December 3, 2024

The Christianity Today Book Awards

Let’s say you want to write a book. You’ve got a captivating story to tell or a compelling argument to make. You’ve got a gift with words. That’s a good…

Christianity Today’s Book of the Year

The CT Book Awards often resemble those viral online images that look completely different to different segments of the population. Gather any group of judges, and their evaluations inevitably land…

Winning the Pro-Life Battles, Losing the Persuasion War

The pro-life movement won a historic victory at the US Supreme Court with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It has not, however, won over many hearts and minds. In…

Strike Up the Band: Sixpence None the Richer Goes Back on Tour

I caught a stranger staring at my black and white Sixpence None the Richer shirt. “I’m trying not to one-hit wonder that band,” he confessed. The comment says a lot…

The post CT Daily Briefing – 12-04-2024 appeared first on Christianity Today.

The problem is, these aren’t our books, but books about us, books that stridently attack conservative Christians as “theocrats” and “fascists”—evangelical mullahs intent on replacing the government with our own “religion-soaked political regimes,” as one overheated author put it.

Conservative guru Kevin Phillips offered one of the first books, American Theocracy, which accuses President Bush of sending secret coded messages to the faithful in his speeches. Nixon aide turned whistleblower John Dean followed, attributing all the evils in American life to conservatives and the Religious Right.

Just a week before the 2006 election (coincidence?), former Bush aide David Kuo published a book accusing the White House of cynically exploiting evangelicals for political gain. He recommended that evangelicals “fast” from politics for a time. Randall Balmer, an evangelical himself, authored Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America, in which he claims that right-wing “zealots” have hijacked the evangelical faith and distorted the gospel.

Erstwhile friends produced these books; they’re gentle compared to what our opponents wrote.

Daniel Dennett, in Breaking the Spell, suggests that religion is a toxin that may be poisoning believers in ways they don’t suspect. Then came the bombshell rant, The God Delusion, by Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, who said he considers religious instruction a form of child abuse and urged governments to put a stop to it. The coup de grace was Chris Hedges’s American Fascists, which claimed violence-prone Christians intend to impose totalitarian rule.

What do several of these books have in common? Apart from the fact that they could be placed in the “hate speech” section of the local bookstore, they received major reviews in The New York Times, and most ended up on the Times‘s bestseller list, recognized for some time as culturally skewed.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Times editors have made little secret of their hostility toward conservative Christians. Bill Keller, the executive editor and a self-identified “collapsed Catholic,” compares the Roman Catholic Church to “the old Communist Party.” Keller has plenty of editorial company. As First Things editor Richard Neuhaus notes, the Times has committed “its considerable resources and influence to an all-out assault on the free exercise of religion.” Last fall, the Times ran a shoddy and inaccurate front-page series on supposed preferences to religious groups.

One installment wrongly said that our InnerChange Freedom Initiative is paid for by federal funds, its aim is to proselytize, and that it is anti-Catholic: Absolutely untrue. (The Times refused to publish our answer.)

We may think that mere rhetoric can’t hurt us; we may be mistaken. A few years back, Katie Couric, in a question to Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer, repeated the claim by gay-rights activists that homosexual Matthew Shepherd was killed because of the “anti-homosexual atmosphere” created by the ad campaigns of conservative groups like Focus on the Family. The fact that Couric asked this over-the-top question lent credence to an outrageous accusation.

But if Couric really believes that violent—or even merely critical—speech leads to violent actions, why isn’t she holding anti-Christian writers accountable for their rhetoric? If people really believe we are attempting a totalitarian takeover of America, would it be surprising for some unbalanced fanatic to take a shot at a Christian leader?

The question for us is how to answer their hysterical assaults. The writers know that evangelicals and conservative Catholics have had decisive influence on public policy and recent elections. Their books have one purpose: to silence us in the public square.

But we must not be intimidated; rather, we must continue to speak out boldly against abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, slavery in Sudan, and same-sex marriage.

Tempting though it is to fight back with angry words, a better way was modeled by British parliamentarian William Wilberforce, whom millions recently learned about through the great film Amazing Grace. Well-funded slavery interests viciously maligned Wilberforce, determined to shut him up. But Wilberforce ignored his enemies, pressing on to abolish slavery and promote spiritual awakening in England.

That is the example for us. We answer not by firing back, but by feeding the hungry, redeeming prisoners, and freeing today’s slaves.

If we do this, not even the bitterest critics can make the “Christian fascist” label stick—no matter how many bestselling books they write.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Christianity Today articles about atheism and books critical of religion include:

“Is Christianity Good for the World?” | Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson debate. (May 8, 2007)

Atheist Apostle | Sam Harris has little patience for theists of any sort. (March 5, 2007)

The New Intolerance | Fear mongering among elite atheists is not a pretty sight. A Christianity Today editorial (January 25, 2007)

Can You Reason with Christians? | A response to Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation. (Books & Culture, May 7, 2007)

Christopher Hitchens Explains It All for You | Move over, Sam Harris; another atheist wants the pulpit. (Books & Culture, April 30, 2007)

The Dawkins Confusion | Naturalism ad absurdum. (Books & Culture, March/April 2007)

Mr. Wilson’s Bookshelf | “Wayfaring Stranger” (Books & Culture, November 17, 2006)

Charles Colson’s most recent columns include:

War on the Weak | Eugenics has made a lethal comeback. (December 4, 2006)

The Earmark Epidemic | The disease must be cured for the common good. (September 25, 2006)

Bad Judgment | Ruling imperils faith-based programs around the country. (August 1, 2006)

Emerging Confusion | Jesus is the truth whether we experience him or not. (June 1, 2006)

Soothing Ourselves to Death | Should we give people what they want or what they need? (March 1, 2006)

A More Excellent Way | Changing the law isn’t enough. (February 1, 2006)

The post Overheated Rhetoric appeared first on Christianity Today.

1. Town charges congregation for police presence during protest With Elvira Arellano and her son back in Mexico after a year’s stay in a Chicago church, the neo-sanctuary movement‘s eyes have turned to United Church of Christ in Simi Valley, California, where an undocumented/illegal immigrant identified only as a 25-year-old Mexican woman named Liliana has taken shelter with her 5-month-old son.

It’s safe to say the UCC congregation is not evangelical. Its website, for example, has links to three different Rastafarian websites, CAIR, earthspirit.org, pagans.org, wicca.org; and countless gay sites. But not one to an evangelical organization, ministry, or church. In a recent sermon, the pastor preached: “There are those who would have us believe … that God wants each of us to find Jesus and be saved. Don’t believe it for a minute!” In that same sermon, she condemned, from the pulpit, by name, the “no middle ground thinking” of “a young man [who] wanted to give testimony to his own journey and his decision to follow Jesus.”

In other words, it seems like a rather intolerant and insular congregation to me. Still, I don’t really see the point of the demonstration organized by Save Our State, which protested outside the church Sunday and sought to make a citizen’s arrest of Liliana. News reports say there were about 120 protesters and counter-protesters when someone sprayed a chemical, injuring one of the church’s supporters. No arrest was made in that incident, but between four to fifteen officers were standing by to make sure the protest and counter-protest didn’t get out of hand.

Simi Valley mayor Paul Miller announced that the United Church of Christ congregation will be billed $39,306 for the police presence. Miller explained that while the church didn’t ask for a police presence, it created a need for one by announcing it was harboring an illegal immigrant.

“They set up this confrontation,” he told the Ventura County Star.

Legal experts say it may be an unprecedented move, and that the city will have an uphill legal fight in making the bill stick.

A Ventura County Star editorial agrees: “The city of Simi Valley is using the weight of government improperly, trying to intimidate the church by sending it a bill. It is unconstitutional — un-American — and we are certain a court of law will make that clear to the city council.”

That’s a better argument than the over-the-top response from Rabbi John Sherwood, chairman of the local interfaith ministerial association. “What the city is doing is giving legal license to racism, and they are attacking the victim,” he said. Dude, you’re not helping.

2. New Jersey punishes Methodists for barring lesbian civil union ceremony The Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association barred lesbian couples from holding civil union ceremonies at its boardwalk pavilion. The state civil-rights office is investigating whether that violates state antidiscrimination law, but in the meantime the state’s environmental commissioner has revoked the tax-exempt status for the pavilion. “Simply put, the pavilion needs to be available equally to all persons to retain its tax exempt eligibility under this particular statute,” the commissioner explained.

New Jersey’s main gay-rights group may appeal the tax exemption denial because it’s not harsh enough. News reports say the association will probably end up paying only about $175 a year as a result of the decision. The rest of the boardwalk and the beach, which are also owned by the camp meeting association, are still tax exempt. By the way, one of the lesbian couples who filed a complaint with the civil rights office held a civil union ceremony on the association-owned pier rather than the pavilion.

Maggie Gallagher notes that the decision makes the stakes clearer in the gay marriage debate:

“How can Adam and Steve’s marriage hurt you?” I’ve been asked over and over again, as if gay marriage were primarily about expanding personal liberty. Many libertarians and conservatives, in particular, have been seduced by this false framing of the issue. Liberty arguments lead to values pluralism: Live and let live; let each of us do what we want.

Equality arguments are, by contrast, high-octane fuel for expansions of government power. In this case the government of New Jersey has officially endorsed the idea that treating same-sex couples any different from unions of husband and wife is immoral discrimination — and those who do so must be disciplined for their bigotry.

3. Pro-life defeats in New Jersey “Abortion fight’s epicenter is Aurora” says the Chicago Tribune. If that sounds a little grandiose, consider Time‘s headline: “The abortion wars hit Illinois.” (Believe it or not, we Illinoisans have been debating this issue for a few months now.) But while the planned opening of Aurora’s abortion clinic is getting national attention, you may have missed some important developments in New Jersey. Within 24 hours last week, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that doctors performing abortions are not obligated to tell patients that an embryo is an existing living human being, and the state’s public advocate said he would not take action against the health department for not following state law on inspecting abortion clinics.

4. Casey striking out with some pro-lifers Abortion opponents are wondering if Sen. Bob Casey, one of Congress’s most prominent pro-life Democrats, is really such a pro-life Democrat. National Review Online reported:

[H]e voted for an amendment by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), to preserve the federal government’s so-called Mexico City policy, which prohibits the granting of federal funds to overseas groups that refer and perform abortions.

Twenty minutes earlier, however, Casey had voted for an amendment by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.) that not only overturned the Mexico City policy, but also increased funding for overseas groups that perform and refer abortions. Certainly, Casey had not had a change of heart in the space of 20 minutes.

The contradictory votes received little attention, but certainly neither made sense in the context of the other. [Four days later], however, Casey resolved the tension. He went to the floor of the Senate and announced that on the Brownback amendment, “It was my intention to vote ‘nay.’ Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome of that vote.”

Casey’s vote in favor of funding abortion providers has been duly updated on the Senate website.

Another prominent pro-life Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler, told Christianity Today earlier this year that reducing the number of abortions is the responsibility of communities and churches, adding, “I don’t think it’s as much about legal measures.”

