Goes to Africa | Bruce Wilkinson expands his borders to include racial reconciliation and HIV/AIDS (Christianity Today)
• Also: Expanding His Territory | |fter finding worldwide success with The Prayer of Jabez, Bruce Wilkinson felt God leading him to Africa to fight AIDS (Christian Reader)

History:

• Experts to examine bones of Italian poet | Led by an Italian anatomy professor, the team wants to reconstruct Petrarch’s physical features to shed light on the man considered second only to Dante in the pantheon of Italian writers (Associated Press)
• Biblical tunnel timing | The Siloam Tunnel in Jerusalem, Israel, was actually built when the Bible says it was, according to new geological dating. The first well-identified biblical structure to be radiometrically dated, the man-made tunnel is around 2,700 years old and has carried water into old Jerusalem near-continuously since 700 B.C., says Amos Frumkin of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, lead researcher on the project. (Geotimes)

California fires:

• Why does God let fires destroy homes? | This horrible fire gives us the opportunity to create love and to show love’s powers against a backdrop of despair (Douglas B. Edwards, Los Angeles Times)
• Believers will seek solace, then answers from clerics | Soul-seeking prompted by the fearsome Southern California firestorms will be on display this weekend at mosques, synagogues and churches (Los Angeles Times)

Deaths:

• Michael Yaconelli, youth Minister and author of religion books, dies at 61 (Los Angeles Times)
• Floyd Massey Jr., longtime pastor and leader in Baptist organizations, dies at 88 (Los Angeles Times)
• People-oriented Naperville pastor dies at home | Arthur Landwehr served as a trustee and first vice president of the board of trustees at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary (Daily Herald, Chicago suburbs)

Health and illness:

• Faith & healing | Can religion improve health? While the debate rages in journals and med schools, more Americans ask for doctors’ prayers (Newsweek)
• A millionaire’s last vocation | Sir John Templeton funds research that explores links between science and God (Newsweek)
• ‘Patients want to be talked to’ | A Duke professor says religion has a place in medical school—and in practice (Newsweek)
• ‘Religion is a private matter’ | A Columbia professor says the melding of medicine and prayer may cause harm (Newsweek)
• Faith turns hell of ALS into dream of heaven | Being diagnosed with a fatal illness such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, forces people to think about their mortality and where they stand with God (The Huntsville Times, Ala.)

Other articles of interest:

• Religion news in brief | Conservative PCUSA caucus calls for withholding funds from national agencies of the church, who’s behind murders of Indonesian Christians, Damaged North Carolina churches lose grants, and other stories (Associated Press)
• Guess who doesn’t believe in God? | Ten percent of Protestants, 21 percent of Roman Catholics, and 52 percent of Jews do NOT believe in God (CNN)
• Top Christian cleric seeks to build bridges with Indians in U.K. | Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams paid a visit to the Shree Sanatan Mandir in Catherine Street where an estimated 30 per cent of the population is of Indian origin. (Rediff.com, India)
• Denmark to accept Norse god marriages | State will let a group that worships Thor, Odin and other Norse gods conduct legally-recognized marriages (Associated Press)
• Local bishop steps into national leadership role | Thomas Hoyt is the new president of the National Council of Churches (Shreveport Times, La.)
• Soviet general: ‘God truly exists because he saved my life’ | Vyacheslav Borisov was the only one who cried out for God’s mercy as his helicopter crashed into the Panjsher Mountains in Afghanistan in 1984 – and he’s the only one who survived (The Tallahassee Democrat, Fla.)
• State senator denies blaming mental illness on sin and demons | But several mental health advocates say state Sen. D. Nick Rerras has twice during the past four years expressed extreme and insensitive positions about the origins of mental illness, including the belief that psychological disorders are caused by spiritual demons (The Virginian-Pilot)
• God’s servants | An All Saints’ Day primer on sainthood (Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.)
• Safe or satanic? | Church leaders argue over Freemasonry (Jamaica Gleaner)
• Mormon church seeks to toss block suit | The Mormon church on Wednesday asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging a land deal with the city that allows the church to regulate behavior on a downtown block. (Associated Press)

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1. Dialogue: Faith and the science of free will
2. Places & Culture
3. Weekly Digest

DIALOGUE: FAITH AND THE SCIENCE OF FREE WILL

When I find myself in a philosophical quandary and don’t have anything written by Nicholas Wolterstorff handy, I turn to a brain trust of philosophical friends of mine from college. So when I found this essay on the science of free will in the New York Times, written by John Horgan, author of Rational Mysticism: Dispatches From the Border Between Science and Spirituality, I knew whom to call: Andrew Chase-Ziolek, Patrick Jones, and Sara VanderHaagen. Andrew and Sara are recent graduates of Calvin, and Patrick graduated from Northwestern College in Iowa. Horgan’s words appear in italics below. The full version of our e-mail roundtable is at NBierma.com.