But don’t buy the spin that pro-life Democrats are fakers. Philadelphia City Paper notes that on the same day that Casey cast his Mexico City policy vote, “He joined a winning effort by Republicans to uphold a Bush administration policy that denies U.S. aid to the U.N. Population Fund because of its tolerance of China’s use of coerced abortions and sterilizations. Casey went against Planned Parenthood on that one, but batting 1-for-2 apparently doesn’t cut it with the pro-life crowd.”

And Focus on the Family this week praised Shuler (along with three other freshmen members of Congress) for consistently voting pro-life.

5. Report criticizes British evangelicalism’s most famous institution Oxford University’s Wycliffe Hall, where Alister McGrath was principal, and where evangelical luminaries like J.I. Packer, N.T. Wright, and Michael Horton studied, has been the focus of some significant criticism lately (even, reportedly, from McGrath). But a new university panel report may be one of the most significant blows yet. According to The Times of London, the report claims that “Wycliffe does not resemble ‘an Oxford experience in its essentials’ and is not ‘a suitable educational environment for the full intellectual development of young undergraduates.'”

The report “concludes that Oxford’s seven Christian private halls risk failing to provide a rounded learning experience in keeping with Oxford’s liberal ethos,” the Times reports. I’m not sure the Times has the story right. While it quotes the report as saying the halls’ licenses will be reviewed if they are “shown to be departing from the values of a liberal education,” the newspaper seems to believe that means “Halls could risk losing their Oxford University licenses altogether if they teach a fundamentalist biblical doctrine on sexual ethics and in other areas of theology.”

You know the phrase “liberal arts” doesn’t actually mean liberal in the political or theological sense, right? I didn’t go to Oxford, but I’m pretty sure my English is right on that point.

Beyond the Top Five

6. Good news, bad news for Focus on the Family An IRS audit says James Dobson’s personal endorsements of candidates in 2004 didn’t disqualify Focus on the Family’s tax-exempt status. But the same day Focus made the announcement, it also said it was laying off 30 of its 1,205 employees.

In related news, Dobson still doesn’t like Fred Thompson. “Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes, and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?” Dobson wrote in an e-mail obtained by the Associated Press. “He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!”

Gary Bauer had earlier reported that members of the Arlington Group, the conservative umbrella organization reportedly trying to find a candidate to rally around, were “excited by Thompson.”

7. U.S. government indoctrinating Iraqi insurgents on Islam There are some significant church-and-state issues raised, but not directly addressed, in this Washington Post report:

The U.S. military has introduced “religious enlightenment” and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.

Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to “bend them back to our will” and are part of waging war in what he called “the battlefield of the mind.” Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the “House of Wisdom.”

The religious courses are led by Muslim clerics who “teach out of a moderate doctrine,” Stone said, according to the transcript of a conference call he held from Baghdad with a group of defense bloggers.

8. A pius candidate? After resigning as Zimbabwe’s Catholic archbishop amid allegations of adultery, Pius Ncube is sending signals that he may run for president against the longtime subject of his criticism, Robert Mugabe.

Meanwhile, African Anglicans are becoming more vocal in their criticisms of the dictator. Desmond Tutu said African nations need to get tougher with Zimbabwe. “By now it ought to be clear that the softly softly approach — quiet diplomacy — has not worked at all and we want something a little more forthright, a little more categorical,” he said. “All of us Africans must hang their heads in shame for having allowed such a desperate situation to continue almost without anybody doing anything to try and stop it.”

Ugandan-born John Sentamu, the Church of England’s Archbishop of York, says it’s not just African nations that need to act. “The time for ‘African solutions’ alone is now over,” he wrote in The Observer, likening Mugabe to Idi Amin and calling South African president Thabo Mbeki at best ineffectual and at worst complicit. “Britain needs to escape from its colonial guilt when it comes to Zimbabwe. Mugabe is the worst kind of racist dictator. … We cannot look the other way on Zimbabwe. Enough is enough.”

9. Universal Life Church marriages invalid, says Pa. judge Ever hear of those instant online ordinations from the Universal Life Church? A Pennsylvania judge says you can’t use them to officiate at weddings, at least in that state. “Under Pennsylvania law, those qualified to officiate a marriage are judges, mayors, or ministers, priests, or rabbis of a ‘regularly established church or congregation,'” the York Daily Record notes.

10. A novel turn on evangelicals and alcohol What does it mean that publishers of Christian fiction now allow their protagonists to imbibe alcoholic beverages? It demonstrates that “U.S. evangelical attitudes toward ‘demon rum’ have shifted,” Lauren Winner writes in Publishers Weekly‘s Religion BookLine. But it also may signal a shift in evangelical attitudes toward fiction, she says. “The increasing willingness of Christian publishers to show casual imbibing may be another step in the direction of depicting, rather than sanitizing, ordinary American life.”

Quote of the day “How can we expect these no-show candidates to take on Osama bin Laden and other world leaders when they’re afraid to show up and answer questions from Phyllis Schlafly?”

— Rabbi Aryeh Spero, president of the Jewish Action Alliance, at the “Values Voter Debate” with Schlafly, Paul Weyrich, Don Wildmon, Mat Staver, Rick Scarborough, and Janet Folger. Did Schlafly object to the comparison?

Bonus quote of the day: “I just am loving it. It’s in newspapers around the world and every article starts with ‘Emmy winner Kathy Griffin’ and then the letters all just blur after that.”

— Kathy Griffin, on the hubbub over her Emmy award acceptance speech, on Larry King Live. Members of The Miracle Theater in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, paid $90,440 for a full-page USA Today ad to note that they “take offense” to her comments.

More articles

Church billed for protest | Immigration | Church and state | Religious flyers in backpacks | Canada & religious schools | Education | Prison books | Military | Crime | Embezzling priest | Abuse | O. C. abuse | San Diego abuse settlement | Monk accused of abuse dies | FLDS Polygamy case | Juanita Bynum case | Discrimination | Senator sues God | Displays | Gambling | Morality | Dobson’s endorsements | 2008 elections | Giuliani | Romney | McCain | Thompson | Other candidates | Values vote debate | Politics | Mukasey | Mormonism | Presbyterianism | Paisley | Rowan Williams | California Supreme Court takes church property cases | Anglicanism | Episcopal meeting in New Orleans | Other denominations on gay issues | Same-sex issues | Ocean Grove | Ex-gays | Love & marriage | Chastity | Monasticism | Interfaith | Benedict in Austria | Catholicism and environmentalism | Benedict to visit U. S. | Catholicism | Vatican investigates theologian | Catholics & Amnesty International | Abortion clinic in Illinois | Abortion | Life ethics | New Zealand | Australia | China | Korean hostages | East Asia | South America | Africa | Ncube resigns | Mugabe & Zimbabwe | Lebanon | Iraq | Pakistan | India | Religious freedom | Israel | Jewish holidays | Fasting and Ramadan | Holidays | Missions & ministries | Amish | Church life | Property and zoning | Prayer | Atheism | Books | God’s Harvard | The Stillborn God | Media & entertainment | Kathy Griffin | People | Science, evolution, & faith | Cremation | Other

Church billed for protest:

• Simi bills church targeted by protesters | Officials charge for costs incurred at site where a Mexican woman is taking sanctuary (Los Angeles Times)
• City charges sanctuary church for police services | The city of Simi Valley is sending a $40,000 invoice to the church that was the site of a weekend protest over its sheltering of an illegal immigrant (Ventura County Star, Ca.)
• Bill for protest raising eyebrows | Simi mayor defends decision to charge church (Ventura County Star, Ca.)
• Church to be billed for costs of protest | Simi wants $40,000 for police presence at event (Ventura County Star, Ca.)
• Groups clash over immigration at church | Dozens of activists on both sides of the illegal immigration debate faced off outside a church where an illegal immigrant is being sheltered with her U.S.-born infant son (Associated Press)
• Earlier: Protesters target Simi church | Group sought citizen’s arrest of illegal immigrant inside (Ventura County Star, Ca.)
• Goofball politics | The immigration debate gets silly in Simi Valley (Editorial, Los Angeles Daily News)
• 1st Amendment? It will cost you | Simi wrong to bill church (Editorial, Ventura County Star, Ca.)
• Better ways to effect change | Church protest a waste of time (Editorial, Ventura County Star, Ca.)

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Immigration:

• Congress quietly returns to immigration | A broad overhaul failed this summer, but an array of smaller measures is under discussion, including ways to legalize certain workers (Los Angeles Times)
• Church expands its mission to immigration advocacy | A program designed to foster cooperation between two congregations, one largely white, one mostly Hispanic, has expanded in an unexpectedly political direction (The New York Times)
• The new sanctuary | Portland Christians join a movement that helps support immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally (The Oregonian)
• Sanctuary protest turns violent at church | Anti-immigrant group sought citizens arrest (WNBC, Los Angeles)
• Latino church groups lead rally | Protesters criticize Georgia law, pray for federal solution (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Majority of Lutheran vicars ready to defy law to help asylum seekers | Survey shows nearly all would give sanctuary to asylum seeker (Helsingin Sanomat, Finland)
• Church good, immigration authorities bad | The church and the Directorate of immigration are in a battle of words which does neither side any good (Keijo Himanen, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland)

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Church and state:

• Two Rivers Baptist Church faction sues for files | Some members say Two Rivers pastor misspent money (The Tennessean, Nashville)
• Also: Church-state issues arise in local lawsuit | A church-state attorney representing Nashville pastor Jerry Sutton has described a Sept. 14 lawsuit filed by 54 church members as “completely unfounded.” (Baptist Press)
• In dispute over cross, court sides with Jewish veterans | Three members of Congress who led efforts to transfer a large outdoor cross in San Diego to the federal government must turn over some of their official records on the subject to a Jewish war veterans group challenging the Mt. Soledad memorial as an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, a federal judge ruled (The New York Sun)
• Also: Another interesting installment in the Mt. Soledad cross litigation (Religion Clause)
• Monarch faith role ‘should stay’ | Prince Charles should not become defender of all faiths rather than just Christianity when he becomes King, the Archbishop of Canterbury has insisted (BBC)
• Judge overturns vote to oust Shiloh pastor | Ruling is only round one in dispute (The Washington Post)
• Tempe church making controversial move to Chandler | No-tax industrial funding sought in Chandler (The Arizona Republic)
• Parishes facing big tax bills for churches closed by Diocese of Buffalo | Tax-exempt status will be in jeopardy (The Buffalo News, N.Y.)
• Most think founders wanted Christian USA | Most Americans believe the nation’s founders wrote Christianity into the Constitution, and people are less likely to say freedom to worship covers religious groups they consider extreme, a poll out today finds (USA Today)
• God and the Constitution | A poll shows widespread ignorance of basic freedoms and a belief that many of the Constitution’s rights apply only to some Americans, not to all (Editorial, USA Today)
• What part of ‘secular nation’ do we not understand? | 2007 State of the First Amendment survey finds majority of Americans believe Founders intended and established a Christian nation — though in no way did they do so (Charles C. Haynes, First Amendment Center)
• Should churches remain tax-exempt in Georgia? | The narrow vote – a 2-2 deadlock that had to be broken by Mayor Jim Joiner – was clear evidence of the difficulty the Jefferson City Council faced in voting last week to keep churches off the town square. (Jim Thompson, Athens Banner-Herald, Ga.)

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Religious flyers in backpacks:

• Religious fliers prompt complaint | A flier sent home this month in the backpacks of 2,000 Madison elementary students carried an unmistakably religious pitch: “Plant the Seeds of Faith in Jesus in Your Child at our Sunday school.” (Wisconsin State Journal)
• Packing propaganda | Religious fliers, junk mail stuffed in public school backpacks (The Capital Times, Madison, Wis.)
• School backpack handout raises religious controversy | A “church vs. state” controversy is brewing over a flier sent home with Madison school students (WRN, Wisconsin)

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Canada & religious schools:

• McGuinty, Tory clash over PC offer to fund private religious schools | The penultimate event in Ontario’s provincial election – a live, televised debate – kicked off Thursday night, with the three leaders sparing little time to clash over the campaign’s most divisive issue (Canada.com)
• Tories ponder how to shift focus off religious schools | Faith-Based Funding; ‘It’s an idea the Ontario public just doesn’t want to buy’: professor (National Post, Canada)
• Religious schools won’t be main issue: McGuinty (CTV)
• Ontario Catholic school board votes in favour of HPV vaccine | Catholic educational leaders across Ontario are debating whether to allow Grade 8 girls to get the new HPV vaccine in school, amid fears the controversial needle effectively condones the kind of premarital sex their religion condemns (National Post)
• Ontario leaders spar over religious education | Leaders of the two main parties sparred Monday over money for religious schooling, with the New Democrats complaining that the issue had diverted attention from under-funded public schools (The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
• Ontario leaders spar over religious education | Leaders of the two main parties sparred Monday over money for religious schooling, with the New Democrats complaining that the issue had diverted attention from under-funded public schools (The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
• Newfoundland offers religious school lessons | Province reversed centuries of education based on faith to adopt a new public system (Toronto Star)
• Tory stands firm on religious-school funding | Despite its unpopularity among voters, and against advice of pundits and pollsters, Conservative Leader keeps issue in spotlight (The Globe and Mail, Toronto)

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Education:

• Oxford’s Christian colleges ‘are not suitable for school-leavers’ | Official report raises grave concerns about the narrow Christian education that is being received by some of the younger students (The Times, London)
• Trustees question Roberts’ leadership after VP resigns from Midwestern | The chief financial officer at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary resigned Sept. 20 in a dispute with president Philip Roberts over a financial analysis that raised questions about Roberts’ leadership, the school’s trustee chairman said (Associated Baptist Press)
• Controversy over funding denial for Christian concert at University of Arizona | The concert, “Overflow”, had been funded for the last seven years, but a recent change in the bylaws of the Associated Students of the University of Arizona was applied to deny funding this year (Religion Clause)
• Law school’s shortcoming noted | The Ave Maria School of Law, which has been embroiled in a bitter dispute over a planned move from Michigan to Florida, may face a challenge to its continued accreditation, according to a letter released last week by the law school’s dean (The Chronicle of Higher Education, sub. req’d.)
• Catholic students sue UW over fees | Group says school won’t let funds pay for activities (Associated Press)
• Temple U. to restore namesake temple | Temple University will begin a two-year, $29 million renovation to the abandoned Baptist Temple that is its namesake, transforming the landmark building into a performing arts center (Associated Press)
• Board: Charter school can teach Hebrew | A charter school may resume teaching in Hebrew, three weeks after the lessons were halted over concerns the Jewish faith was seeping into public classrooms, the school board voted Tuesday (Associated Press)
• A clash of rights | The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that a college’s anti-bias rules served an important state function — and a function that was more important than the limits faced by a fraternity not being recognized (Inside Higher Ed)
• Angry mother sues after children told to leave | A family whose three children were told to leave a Catholic primary school against their will earlier this year is suing the Catholic Education Office, alleging discrimination and bullying (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• “Equal access” for high school groups under federal law interpreted | The court found that a Christian group is entitled to all the privileges granted by Farmington High School to any other student group (Religion Clause)
• Wheaton College to open Hastert Center | The J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government and Public Policy is scheduled to open in December, college officials announced Wednesday (The Daily Herald, Chicago suburbs)
• Profs seek change in ETS statement | Citing insufficiencies with the current doctrinal basis of the Evangelical Theological Society, two Baptist college professors are spearheading an effort to amend it (Baptist Press)
• Accommodating the faithful | Public schools go dark on Saturdays and Sundays, the traditional days of worship for Christians and Jews. And on Christmas, class will not be in session. But when schools provide foot baths for Muslims, critics cry foul. So what is acceptable in a country that has a wall between church and state? (T. Jeremy Gunn, USA Today)
• Religious education | There’s not much for secularists to sing about (Philip Beadle, The Guardian, London)
• Faith schools should not be tax-funded, and here’s why | If the Catholic church is prepared to ban Amnesty because of its stance on abortion, what other rights might it censure? (Zoe Williams, The Guardian, London)
• Why are we here? | Colleges ignore life’s biggest questions, and we all pay the price (Anthony Kronman, The Boston Globe)

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Prison books:

• Prisons purging books on faith from libraries | Chaplains in federal prisons have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials (The New York Times)
• Critics right and left protest book removals | The federal Bureau of Prisons is under pressure to reverse its decision to purge prison chapel libraries of all religious books and materials that are not on a lists of approved resources (The New York Times)
• Can’t find religion in the federal pen | The Bureau of Prisons wants to keep dangerous reading materials from prisoners. To do so, they’ve stripped library shelves of all but ‘approved’ books. (Editorial, The Roanoke Times, Va.)
• Overly zealous approach | Removing faith-based books could hinder inmates in adopting better values (Editorial, Las Vegas Sun)
• Faith-based censorship | It is particularly alarming that what amounts to book banning is occurring in the United States, a democracy, which thrives on free speech and a mix of ideas (Editorial, The Hartford Courant, Ct.)
• Prison library purge | In response to a genuine problem, the Bureau of Prisons has managed to be late, clumsy and self-defeating, all at the same time (Michael Gerson, The Washington Post)

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Military:

• Military sued over religious freedom | A soldier whose superior prevented him from holding a meeting for atheists and other non-Christians is suing the Defense Department, claiming it violated his right to religious freedom (Associated Press)
• Former Guantanamo detainees sue officials | Four accuse U.S. of faith-based humiliation; religious groups rally around the plaintiffs (The Baltimore Sun)
• Bush apologizes to Wiccan soldier’s widow for meeting slip-up | President Bush has apologized to the widow of a Wiccan soldier after she was excluded from a Nevada meeting this week that the president held with the families of soldiers killed in combat (The Washington Post)

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Crime:

• Vegas priest pleads guilty to battery | The Rev. George Chaanine admitted Thursday in Clark County District Court that he smashed a wine bottle over the 54-year-old woman’s head at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church in January (Associated Press)
• Diocese bans priest accused of harassment | An Arlington priest accused of sexual harassment was banned Thursday from working in the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese, despite the inconclusive results of an investigation (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Tex.)
• Church bilked of property, judge told | When investigators raided the home of a disbarred Berwyn lawyer in June 2006 as part of a probe into the fraudulent sale of vacant lots belonging to churches and charities, they found $100,000 in cash neatly stacked in the bottom of a laundry basket covered with dirty clothes (Chicago Tribune)
• Earlier: Curtain to rise on land-scam trial | Ex-lawyer accused of property theft (Chicago Tribune)
• Vandalism of Virgin of Guadalupe statue a strong blow to Hispanic Catholics | Virgin of Guadalupe image depicted in statue has social significance (The Dallas Morning News)
• Also: Dallas church to repair vandalized Virgin Mary statue (The Dallas Morning News)
• IRS combats fake-church tax scams | Feds aim to stop spread of fraudulent 1-person corporations (The Arizona Republic)
• Jury consulted the Bible, but death sentence stands | The federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld a death sentence from a jury that had consulted the Bible’s teachings on capital punishment (The New York Times)
• Appeals court upholds death sentence | A juror’s reciting Bible verses did not taint the verdict for Stevie Lamar Fields, a panel rules (Los Angeles Times)
• No charges in N.O. nursing home deaths | Days after a jury acquitted two nursing-home owners in dozens of Hurricane Katrina-related patient deaths, a prosecutor said that no charges would be filed in a similar case involving a nursing home run by an order of Roman Catholic nuns (Associated Press)
• Church leader’s trial on tax evasion opens | The Rev. Jonathan Yates, accused of helping himself to church funds, faces 13 charges (Mobile Press-Register, Ala.)
• ‘He hurt a lot of people’ | St. Charles man found investors at his church; they lost millions (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Lord knows how much this church leader owes | Kendrick Turner, head of Faith Deliverance Outreach Ministry, isn’t paying his bills (Tamara Dietrich, Daily Press, Newport News, Va.)
• Man charged in vandalism of churches | Nassau police arrested a Roosevelt man who they say went on a vandalizing spree, hurling objects through windows of three churches in his hometown and each time leaving a note in which he complained about not getting things on his wish list (Newsday)
• Assault case against pastor put off for a year | The Rev. Carlton R. Upton Sr. is accused of assaulting a church secretary in his office after a meeting (Daily Press, Newport News, Va.)
• Also: Verdict delayed over altercation between reverend, secretary (The Virginian-Pilot)
• ‘Da Vinci Code’ of Ulster | Police puzzled by mysterious church thefts resembling bestseller (Belfast Telegraph)
• Cleveland Catholic Diocese kickback trial postponed | The federal court trial of a former accountant for the Cleveland Catholic Diocese was postponed Monday after the defendant, Anton Zgoznik, refused to participate and tried to fire his lawyers (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
• Rape case against pastor is dismissed | Tarrant County prosecutors have dismissed a sexual assault charge against a 65-year-old Fort Worth church pastor who had been accused by a church member of raping her in 2005 during what she described as a cleansing ceremony to cast out demons (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Tex.)
• Lawyer claims defendant in hate crime is gay, too | A melodramatic turn in the trial of four men accused of killing a gay man because of his sexual orientation temporarily obscured the darker nature of the case (The New York Times)
• Also: Sexuality as defense puzzles judge | A judge cast doubts yesterday on a defense raised by one of the young men accused of chasing a gay man to his death in traffic on the Belt Parkway last year (The New York Times)
• Arson’s aftermath a trial by fire | Kim Cloyd tells how family has coped (The Birmingham News, Ala.)
• Graffiti cleanup team works on its own church hit by taggers, vandals | Seventeen-year-old Tadacha Cooper is used to spending Saturday mornings cleaning up graffiti in southwest Fresno with teens from her church — but this time it was personal (Fresno Bee, Ca.)
• 9th Circuit: Parolee can’t be forced to attend AA | Buddhist plaintiff Ricky Inouye objected to meetings because of program’s religious content (First Amendment Center)
• 6th Circuit rejects challenge to admission of religious journal entries into evidence | The court rejected Varner’s argument that Michigan’s clergy-penitent privilege law “improperly favors religions that encourage their members to seek guidance through intermediaries, such as a pastor or priest, over faiths that have no such tradition.” (Religion Clause)
• Winkler granted supervised visitation | Mary Winkler will be able to visit her three daughters again, starting a week from Saturday, after more than a year with no physical contact with them (The Jackson Sun, Tenn.)
• Also: Slain minister’s wife can visit kids | A judge ruled Wednesday that a woman who killed her minister-husband with a shotgun can begin supervised visits with her three young daughters, but did not decide whether she can have custody of them (Associated Press)
• Channeling their discontent | Baptist pastor leads 500 at BET executive’s D.C. home to protest stereotypes (The Washington Post)
• Decision in torture case upsets churches | Representatives of several black churches appealed to prosecutors Thursday to pursue hate-crime or civil-rights charges against six white people accused of torturing a black woman over several days (Associated Press)