Horgan: When I woke this morning, I stared at the ceiling above my bed and wondered: to what extent will my rising really be an exercise of my free will? Let’s say I got up right … now. Would my subjective decision be the cause? Or would computations unfolding in a subconscious neural netherworld actually set off the muscular twitches that slide me out of the bed, quietly, so as not to wake my wife, and propel me toward the door? …

A couple of books I’ve been reading lately have left me brooding over the possibility that free will is as much a myth as divine justice. The chief offender is The Illusion of Conscious Will, by Dr. Daniel M. Wegner, a psychologist at Harvard. … We think of will as a force, but actually, Dr. Wegner says, it is a feeling—”merely a feeling,” as he puts it—of control over our actions. I think, “I’m going to get up now,” and when I do a moment later, I credit that feeling with having been the instigating cause. But as we all know, correlation does not equal causation.

PJ: My response to this is based on The Volitional Brain: Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will, edited by Benjamin Libet (Imprint Academic, 2000). As I understand it, Libet was actually one of the scientists involved in the experiments that Dr. Wegner refers to. The fact that Libet’s position is nowhere mentioned makes me very suspicious of Wegner’s agenda.

The conscious will appears to be initiated by an unconscious brain event. If the experiment is correct, then this calls into question free will. But Libet says the conscious will can veto these subconscious decisions (see page 51 of The Volitional Brain). The conscious veto may itself have a preceding unconscious process. But this would become an unconscious choice of which we become conscious rather than a consciously causal event (52). The conscious veto is a control function, not just simply becoming aware of a wish to act. The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a voluntary act, but rather to control whether the act takes place. The ethical implications of this are actually consistent with most ethical and religious systems. Most of the Ten Commandments are thou-shall-not commandments (54). The experiments cited by Wegner give us no indication that actions cannot be consciously controlled.

Horgan: Perfectly healthy people may lose their sense of control over actions their brains have clearly initiated. When we are hypnotized, playing with Ouija boards, or speaking in tongues, we may feel as though someone or something else is acting through us, whether a muse, ghost, devil, or deity. What all these examples imply is that the concept of a unified self, which is a necessary precondition for free will, is itself an illusion.

SVH: While these findings may illustrate that we do not have ultimate control of ourselves (because we do live in a world we can’t control), they do not seem to indicate much of anything about the self, except the fact that self-communication is a very tricky business. This writer’s individualistic concept is clearly very Western and Americanized; the concept of “control” was created in part by our obsessive individualism, which seeks any proof for its justification (talk about post hoc).

God acting through us does not destroy the “unity” of the “self”; it is what unifies the self in the first place. The scientist’s comment reveals an either/or mentality about selves in general—that the individual human self and the possibility of interaction with a greater self are mutually exclusive, that divine intervention sabotages free will. In fact, it seems to me that people recognize (deep down, though many wouldn’t say so) that divine intervention merely sabotages our ideas of free will and wisdom.

Horgan: To me, choices, freely made, are what make life meaningful. Moreover, our faith in free will has social value. It provides us with the metaphysical justification for ethics and morality. It forces us to take responsibility for ourselves rather than consigning our fate to our genes or God. Free will works better than any other single criterion for gauging the vitality of a life, or a society.

ACZ: This is utilitarian, and the author doesn’t seem to care if his view is true or not. Moreover, the statement, “Free will works better than any other single criterion for gauging the vitality of a life, or a society,” is incredibly culturally biased. Tell that to a Chinese person who believes that his whole life is governed by “joss.” Guess his society inherently stinks. Plus, we never see a justification for why we need to ‘take responsibility for ourselves rather than consigning our fate to our genes or God.’

PJ: Metaphysics is the study of the nature and structure of reality. There can be no “metaphysical justification” for anything that doesn’t really exist. If ethics and morality don’t exist, and free will and accountability don’t exist, then justice of any sort doesn’t exist either. This is exactly what moral relativism asserts. If human courts are the highest form of authority in the universe, then morality and justice are reduced to mere power—either power of the government or the power of majority. Right and wrong are merely matters of opinion. Mother Teresa and Hitler merely had differences of opinion regarding human life. There is no way we can say that one was more “right” than the other because no objective standard exists regarding morality.

Horgan: Theologians have proposed that science still allows faith in a “God of the gaps,” who dwells within those shadowy realms into which science has not fully penetrated, such as the imaginary time before the Big Bang banged. In the same way, maybe we can have a free will of the gaps. No science is more riddled with gaps, after all, than the science of human consciousness.

ACZ: ‘God of the gaps’ is a term pejoratively used to describe the God that some theologians allow to be pushed out of all interaction with creation (or perhaps was wrongly put into some areas of interaction, and then was justly removed.) Basically, the author is claiming that in our epistemic doubt, we can believe in free will, but really, we don’t have it.