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Embezzling priest:

• Former pastor will be sentenced in December | The Rev. Michael Jude Fay admitted in federal court he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from his wealthy Darien church to buy a Philadelphia condominium and lead a life of luxury (The Advocate, Stamford, Ct.)
• Also: Parishioners hope to put events into the past | Longtime parishioners of St. John Roman Catholic Church in Darien felt surprise, relief and sadness yesterday when they heard their former pastor, the Rev. Michael Jude Fay, pleaded guilty (The Advocate, Stamford, Ct.)
• Also: Ex-priest pleads guilty in fraud case (Associated Press)
• Father Fay admits it | Former St. John pastor pleads guilty and faces up to 10 years in prison (The Darien Times, Ct.)
• Priest pleads guilty to defrauding parish | The Rev. Michael Jude Fay, a Roman Catholic priest with a taste for high living, pleaded guilty to federal charges of defrauding his parishioners of nearly $1 million from 1999 to 2006 (The New York Times)

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Abuse:

• City diocese settles abuse cases | Catholics will pay total of $1.25 million to 32 people (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
• Archdiocese settles priest abuse lawsuit | The family of a 15-year-old boy who was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest has reached a $1.65 million settlement with the Archdiocese of Chicago (Chicago Tribune)
• Boy abused by Rev. McCormack settles for $1.6 million | At least two other suits against McCormack and the archdiocese are pending. (Chicago Tribune)
• Retired priest’s jailing stirs man’s emotions | Former Catholic Priest Francis DeLuca will serve 60 days in jail for molesting a teenage boy in Syracuse, where he settled after retiring in Delaware (The Post-Standard, Syracuse, N.Y.)
• Group: Mexican Cardinal knew of abuse | A victims’ group said Tuesday that newly released documents support its claim that Mexico’s most prominent cardinal knew a Mexican priest was suspected of molesting children but transferred him to the United States anyway (Associated Press)
• Pittsburgh diocese to settle abuse cases | The Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh said Monday it has created a $1.25 million fund to settle 32 lawsuits alleging abuse or injury by priests (Associated Press)
• Fresno church congregation turns to God during difficult time | Pastor accused of sexual abuse (KFSN, Fresno, Ca.)
• Fresno pastor pleads not guilty to sex abuse charges | The pastor of Sierra Heights Baptist Church pleaded not guilty Thursday to 107 felony counts of sexual misconduct involving two girls (The Fresno Bee, Ca.)
• Motion filed to hold bishop in contempt | Attorneys for a woman who alleges sexual abuse by a lay teacher at a Roman Catholic high school asked a judge Wednesday to hold the bishop of the Diocese of Orange in contempt of court (Associated Press)
• Lawyer calls priest in sex abuse suit ‘sociopathic’ | A New Haven lawyer said the priest implicated in a clergy sex-abuse lawsuit filed in August against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford was “one of the most sociopathic abusers” he has dealt with as an attorney (New Haven Register, Ct.)
• Jacksonville priest target of suit | Parishioner accuses him of sexual assault (The Florida Times-Union)
• First coast priest sued, accused of abusing and trying to buy rights to teen | The lawsuit centers around the St. John the Divine Greek Orthodox Church of Jacksonville and its former priest, Nicholas T. Graff (WTLV/WJXX, Jacksonville, Fla.)
• Ex-Jeff Co. pastor faces child-sex counts | Authorities in California have charged a Baptist minister who once served in Jefferson County with 107 felony counts of sexually molesting two girls under the age of 14 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Award reduced in Mormon church abuse case | The state Court of Appeals has overturned a portion of a 2005 civil court verdict that found The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints financially liable after a church member sexually abused his two stepdaughters (The Seattle Times)
• Former church elder guilty of sex offence | A former elder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Lakeview church pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexual exploitation of a teenage girl who was a member of the same congregation (The Star Phoenix, Saskatoon)

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O. C. abuse:

• O.C. diocese moves to seal bishop’s testimony in abuse suit | O.C. Bishop Tod Brown testified in a civil sex abuse suit against an ex-Mater Dei teacher (Los Angeles Times)
• Offers of help overwhelm Santa Barbara nuns | News of the planned sale of their convent to help pay a clergy sex abuse settlement has brought promises of assistance and media attention (Los Angeles Times)
• O.C. bishop’s accuser identifies himself | The man who accused Bishop of Orange Tod Brown of sexually abusing him in the 1960s spoke publicly for the first time about his allegations Friday, saying he was molested three times when he was a boy living in Bakersfield (Los Angeles Times)
• The costs of church scandal | The Catholic Church’s divestiture to pay for abuse settlements means good works will go undone (Editorial, Los Angeles Times)
• Diocese hasn’t learned futility of concealment | Developments in a current sex-abuse lawsuit cast doubt on church’s promises of transparency. (Editorial, The Orange County Register, Ca.)
• A taste of what’s ahead in church trial | What did Diocese know? (Frank Mickadeit, The Orange County Register, Ca.)

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San Diego abuse settlement:

• Settled: $198 million | Victims tearful, elated after deal with diocese (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Parishioners voice opinions on settlement (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Frustration, then relief as two sides struck deal (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Church’s path to penance is chided | Legal experts fault bankruptcy option (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Abuse claims are settled for $198 million | The San Diego diocese’s agreement to pay 144 molestation victims is second only to the L.A. archdiocese’s in the church’s sex scandal (Los Angeles Times)
• Diocese settles abuse claims for $198M | The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego said Friday it has agreed to pay $198.1 million to settle 144 claims of sexual abuse by clergy, the second-largest payment by a diocese. The agreement caps more than four years of negotiations in state and federal courts (Associated Press)
• San Diego diocese settles lawsuit for $200 million | The settlement with 144 people who said they were sexually abused by clergy members would be the second-largest payout related to such abuse in the Roman Catholic Church (The New York Times)
• Deposition reveals abuse allegations against O.C. Bishop Brown | A judge’s unsealing of testimony in the Mater Dei High School case leads to the disclosure (Los Angeles Times)
• Brown abuse claim a mystery | Bakersfield police do not know if they investigated molestation charge (The Orange County Register, Ca.)
• Closure? Not so fast | Settlement can’t erase so many sordid details (Editorial, San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Monk accused of abuse dies:

• Sheriff: Monastery leader’s death might have been suicide | Samuel Greene, founder of the Christ of the Hills monastery, was facing child sexual assault charges (Austin American-Statesman)
• Blanco monks’ leader is dead | Samuel A. Greene Jr., whose charisma carried him from being a land pitchman to leader of a monastery outside Blanco, was found dead Monday, just days before facing up to 180 years in prison for allegedly violating his probation (San Antonio Express-News)
• Monk accused of molesting boys dies | Samuel Greene had health problems, faced probation revocation (Austin American-Statesman)
• Monk’s final pill-popping is detailed | Before mixing a cocktail of painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs late Sunday, admitted child molester Samuel Greene Jr. had been drinking heavily and was very depressed by the prospect of being ordered to prison at a hearing Friday (San Antonio Express-News)
• Founder of scandal-mired monastery dies | Samuel A. Greene Jr., the founder of a monastery that closed amid scandal over the alleged sexual abuse of novice monks and a fraudulent weeping Virgin Mary painting, has died. He was 63 (Associated Press)

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FLDS Polygamy case:

• The polygamy paradox | The trial of Warren Jeffs pits the state’s interest in protecting children against his claim to religious freedom (Time)
• Jury gets accomplice-to-rape case against polygamist sect leader today | Among the central questions for jurors: Who pushed Doe’s marriage? And, did a rape occur? (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Polygamous leader’s defense focuses on family’s role in reluctant teen bride’s marriage | Mom, dad, sisters had more impact than Jeffs did, attorneys assert (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Jeffs case seems a little shaky | It’s a strange rape case when the attacker hasn’t been put on trial (Rebecca Walsh, The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Man who wed girl in arranged union testifies for polygamist leader | The final defense witness in the case against the polygamist leader Warren S. Jeffs testified that there had been no rape in the consummation of the marriage of a 14-year-old girl (The New York Times)
• Followers dispute that Jeffs allowed men to force sex | The polygamist leader’s teachings say it is up to women to initiate marital relations, witnesses say, contrary to a teen bride’s claims (Los Angeles Times)
• Polygamous leader’s flock testifies FLDS sect embraces kindness, not forced sex | FLDS faithful counter alleged teen bride’s marriage rape claims (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Despite leader’s trial, sect slow to evolve | As polygamist Warren Jeffs faces accomplice-to-rape charges, only little progress is seen in the enclave he once controlled on the Arizona-Utah border (Los Angeles Times)
• In polygamy country, old divisions are fading | The old and bitter history of intra-Mormon relations hangs over everything in St. George, Utah (The New York Times)
• Boys cast out by polygamists find help | Over the last six years, hundreds of teenage boys have been forced out of a polygamous settlement on the Arizona-Utah border (The New York Times)
• Many jurors dismissed in Jeffs case | Prospective jurors in the trial of a polygamous-sect leader have expressed some firm views about polygamy and arranged marriage — opinions that were strong enough to weed out the majority of people summoned to the courthouse (Associated Press)
• Teen bride describes her wedding day | A former follower of a polygamous-sect leader sobbed on the witness stand Friday as she described the terror and despair she felt on the eve of her wedding at age 14, and said she became intensely depressed after having sex (Associated Press)
• Defense grills Jeffs accuser on day 3 | A defense attorney picked over the testimony of a key witness in the trial of a polygamous sect leader Monday, looking for discrepancies in her story about being forced to marry an older cousin when she was 14 (Associated Press)
• Defense rests in Jeffs case | Closing arguments slated for Friday (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Witnesses describe Jeffs’ sect as kind, empowering for women (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Sect leader’s rape-by-proxy trial begins | Warren Jeffs might not have laid a hand on the 14-year-old girl he’s accused of coercing into marrying her cousin, but he’s still responsible for her rape, prosecutors maintained Thursday as opening arguments neared (Associated Press)
• A rape trial that misses the big picture | This case raises a different question about consent. How much power did the religious leader wield over the 14-year-old? (Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe)

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Juanita Bynum case:

• A minister’s public lesson on domestic violence | A domestic violence case involving a television evangelist has left some questioning her credibility (The New York Times)
• Preacher denies he abuses women | “My role has always been to operate as a protector and not as an aggressor. I have walked away from many situations between the two of us, just like I walked away that night.” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Televangelist’s husband speaks out | Televangelist Juanita Bynum’s husband said Friday he and his wife spent the night together the day before she says he beat her, and it had boosted his hopes for reconciliation (Associated Press)
• Prophetess’ case highlights domestic violence in faith communities | Anti-domestic violence advocates say they can use all the fire power they can get in their efforts to get religious communities to put their faith in action against what some consider a “silent epidemic.” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• More twists in the clash of bishop vs. evangelist | If refiling of the petition continues, it could come with some surprises (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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Discrimination:

• Three men face charges of criminal discrimination against woman pastor in Hyvinkää | Refusal to work with a woman pastor at a church in Hyvinkää last March has brought charges of discrimination to three men (Helsingin Sanomat, Finland)
• Bill would ban bias on sexual orientation | The panel’s Democrats and Republicans split over proposed legislation that would ban discrimination against federal employees and job applicants based on sexual orientation. Republicans asked for a roll call, and Democrats, as the majority party, prevailed, 5 to 3 (The Washington Post)
• Push to end anti-gay discrimination | Measure to end workplace bias against gays gains traction (Associated Press)
• Gay activists hopeful on job bias ban | But Rep. Barney Frank and others are less optimistic about the fight ahead in the narrowly divided Senate, where they would need 60 votes — rather than a simple majority — to overcome anticipated GOP stall tactics, such as a filibuster (Associated Press)
• Judge denies Baptist seminary’s request to dismiss woman’s suit | A federal judge has denied Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a female former professor (The Dallas Morning News)

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Senator sues God:

• Nebraska state senator sues God | Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, State Sen. Ernie Chambers says he’s trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody. (Associated Press)
• ‘God’ apparently responds to lawsuit | A legislator who filed a lawsuit against God has gotten something he might not have expected: a response (Associated Press)

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Displays:

• Courthouse display that includes Jesus now OK, judge rules | A portrait of Jesus Christ may remain on the wall at Slidell City Court as part of an expanded display that includes portraits of 15 other historical figures and a copy of the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge ruled Friday morning in New Orleans (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
• ‘Intent’ affects display rulings | Commandment suits vary in Ky. (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• Rowan’s display OK; Garrard’s isn’t | Rulings on Ten Commandments (Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.)

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Gambling:

• Detroit casinos deal city urban renewal | While they aren’t a panacea for all the city’s ills, the casinos have hushed many critics, including some pastors who thought they’d bring only more crime and blight (Associated Press)
• Bingo may be dying, but not in a West Boca Catholic Church | Weekly games still a draw at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
• Debate on opening casinos in Massachusetts reflects new attitude | Despite some lingering vestiges of a Puritan blue law culture that brought “banned in Boston” to the nation’s vocabulary, Governor Deval Patrick’s willingness to embrace casinos represents a fundamental shift over the last generation in Bay State residents’ comfort level with the ethics and glitz of gambling (The Boston Globe)

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Morality:

• At least on Wall Street, wages of sin beat those of virtue | Funds that invest in “sin stocks” — companies involved with drinking and gambling, for example — have earned better returns this year than funds striving to be socially responsible (The New York Times)
• Rum not so demonic anymore | As U.S. evangelical attitudes toward “demon rum” have shifted, standards about alcohol in Christian publishing also have begun to change (Publishers Weekly)
• Addictive behavior | Pastors and pornography (The Christian Century)
• The devil in every fan | We cheer when our teams cheat. That’s because all we care about is winning. And if that makes us immoral, so what? (Peter Beinart, Time)

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Dobson’s endorsements:

• Christian broadcaster Dobson no fan of Thompson | Dobson says he won’t back actor, who says, ‘it’s a free country’ (The Dallas Morning News)
• Dobson says he won’t support Thompson | James Dobson, one of the nation’s most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week he will not support Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson (Associated Press)
• Dobson’s choice | Focus on the Family’s Fred focus (The American Spectator)
• IRS: Dobson’s endorsements were legal | Focus on the Family’s nonprofit status upheld amid complaints of partisanship (Associated Press)
• Dobson’s politics won’t affect Focus’ tax-exempt status | Focus on the Family chairman James Dobson’s endorsement of 2004 Republican candidates did not disqualify his conservative media ministry from tax-exempt status, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service ruled after an audit (The Denver Post)
• Focus vindicated after yearlong IRS audit | ‘No dings. No criticisms. Not a single allegation was found to have substance.’ (CitizenLink, Focus on the Family)
• Focus on the Family will lay off 30, move 15 more to new jobs | Most of the layoffs are in the organization’s Constituent Response Services department that answers mail and telephone requests (The Gazette, Colorado Springs)
• The FundamentaList | The quest for Dobson’s endorsement, the Values Voter Presidential Debate, secret Bible codes about 9-11, Santorum’s prep for war with Iran, and televangelist domestic violence (The American Prospect)

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2008 elections:

• Faith’s role on the rise in Campaign 08 | A new Pew poll on religion and politics finds that 70 percent of Americans want a president with strong religious beliefs (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Falwell’s son urges conservative pastors to get out the vote | The son of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, whose Moral Majority helped reshape the national political landscape, vowed Tuesday to pick up where his father left off and help change public policy in Virginia and in Washington (The Washington Post)
• A crisis of political faith for evangelicals | GOP hopefuls will get no free passes this time from a religious base angered by tepid progress on its agenda (CQ)
• AP Poll: GOP presidential race a toss-up | White men, conservatives, evangelicals and other pivotal blocs are divided among the Republican Party’s leading contenders for president (Associated Press)
• Those Christian candidates | Faith matters a lot in the coming presidential election, but it is unclear whether the candidates’ faiths are more likely to hurt or help (Editorial, The Toledo Blade, Oh.)
• Christian Coalition back in the news | Randy Brinson, a physician known for his work registering young Christians through Redeem the Vote, guided what was left of the Christian Coalition of Alabama on a more pragmatic, more progressive path. The going was slow at first, but apparently some wealthy contributors have stepped up, and the CCA is on the move again (Editorial, The Anniston Star, Ala.)
• Theology on the hustings | If Mr. Kinsley would require candidates who worship and claim to know God to come clean about any hidden agendas they might have, should not full disclosure also be required of those who practice a religion of political convenience and even the secularist and the practical atheist (which would include a nontheistic candidate as well as one who simply invokes God’s name for political reasons, but doesn’t seriously believe in Him)? (Cal Thomas, syndicated)

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Giuliani:

• Giuliani’s GOP lead shrinks in new poll | Giuliani now stands at his lowest point yet among mainline Republicans, men, conservatives and white evangelical Protestants (The Washington Post)
• I am pro-life and I support Rudy | Why? Precisely because he is unreligious and a supporter of abortion rights (Eric Johnston, The Dallas Morning News)
• Some religions and politics just don’t mix | Candidates bewitched and bewildered (Ben Krull, The Baltimore Sun)
• Anti-Roe and pro-Rudy | By taking the side of pro-lifers for democratic, but not devout, motives, a President Giuliani could shake up the nearly 35-year-old debate over Roe v. Wade (Eric Johnston, The New York Times)

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Romney:

• Romney targets gay marriage in new ad | Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is launching a radio ad touting the strength of his opposition to gay marriage (Associated Press)
• Mitt Romney – the Mormon challenger who hopes ‘to do a JFK’ in quest for presidency | He leads the polls in most of the early primary states but will Mitt Romney’s religion bring him down in the race for the White House? (The Times, London)
• For Romney, it’s not his father’s campaign | Mormonism wasn’t really an issue 40 years ago (Dan Gilgoff, The Washington Post)

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McCain:

• McCain says he’s been Baptist for years | Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has long identified himself as an Episcopalian, said this weekend that he is a Baptist and has been for years (Associated Press)
• McCain: Overall faith what’s important | Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that questions over whether he identifies himself as a Baptist or an Episcopalian are not as important as his overarching faith (Associated Press)
• Candidates invite questions about their faith | As personal as religion is, it is also a staple of political campaigns — and this year more than ever (The Washington Times)
• Can we get past Baptist bashing? | I don’t care whether Republican presidential candidate John McCain is an Episcopalian or a Baptist. But the implication in Monday’s paper that he’d been caught at something — outed while trying to pass as an Episcopalian — hit a nerve. (Dannye Romine Powell, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)

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Thompson:

• Evangelicals hesitant about Thompson | Prominent evangelical leaders who spent the summer hoping Fred Thompson would emerge as their favored Republican presidential contender are having doubts as he begins his long-teased campaign (Associated Press)
• Thompson says he won’t tout his religion on trail | Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson, who is basing his campaign on an appeal to conservative voters, says he isn’t a regular churchgoer and doesn’t plan to speak about his religion on the stump (Bloomberg)
• Evangelicals hesitant about Thompson | Prominent evangelical leaders who spent the summer hoping Fred Thompson would emerge as their favored Republican presidential contender are having doubts as he begins his long-teased campaign (Associated Press)
• Thompson cites ‘good Church of Christ’ upbringing but doesn’t attend regularly | Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson says his religion is Church of Christ. He was baptized as a youth, worships at a congregation in Tennessee when he visits his mother and has made donations to at least one church-affiliated university (The Christian Chronicle, Church of Christ newspaper)

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Other candidates:

• John Edwards: working-class values and a closely held faith | While Christian beliefs help gird his antipoverty campaign, he believes that politicians who identify closely with one religion cannot be inclusive (The Christian Science Monitor)
• God and … Hillary Clinton? | An interview with Paul Kengor (FrontPageMag.com)

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Values vote debate:

• ‘Values voters’ hold debate | Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and Fred Thompson — sat out the Values Voter Presidential Debate, citing scheduling conflicts. That didn’t stop questioners from addressing the front-runners who didn’t attend (Associated Press)
• Values voters | Despite a gaffe that showed he’s not yet familiar with Washington-speak on abortion, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee won the values voters straw poll, held after the first-ever Values Voter debate Monday night (The Washington Times)
• Values voters pick Huckabee | For all those wondering whether Mitt Romney can break through among Christian conservatives, add this data point: he was the only candidate who received zero votes in a straw poll after last night’s Values Voters Debate, an event he and the other leading Republican contenders decided to skip (The New York Times)
• 7 GOP hopefuls face off in values debate (The Miami Herald)
• GOP debate in Lauderdale targets faithful | On a night that opened with 90 minutes of prayers, gospel music and Bible verses, seven Republican presidential candidates gathered in Fort Lauderdale to try and win over an evangelical voting bloc that has been a political powerhouse in past elections (The Miami Herald)
• GOP presidential debate in Fort Lauderdale focuses on conservative values | Little more than asterisks in the public opinion polls, the lesser-known candidates for president tried Monday to appeal to the most conservative elements of the Republican Party in an attempt to break into top-tier status (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
• Huckabee triumphs in ‘Value Voters’ straw poll | “How can we expect these no-show candidates to take on Osama bin Laden and other world leaders when they’re afraid to show up and answer questions from Phyllis Schlafly?” Rabbi Aryeh Spero of the Jewish Action Alliance asked (The Hill)
• Values-voter label is simplistic, ill-fitting | It’s become a caricature of what Christian conservatives believe, and is summed up by some as only being about God, guns and gays (Brent Castillo, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.)