SVH: I think that the experimental “gap” could be the gap between intuition (or primal action or Kantian basic thought or whatever) and our ability to translate that intuition into action. Language is not quite as quick as thought, and sometimes in order to think things that require words, it takes us longer than our intuition to think them. Make sense?

Horgan: As I lay in bed this morning, however, my faith in free will wavered. Scanning my mind for something resembling will, I found a welter of roiling thoughts and antithoughts, a few of which transcended virtuality long enough for closer inspection. One thought was that, no matter what my intellect decides, I’m compelled to believe in free will. Abruptly my body, no doubt bored with all this pointless cogitation, slipped out of bed, padded to the door, and closed it behind me.

ACZ: Sounds like Descartes. And sounds like Reformed epistemology. So what would he say if I said, “Scanning my mind for something resembling God, I found a welter of roiling thoughts and antithoughts, a few of which transcended virtuality long enough for closer inspection. One thought was that, no matter what my intellect decides, I’m compelled to believe in God”? Does the author believe that compulsion to believe something makes it true, or is it just a statement about his internal state?

PJ: The deeper question here is of free will and determinism. Remember that the goal of science is ultimately to find the laws of cause and effect. If this is the definition of science, then the only way we could have a science of humans (i.e. psychology; cognitive science) is if humans also operate under the laws of cause and effect. … However, free choices are not predictable, even if they are determined. … The bottom line is, there is a gap between the category of physical phenomena and the category of subjective phenomena. We could know every physical thing about the brain and still have absolutely no insight to the subjective phenomena.

SVH: This article left a bit to be desired in terms of practical application. It would be a pity for all science to turn out like some of the nihilistic philosophy that basically died of impotence—it can’t produce pragmatic fruit. Even if our decisions were dictated to our brain cells by myriad external and internal stimuli over which we have no control, we would be hard pressed to conduct a society around attempting to understand and predict the seemingly random movements of these stimuli.

• Read the full transcript of the above exchange at NBierma.com
• As for us, we will adore with all reverence those mysteries which surpass our comprehension, until the brightness of their full knowledge shall shine forth upon us in that day when He who is seen “through a glass darkly” shall be seen by us face to face.—John Calvin
• For further reading, Andrew recommends this essay on “the evidence of the existence of the soul” by Christian online essayist Glenn M. Miller.
• “Let It Be”: the upside of “apatheism”—the combination of atheism and apathy—by Jonathan Rauch in the Atlantic Monthly.
• Related from B&C:Is Science Good For the Soul?Robots With Choice?Rediscovering Soren Kierkegaard
• Previous Dialogue: Robert McChesney on media diversity and democracy

PLACES & CULTURE

From the Washington Post:

NAIROBI –As music boomed through the colorful, poster-plastered CD shop, Penny Mungai, one of the sales clerks, mused over the offerings on Kenya’s television stations. “I enjoy watching ‘Divorce Court.’ It is one of my favorite shows,” said Mungai, 24, whose designer jeans, funky top and head-hugging knit cap suggested a decidedly Western fashion sense. “It shows true-life situations, and even though it is made in the U.S., the men are so similar to here.” Her co-worker, Liz Wanjiku, 26, agreed. “I love ‘Friends’ and ‘Martin,’ ” she exclaimed, laughing at the mere thought of the comedies. “They are so real. … They show it how it is.” Mungai and Wanjiku are among the many young Kenyans whose tastes in fashion, music and everything trendy mirror a culture that is at once 7,000 miles away and as close as their living rooms. Though the number of TV stations available in Kenya has jumped from one to seven in little more than a decade, the high cost of original programming means broadcasters in this desperately poor nation rely on relatively affordable reruns of “Ally McBeal,” “The West Wing” and daytime soap operas from the United States. As a result, some Kenyans warn that this country’s 31 million people—at least those with access to television—are losing touch with their own culture. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles …

Related:New hope amid the AIDS crisis in Kenya

CAÑON CITY, Colo. – It looked at first like a classic story of the “Erin Brockovich” genre: A feisty young lawyer and her long-suffering clients took on the local uranium mill—and won big. In a series of trials, local residents who say they were poisoned by toxic runoff won more than $40 million from Cotter Uranium Corp. But Hollywood-style happy endings are hard to come by in this hardscrabble canyon country. Last month, a federal appeals court in Denver threw out all the verdicts against Cotter. The court ordered the trial judge to start the cases over—a dozen years after the litigation began. While the judges gave Cotter a clear legal victory, the company, which helped create the nation’s nuclear age, has suffered severe political setbacks in this city of 16,000, partly because of publicity from the court cases and partly because of corporate plans to bring in toxic waste from other states for processing here. Even the Cañon City Daily Record, long a Cotter supporter, concluded on its editorial page that “Cotter’s time has come and gone.” … Cotter executives say their current business plan is to get out of uranium processing as soon as possible. The plaintiffs in the lawsuits—there are nearly 50 and many of them are aging, sick, or both—seem to be losing whatever hope they had. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles …