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Politics:

• House passes Vietnam Human Rights Act | Among other things, it prohibits any increase in nonhumanitarian foreign aid to Vietnam until the President certifies that various human rights goals have been met (Religion Clause)
• New York just says no to abstinence funding | The decision puts New York in line with at least 10 other states that have decided to forgo the federal money in recent years (The New York Times)
• “Pro-life” Casey votes twice to enable US funding for abortion overseas | Last week Senator Bob Casey, Jr. (Democrat-Pennsylvania) actively contradicted his largely pro-life campaign promises by voting to approve a funding appropriations bill that would provide US funding to foreign organizations that promote and provide abortions (LifeSiteNews.com)
• Bush advisers’ paths diverge as end nears | Dowd steps back from campaigns; McKinnon still active (Austin American-Statesman)
• Comelec: Priesthood not obstacle in polls | The Commission on Elections’ second division has dismissed the petition of lawyer Ely Pamatong to remove Pampanga Gov. Eddie Panlilio on the basis of his being a priest (The Philippine Inquirer)
• Religious right set to gather | A three-day summit will bring well-known figures to Brandon to talk bedrock issues (St. Petersburg Times, Fla.)
• Bible Society in link with Liberal Democrats | The new project aims to help Lib Dem Christians explain how their faith and politics fit together (Religious Intelligence)
• Ky. opens own faith-based service office | Program is modeled on White House plan (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• State debuts faith-based office | Meeting to link officials, providers (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• Faith-based politics | It’s not happenstance that Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives is having its public debut this week, with polls showing Gov. Fletcher far behind and his re-election campaign making raw appeals to narrow religious sectarianism (Editorial, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• Evangelicals’ own fear dooms them | They are responsible for a great many of the most notable social and intellectual embarrassments in America since the new millennium took hold, and rest assured, we and the rest of the civilized world shall recall their bleak accomplishments for much of our natural born lives, and shudder. (Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle)
• Keep virgin births and gold plates out of politics | “Mainstream” Christianity turns the two most preposterous ideas imaginable—conception without gametes and resurrection from the dead—into planks of its theology and has the nerve to taunt Mormons about adding gold plates into the mix (Giles Whittell, The Times, London)
• A strange way to woo religious voters | Outreach efforts might be more credible if Democrats were not simultaneously trying to incite conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Louisiana — and managing to offend both groups in the process (Michael Gerson, The Washington Post)

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Mukasey:

• Bush picks Mukasey as attorney general | Despite his experience with the terrorism docket, opponents of Mukasey — especially those who are against abortion — are upset about a 1994 case he handled (Associated Press)
• No conservative rebellion over Mukasey | Conservatives may not like President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, but they are not rebelling against Michael Mukasey (Associated Press)

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Mormonism:

• Mormon church regrets 1857 massacre | A ranking Mormon church official expressed “profound regret” Tuesday for the massacre of 120 California-bound pioneers moving through Utah on a wagon train on the 150th anniversary of the ambush (Associated Press)
• Wives and Republicans | Observations on polygamy (New Statesman)
• The Mormons are coming | Long before Mitt Romney and “Big Love,” Mormons were demonized as polygamists, prudes and vampires. But Mormonism just may be the first major world faith since Islam. (Salon.com)

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Presbyterianism:

• Church battle comes to head | Can fate of Linn Grove church be resolved before it goes to a courtroom? (Storm Lake Pilot Tribune, Ia.)
• Top Presbyterian official to leave post | The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, who has been elected to three terms as stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) since 1996, announced his retirement (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• Also: Presbyterian leader praised, blamed | Well-liked despite controversies (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• Church heals from emotional split | St. Petersburg Northeast Presbyterian has come together after doctrinal differences led to a severe schism. (St. Petersburg Times, Fla.)

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Paisley:

• Belfast’s Paisley loses his flock | Retirement shouldn’t be far from Paisley’s mind at the age of 81, but the circumstances indicated he may be jumping before being pushed by an unprecedented revolt among his most ardent followers (Time)
• Ian Paisley to leave top church post | The Rev. Ian Paisley said Saturday he is stepping down as leader of the hard-line Protestant church he founded 56 years ago, a decision his opponents say was inevitable after he angered many by cooperating with Sinn Fein to form a Northern Ireland government (Associated Press)
• You may not have noticed, but it’s the end of Paisleyism | Free Presbyterian Church has to cope with the fact that the most caustic preacher of his day is no longer Pope and that they could become just another evangelical sect. (Barry White, The Belfast Telegraph)

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Rowan Williams:

• Anglican schism? | Archbishop Rowan Williams strives to preserve the communion (National Catholic Reporter)
• ‘Is our society broken? Yes, I think it is’ | An interview with Rowan Williams (The Telegraph, London)
• Archbishop: Pushy parents damaging children | Middle class parents are damaging their children by pressurising them to achieve and forcing them to take up extra-curricular activities, the Archbishop of Canterbury says (The Telegraph, London)

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California Supreme Court takes church property cases:

• State high court to review ruling on churches | The case involves the property of three parishes that broke from the Episcopal Diocese of L.A. (Los Angeles Times)
• State court will hear L.B. church’s case | All Saints 1 of 3 breakaway Episcopal churches in Southland (Long Beach Press-Telegram, Ca.)
• Church case goes higher | A July petition led to an agreement for the California Supreme Court to hear St. James Anglican Church’s case (Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, Ca.)
• O.C. parish case will go to state Supreme Court | St. James Church in Newport and two other congregations have been in property dispute with Episcopal Diocese (Orange County Register, Ca.)

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Anglicanism:

• Church defers decision on Covenant | Members of the Church in Wales have voted not to approve a draft version of the Anglican Covenant (Western Mail, Wales)
• Also: Archbishop of Wales rejects church peace plan | Bible isn’t a rule book and can’t be taken at face value, says Morgan (The Echo, Wales)
• Also: Exclusion attack on church draft | The Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan has attacked a draft proposal aimed at reuniting the Anglican church, arguing that it could lead to exclusion (BBC)
• Congregation exits | Gay clergy cemented departure from Episcopal Church (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Also: ‘A new birth, a new start’ | The Church of the Resurrection separates from Episcopal Church, find new home (The Daily Herald, Chicago suburbs)
• Quincy diocese may leave Episcopal Church | Consecration of actively gay bishops, blessings of same-sex unions at odds with local leadership (The Peoria Journal-Star, Ill.)
• Settlement reached by Episcopal Diocese and Syracuse breakaway congregation | Under the settlement, the diocese will be given title to the church property, but members of the breakaway church can use it rent-free for up to one year (Associated Press)
• Church votes to disband from ministry | Congregants at Pro-Cathedral of St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, one of the city’s oldest places of worship with hundreds of members and more than a dozen ministries, is leaving the Episcopal Church to carry on with theological doctrines members said no longer fit those of its former denomination (El Paso Times, Tex.)
• Sudanese worshipers persevere in N.H. | Every Sunday afternoon at Grace Episcopal Church in the heart of New Hampshire’s largest city, these Sudanese refugees commune with God in their native tongues of Arabic and Dinka, each softly spoken word reviving memories of their homeland (The Boston Globe)
• Colorado flock leaves Episcopalian fold | The exodus from the Episcopal Church continued last week as leaders of Church of the Holy Comforter prepared to split with the increasingly liberal denomination (The Washington Times)
• Nigerian call for Lambeth delay | The Church of Nigeria has urged Archbishop Rowan Williams to postpone the 2008 Lambeth Conference, writing that a meeting of bishops that comes before a resolution of the Anglican Communion’s wars over doctrine and disciple would hasten its destruction (Religious Intelligence)
• Moved by Islam, priest embraces two faiths | The Episcopal Church has suspended one of its priests, Ann Holmes Redding, for one year after her announcement this summer that she is both a Christian and a Muslim. A local Muslim leader’s speech to Redding’s church two years ago inspired her to begin attending Muslim prayer services while she was still serving her local diocese (Day to Day, NPR)
• Building a home | Spiritual journey leads pastor to found Anglican church (Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.)

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Episcopal meeting in New Orleans:

• Pro-gay agenda pushes Church closer to schism | Peter Akinola, the most powerful leader of evangelical Anglicans worldwidem has issued a last-minute plea to the US Episcopal bishops over their pro-gay liberal agenda, to save the Church from schism (The Times, London)
• Meeting held on Anglican-Episcopal split | In closed-door talks with the archbishop of Canterbury, Episcopal leaders are confronting demands that they roll back their support for gay priests or lose their place in the world Anglican fellowship (Associated Press)
• Episcopals reveal little of gay rift talks | Episcopal bishops were tight-lipped on Thursday about meetings with the Archbishop of Canterbury aimed at healing a rift in their church over the ordaining of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions (Reuters)
• Anglican leader urges church to find accord amid turmoil | Episcopal leaders weighing same-sex unions, gay clergy (The Washington Post)
• Episcopal bishops, archbishop seek a middle ground | Queries, comment offered on issue of gay clerics (The Boston Globe)
• Anglicans meet amid growing discord | In one more attempt to quell storms ripping through the world’s third-largest Christian denomination, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, meets today in New Orleans with 160 bishops of its U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church (USA Today)
• Anglican gay-bishop stance is put to the test in Chicago | As Episcopal bishops begin historic talks with their spiritual leader Thursday on whether the worldwide Anglican Church can overcome differences about homosexuality, many point to Chicago as proof that minds are already made up (Chicago Tribune)
• Episcopal bishops in key meeting on gays | A preview (Associated Press)
• Episcopal Church faces deadline on gay issues | As the bishops of the Episcopal Church approach their semiannual meeting this week in New Orleans, the predictions of rupture are being taken very seriously (The New York Times)
• Anglican leader in U.S. over gay bishop | It wasn’t just a friendly invitation. U.S. Episcopal bishops, fed up with Anglican criticism of their support for gay priests, implored the Anglican spiritual leader to hear their side of the story — in person (Associated Press)
• What future for Anglicanism? | When the American branch of the Anglican church appointed an openly gay bishop in 2003, conservatives said it could lead to a split in the worldwide denomination. Now African churches are taking the matter into their own hands (BBC)
• Episcopal bishops meet to discuss future | They will consider a directive from the worldwide Anglican Communion to not ordain gay bishops or bless same-sex couples (Los Angeles Times)
• Divided flock: Episcopal Church dissidents seek authority overseas | Amid rift over gays, conservatives go global; bishops made in Africa (The Wall Street Journal)
• U.S. Episcopal church faces another showdown on gays | Leaders of the U.S. Episcopal Church face a wrenching decision in the next few days on whether to issue a clear-cut ban on allowing people in gay relationships to be bishops and on blessing same-sex unions (Reuters)
• Williams in showdown with US church over gay bishops (The Guardian, London)
• Episcopalian church beginning to divide | Most prominent dividing line is whether the Church should ordain gay priests or bless gay unions (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Tension as Episcopal bishops meet | Starting Thursday in New Orleans, they’ll discuss communion demands over gay issues (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Bishop in full support of gays | Curry will help set Episcopal position (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
• Archbishop calls secret service for gay clergy to halt slide towards schism | The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to hold a secret Communion service for gay clergy and their partners in London (The Times, London)