• Last week’s Places & Culture
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DIGEST

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• In February 2001, President Bush visited Mexican president Vicente Fox’s ranch in Guanajuato, Mexico, where the two laid out an ambitious agenda for relations between their two countries, touching on issues ranging from trade and drugs to energy and immigration. At the time there were other hopeful signs that the Bush administration would have strong ties not just with Mexico but with Latin America as a whole. Since September 11, 2001, though, the U.S. has all but forgotten about Latin America, argues Jorge Castaneda, recent Mexican foreign minister, in Foreign Affairs. This seeming indifference to recent political turmoil in Venezuela and economic turmoil in Argentina, along with the conspicuous emptiness of embassies in Latin American capitals, Castaneda argues, reflect a level of neglect that has undermined the post-NAFTA momentum of economic and democratic reform in Latin America.http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030501faessay11220 …
• Urban sprawl is alive and well outside Washington D.C., says the Washington Post. Census figures released last month show that the metropolitan area is growing at an even faster rate than it did in the 1990s despite slightly slower growth in 2002. Two-thirds of the increase in the region, where more than 5 million people live, has come in the outermost suburbs, the Post says, with the type of sprawling energy cities experienced in the 1950s. “Increasingly, census figures show, the area’s growth is sprawling 35 miles or more from the District, on former farms where townhouses and mini-mansions now sprout.”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41869-2003Apr16.htmlRelated:Meanwhile, pockets of poverty worsen in D.C, says the Post.Elsewhere, the news on urban poverty is better, says USA Today.
• Farms and farmers are disappearing rapidly. Male farmers, that is. Female farmers represent a rare growth area in American agriculture, says the Washington Post. Women are buying the most small farms, and for the first time government agencies are predicting that in twenty years, the majority of the nation’s farmland will be owned—and much of it operated—by women.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles …
• What is it like to be one of the first links in the emergency room chain in Georgetown, Connecticut? And how much harder is it if you’re a hypochondriac, with a compulsive fear of both disease and driving? Before volunteering to work in ambulances in Georgetown, Jane Stern’s couldn’t stand to watch “E.R.” and came to the point where she couldn’t summon the will to leave the house. Now the life of an on-call emergency response worker brought an entirely new rhythm to her life. “As a volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT), I wait for my call 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” writes Stern in a new book excerpted in AARP magazine. “It pulls me out of deep sleep, out of showers, away from dinner, from my favorite TV shows, and from long, loving embraces.”http://www.aarpmagazine.org/people/Articles …
• Where have you gone, Our Town? School plays are getting grittier as students use the stage to probe some vexing issues of adolescence, says the Washington Post. Thousands of schools have put on a play about school shootings called Bang Bang You’re Dead. Dozens more are performing The Laramie Project, which is based on interviews with residents of Laramie, Wyoming, where five years ago Matthew Shepard was tortured and left to die because of his homosexuality. A bastion of innocence to the point of parody in popular culture, school plays today are more self-conscious about being “socially relevant,” observers say.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles …
• If ever the need for public broadcasting were in doubt, cable news blares at us until the urgency of PBS’ prime-time oasis is unmistakable, writes Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker. The shouting heads on MSNBC et al., Franklin says, pander to “our idle curiosity [without] engaging our active curiosity about the world or about history. … Thoughtfulness has fallen through the cracks.” Even though the Discovery Channel and History Channel have put a dent in PBS’ purpose, and even though PBS can seem overly eager to please a mass audience with occasional watered-down documentaries, three current exceptions remind you of how good television can be when it sets out to “reward your patience” rather than bellow at you, says Franklin. This piece follows a long line of media critics’ laments over the prime-time din of cable “news” (and indeed, appears in the same issue as a less-than-glowing profile of Fox News chairman Roger Ailes), but Franklin is one of the few writers original enough to avoid beating a dead horse. Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune is another; see his story on upcoming Frontline world news specials here.*http://www.newyorker.com/critics/television/?030526crte_televisionRelated:
• My thoughts on media and curiosity at NBierma.com/journalism.
• Can information on travel in cyberspace at the speed of light? A good place to ponder this is none other than the Internet, with the publication of Albert Einstein’s writings on a new Web site, says Reuters. The site, www.alberteinstein.info, is a collaboration of the California Institute of Technology and the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml …
• Browsing: The rise of conservatives on college campuses in the New York Times Magazine, the Weekly Standard on the need for another NYT-like paper of record, and more from Slate‘s “In Other Magazines.”http://slate.msn.com/id/2083065

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Nathan Bierma is editorial assistant at Books & Culture.

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