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Other denominations on gay issues:

• LDS forums to discuss gay issues | Just days after this week’s Evergreen International conference ends, the LDS Church will publish another look at same-sex attraction (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Presbyterian delegates vote no on gay, lesbian ordination | Decision is close (The Toledo Blade, Oh.)
• Presbyterian group in region opposes ban on gay clergy | A regional body of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is taking the lead on reviving national opposition to the denomination’s ban on ordaining homosexuals (The Journal News, White Plains, N.Y.)
• Transgender pastor’s new test of faith | A United Methodist council’s decision on whether to accept him could have political implications too (Los Angeles Times)

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Same-sex issues:

• California schemin’ | In the fight to legalize same-sex unions, a swing vote emerges: Hispanic evangelicals (World)
• Judge squashes part of UK gay rights laws | In a ruling hailed as “significant” by Christian groups, the High Court judge in Belfast decided that the rules should not have been included in sexual orientation regulations that came into force in January (The Telegraph, London)
• Bar exam taker wants his free exercise suit dismissed | Law school graduate Stephen Dunn had claimed that by asking him to answer an essay question on gay marriage, the bar examiners were calling on him to promote views that violate his religious beliefs (Religion Clause)
• Md. Senate president won’t back gay unions | Advocates vow to fight for marriage equality (The Washington Post)
• Md. ban on gay marriage is upheld | Law does not deny basic rights, is not biased, court rules (The Washington Post)

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Ocean Grove:

• Dispute on gay unions could cost group | State pulls association’s tax-exempt status (The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.)
• No tax break for boardwalk pavilion | DEP denies exemption, cites civil-union ban (Asbury Park Press, N.J.)
• Group loses tax break over gay union issue | A boardwalk pavilion in Ocean Grove, N.J., has lost its tax-exempt status as the Methodist organization that owns it battles with state officials over gay civil union ceremonies (The New York Times)
• Gay-rights group may appeal N.J. boardwalk-bias decision | The state’s leading gay-rights group wants to appeal a decision by state environmental officials stripping a Methodist church group of a tax exemption for part of the Ocean Grove boardwalk. Garden State Equality says the decision by state Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson does not go far enough in its penalty (Associated Press)
• Church group shouldn’t face harsh penalties | Methodist association has the right to say no to civil unions on its property (Editorial, Courier-Post, Cherry Hills, N.J.)
• Can New Jersey punish Methodists for marriage? | For the first time, a religious organization in New Jersey is being punished by the government because it refused to permit same-sex civil union ceremonies on its property. All it took was one bureaucrat (Maggie Gallagher)
• Ocean Grove obliged to allow civil unions | As the old saying goes, the association can’t have its cake and eat it, too. Taxpayer support is tied to certain strings; it’s too late for Ocean Grove to cut them back (Editorial, The Home News Tribune, East Brunswick, N.J.)
• Unfurling their rainbow | Lesbian couple holds ceremony on a pier after use of pavilion is barred (The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.)

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Ex-gays:

• Focus on Family: Sexual orientation can change | Ministry endorses a recent study finding that it is possible, through religious mediation, to change one’s sexual orientation (The Denver Post)
• Critics claim ‘ex-gay’ study flawed, biased | Activist says researchers ‘don’t want the truth’ (Washington Blade, gay newspaper)

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Love & marriage:

• Judge unties the knot | A county judge’s ruling on Internet-ordained ministers is the first of its kind (York Daily Record, Pa.)
• Divorce threat persists throughout marriage | Divorce itself has stabilized in recent decades, neither rising nor falling significantly. But experts say the longitudinal information also suggests divorce remains a threat throughout married life (USA Today)
• ‘Marriage should be limited to seven years’ says German politician | Marriages should last for only seven years before the couple decide to go their separate ways or sign up for an extension, a German MP has proposed (Daily Mail, U.K.)
• A match made on earth | When Christians date outside the fold (Naomi Schaefer Riley, The Wall Street Journal)
• Taking a Christian approach to finding love | Actually, a local Christian approach (Michael Miller, Peoria Journal-Star, Ill.)

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Chastity:

• Event celebrates dads’ pledge to daughters | ‘Purity Ball’ seeks to honor fathers as family leaders (The Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• With impure intentions | The “Hollywood Father/Daughter Purity Ball” is a feisty satire of the movement that has become a staple of evangelical communities in Bible Belt states (Los Angeles Times)
• US chastity evangelist targets Australian kids | Silver Ring Thing has attracted criticism for making misleading statements about safe sex and contraception and for frightening youngsters into pledging (The Sydney Morning Herald)

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Monasticism:

• Ancient records help test climate change | A librarian at this 10th century monastery leads a visitor beneath the vaulted ceilings of the archive past the skulls of two former abbots. He pushes aside medieval ledgers of indulgences and absolutions, pulls out one of 13 bound diaries inscribed from 1671 to 1704 and starts to read about the weather (Associated Press)
• Harvard bell returned to Russia | A massive Russian church bell that hung for decades at Harvard was returned to a Moscow monastery Wednesday, nearly 80 years after it and 17 others were rescued from Stalin’s religious purges by a U.S. industrialist (Associated Press)
• My life as a hermit | A new approach to the later years: becoming a hermit, for spiritual reasons (The New York Times)
• Tourists, monks and history: Whose islands are they? | Many of the monks who live on the Solovetsky Islands, among the holiest sites in Russian Orthodox Christianity, are alarmed by recent efforts to open the islands to tourists (The New York Times)

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Interfaith:

• An unholy alliance denied | A budding courtship between Iran’s theocracy and the American Religious Left hit a speed bump on September 7 when the U.S. State Department denied visas to a “religious delegation” from Iran that was to meet here with U.S. clerics (Mark D. Tooley, FrontPageMag.com)
• An ecumenical revelation | Finding room for conservatives in interfaith dialogues (Matthew Weiner, The Wall Street Journal)

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Benedict in Austria:

• Pope ends 3-day Austria pilgrimage | Pope Benedict XVI, beset by drab weather and relatively small crowds, ended a pilgrimage to Austria on Sunday by reminding Europeans of their Christian heritage as they grapple with immigration and Islam (Associated Press)
• Pope makes pilgrimage to Austrian shrine | Pope Benedict XVI made a pilgrimage Saturday to a famous shrine to the Virgin Mary, where he celebrated an open-air Mass in the rain for more than 30,000 believers and called on Europeans to embrace faith (Associated Press)
• Pope speaks of Europe’s tragic past | Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged Europe’s tragic past and warned of its uncertain future Friday as he honored Jews killed in the Holocaust and urged the continent to accept its Christian heritage (Associated Press)
• Keep Sunday special says Pope | Pope Benedict on Sunday called on Catholics to keep the Sabbath a day set aside for reflection on their faith and the fate of the planet and not surrender it to “the mad rush of the modern world” (Reuters)
• Europe future bleak without God, more children –Pope | Benedict, who appeared to be struggling with a hoarse voice, wove his sermon around the theme of revitalising Christian identity in a modern Europe marked by diminishing Church participation, low birthrates and rampant consumerism (Reuters)
• Pope says abortion “not a human right” | Pope Benedict rejected the concept that abortion could be considered a human right on Friday and urged European leaders to do everything possible to raise birth rates and make their countries more child-friendly (Reuters)
• Pope lauds Austria Catholics for faith in a secular society | On Saturday, the pope told a crowd of 40,000 in Austria that Europe still needs the truth, and that truth is Catholicism (The New York Times)
• Pope vigorously defends Catholicism in Austria and raises concerns on Europe’s future | Pope Benedict XVI warned that Europe may extinguish itself if it embraces abortion and rejects Christianity (The New York Times)
• Related: Report: Society that adheres to Christian roots superior, Austrian president says | In the interview, Fischer also said he didn’t want to consider other religions as the concept of the enemy. “Use of violence, breaking of laws, intolerance: Those are our enemies, not faith or a particular religion,” Fischer was quoted as saying (Associated Press)

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Catholicism and environmentalism:

• In Austria, Pope emphasizes protection of the environment | Pope Benedict XVI briefly expanded on the Vatican’s increasing focus on the environment at the end of a three-day visit to Austria (The New York Times)
• Vatican penance: Forgive us our carbon output | A donation from a Hungarian company will help the Vatican become the world’s first carbon-neutral state (The New York Times)
• Can purchasing carbon ‘offsets’ erase some environmental sins? | Others liken offsets to the old Catholic practice of buying indulgences for the forgiveness of sins. But offsets can lead a person to believe it’s OK to pollute — as long as they pay for it later (USA Today)
• Religiously green | In the best news for the environment in quite some time, Pope Benedict XVI appears to be enlisting the Vatican in a growing crusade by faith-based organizations to protect nature’s handiwork from global warming (Editorial, The Baltimore Sun)

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Benedict to visit U. S.:

• Pope visit to U.S. in spring may help heal wounds | Pope Benedict will make his first trip to the United States next spring in a visit that will likely try to heal some of the wounds caused by recent sexual abuse scandals (Reuters)
• City says it can’t confirm plans for a papal visit | Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday that he would view a visit to Boston by Pope Benedict XVI as a “great honor,” but that the city has received no confirmation that the pontiff intends to visit (The Boston Globe)
• Church: Hub visit by pope a rumor | The Archdiocese of Boston has dismissed as “speculation” a report that Pope Benedict XVI could visit the Hub as part of a U.S. tour next year (Boston Herald)

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Catholicism:

• Pope warns Catholic theologians against arrogance | In a sermon at a private mass on Sunday, Benedict said theologians could know everything about the history of the Scriptures and how to explain them, but know nothing about God (Reuters)
• Pope asks Christians, Muslims to find common ground | “To avoid any form of intolerance from developing and to prevent violence, we must encourage sincere dialogue based on ever truer mutual knowledge,” the Pope told visiting bishops from Benin, West Africa, on Thursday (Reuters)
• Report: Pope refused to meet with Condi Rice | Corriere della Sera says the Vatican rebuffed Rice, who “made it known to the Vatican that she absolutely had to meet the pope,” because the Catholic leader was on vacation at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo (USA Today)
• Pope backs Vietnamese as possible saint | Pope Benedict XVI expressed his support Monday for the beatification of a Vietnamese cardinal who spent 13 years in a communist prison camp before being sent in exile to Rome (Associated Press)
• Naples hails annual miracle of liquefying blood | Roman Catholics in Naples crowded the city’s cathedral on Wednesday to witness the annual miracle of Saint Gennaro, who died in the 4th century but whose dried blood is said to turn liquid on his feast day (Reuters)
• Lawyer told to pay $24,310 | Judge rules lawsuit against Catholic Church, government baseless (Albany Times-Union, N.Y.)
• Turning for help to a saint in the making | The defenders of a closed church have made a candidate for sainthood a central element in their argument for reopening the building (The New York Times)
• Woman gains a role in church, people’s lives | Noel Fuentes was earning well at her job, but felt unfulfilled. Now she’s a pastoral associate, assisting with parish duties and helping parishioners (Los Angeles Times)
• Higher calling | A woman is ordained to the Catholic priesthood. Not surprisingly, the hierarchy does not approve (Newsweek)

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Vatican investigates theologian:

• Vatican, bishops investigating Georgetown theologian Phan | Both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops are investigating a book by a prominent American Catholic theologian, Vietnam-born Fr. Peter Phan of Georgetown University. The book raises issues about the uniqueness of Christ and the church, issues that were also behind recent censures of other high-profile theologians, as well as a recent Vatican declaration that the fullness of the Christian church resides in Catholicism alone (National Catholic Reporter)
• Vatican investigates American theologian | The Vatican and U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are investigating the writings of well-known American theologian Peter Phan, who has analyzed how the Catholic faith relates to other religions. (Associated Press)
• At variance with the Vatican | The Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are reportedly investigating a book by a Georgetown University professor of theology, the Rev. Peter C. Phan, to determine whether the work is consistent with church doctrine regarding understandings of Roman Catholicism relative to other religions (Inside Higher Ed)
• Vatican makes inquiries into professor’s writings | The Vatican and U.S. Catholic bishops are reviewing the work of a Georgetown University theology professor who writes about religious pluralism and are talking with him about whether his writings conform with Catholic teachings (The Washington Post)

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Catholics & Amnesty International:

• Catholic edict shuns Amnesty | The director of the Catholic Education Office, Stephen Elder, yesterday wrote to principals at all 328 Catholic schools in the Melbourne archdiocese, advising them to cut their longstanding ties with the organization (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• Schools ‘cut links with Amnesty’ | Some Catholic schools are disbanding their Amnesty International support groups over its stance on abortion (BBC)
• Amnesty hopes schools don’t disband support groups | Amnesty International has said it hopes Catholic schools across Ireland will not disband their support groups due to the organisation’s new stance on abortion (Belfast Telegraph)
• Amnesty faces ban in Northern Ireland’s Catholic schools | The Catholic church in Northern Ireland has started to instruct schools to disband Amnesty International support groups because of the human rights organisation’s pro-abortion stance (The Guardian, London)
• Italy bishop chides Amnesty on abortion | Monsignor Angelo Bagnasco criticized Amnesty International’s “astounding inclusion, among recognized human rights, of the choice of abortion, even though only in the case of violence against women.” (Associated Press)

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Abortion clinic in Illinois:

• Judge: Aurora Planned Parenthood clinic can wait | Door still open for Planned Parenthood (Chicago Tribune)
• Judge denies motion to let clinic open | A suburban Planned Parenthood clinic prohibited from opening after anti-abortion activists raised questions about how it received its building permits will stay closed for the near future (Associated Press)
• Inquiry stalls abortion clinic | Activists say Planned Parenthood deceived officials in Ill. city (The Washington Post)
• Abortion debate rages in Chicago suburb | A federal judge could decide as soon as Thursday to order local officials to allow the clinic to open. That prospect has drawn round-the-clock protests to the site by anti-abortion activists (Associated Press)
• Abortion fight’s epicenter is Aurora | Both sides use new clinic to rally causes (Chicago Tribune)
• Pro-choice clerics back clinic | Seek day of prayer for Planned Parenthood facility (Chicago Sun-Times)
• The abortion wars hit Illinois (Time)

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Abortion:

• Court: MDs need not say ‘abortions kill’ | Jersey decision on doctors’ advice could have ripples throughout U.S. (The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.)
• Top N.J. court reverses abortion ruling | A doctor has no duty to tell a woman considering an abortion that her embryo is an “existing human being,” a unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, averting a trial over when human life begins (Associated Press)
• Public Advocate won’t sue over lax abortion clinic inspections | The New Jersey Public Advocate’s office rebuffed an anti-abortion group’s request to take legal action against the state’s Health Department for its failure to properly inspect the state’s licensed abortion clinics (The Press of Atlantic City, N.J.)
• Also: Abortion foes set back twice | The state’s Supreme Court and public advocate dealt dual blows to abortion rights opponents Wednesday, rejecting their arguments on two separate issues (The Record, Hackensack, N.J.)
• Missouri abortion law under review | Facilities that regularly provide first-trimester terminations — including the pill version — may be regulated as outpatient surgical centers. Two of the state’s three clinics would have to close (Los Angeles Times)
• New Jersey’s top court rejects suit on abortion | Because there is no consensus on the issue of when life begins, a doctor does not have to tell a woman considering an abortion that the procedure would result in “killing an existing human being,” the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled (The New York Times)
• An abortionist’s right to deceive women | Ruling against choice (Walter M. Weber, National Review Online)

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Life ethics:

• Vatican edict on feeding tube debated | From a practical standpoint, Catholic health-care institutions — including 615 hospitals and 511 skilled nursing homes across the U.S. — may now have to alter practices (Chicago Tribune)
• Vatican opposes removal of feeding tubes | The Vatican reiterated Friday that it considers the removal of feeding tubes from people in vegetative states to be an immoral act (Associated Press)
• Vatican rules on nourishment for vegetative patients | The Vatican, ruling on a debate that has divided Catholic hospitals, said on Friday it was wrong to stop administering food and water to patients in a vegetative state even if they would never regain consciousness (Reuters)
• Clergy to help people die | They will not administer drugs but will monitor as fatal medication works (The Sacramento Bee, Ca.)
• N.J. stem cell plan assailed | Abortion foes try to halt $450m stem cell referendum (Associated Press)
• Half-price IVF offered for eggs | Women in the north of England are being offered half-price fertility treatment if they donate some of their eggs to medical research (BBC)
• Where risk and choice and hope converge, a guiding voice | Daniela Iacoboni, a genetic counselor, seeks to balance information about risk with caution about passing on serious diseases (The New York Times)
• Judge halts executions by injection | ‘Unnecessary pain’ risk noted in ruling (The Tennnessean)
• Let’s not pass law against fatherhood | If the embryos are human enough to be of use in research, are they not human enough for it to be wrong to experiment on them – whatever the possible benefits? (Michael Nazir-Ali., The Telegraph, London)

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New Zealand:

• Co-leader pulls out of new Christian party | Another major upset has hit the formation of a new unified Christian political party with one of the co-leaders pulling out. (TV3, New Zealand)
• Copeland, Lewis to co-lead new Christian party | Destiny New Zealand disbands (NZPA, New Zealand)
• Fresh bickering leaves Christian party in further disarray | Plans for a united Christian party have fallen into further disarray with several of the main players contradicting each other in a fresh round of public bickering (The New Zealand Herald)
• Christian shambles no surprise to PM | Gordon Copeland may pull the plug on his involvement with the newly formed Christian political party, mainly due to a clumsy announcement and lack of co-ordination with his supposed co-leader, Destiny’s Richard Lewis (TVNZ, New Zealand)
• Speed wobbles hit Christian party plan | Wrangling over the co-leadership of a yet to be formed Christian party has taken another turn as both leaders accuse the other of breaching good faith (NZPA, New Zealand)
• Christian MP says party launch ‘Mickey Mouse’ | Independent MP Gordon Copeland says he was thrown a “curve ball” over the way the leadership of the new Christian party was announced and he has given no guarantees he will stick with it (The New Zealand Herald)
• Copeland’s date with Destiny on the rocks | Just 24 hours after his union to Destiny NZ was announced, Independent MP Gordon Copeland has suggested the new marriage may already be on the rocks (The Dominion Post, New Zealand)

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Australia:

• Move to empower laity raises church ire | The Sydney Anglican Church has revived its radical push to let church elders preside over Holy Communion despite strident opposition from Australian Anglicans and the worldwide church and at the risk of antagonising international churches it has courted to stop the consecration of gay bishops (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Update: Sydney postpones controversial lay presidency decision (Church of England Newspaper, via TitueOneNine)
• Pell welcomes contempt clearing | The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, has welcomed a report clearing him of contempt of the New South Wales Parliament over remarks about MPs voting for stem-cell research legislation (ABC, Australia)
• Fresh offensive as Anglicans fail on conversions | The great mission of the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, to convert 10 per cent of Sydneysiders to its “Bible-based” churches has fallen short of its target and only recruited 5000 adult converts in the past five years (The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia)
• Rounding up the flock | Long ago, the Gideons learned to spread the gospel by putting millions of New Testaments in hotel rooms around the world. If Sydney’s Anglican archbishop, the Most Reverend Peter Jensen, gets his way, Sydney Anglicans will be handing out more than 1.5 million gospels in their neighbourhoods (The Australian)
• Archbishop sees vibrant future for Anglican church | More drum kits and fewer stained glassed windows. That’s the future of the Anglican Church through the eyes of the leader of Australia’s biggest Anglican community (PM, Radio National, Australia)
• Archbishop urges people to vote on faith at election | The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney says Australians should look to their faith when deciding how to vote in the next election (ABC, Australia)
• Old church, new church | As waves of migration and gentrification change the inner suburbs, local churches are finding new ways to serve their communities (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• Churches join in Jesus blitz | Tasmania’s Christian churches have launched their biggest advertising campaign yet in a bid to get more people to embrace Christianity (The Mercury, Tasmania, Australia)
• Bishop facing threat of tribunal | The head of the Anglican Church in Australia is considering setting up a special tribunal to examine complaints against an Anglican bishop and determine if he should be stripped of his holy orders (The Australian)
• Neighbours complain about worshippers’ unholy racket | Rowdy Christians have upset their neighbours in Keilor East (Moonee Valley Community News, Australia)
• Anglicans to capitalise on Catholic day | A new recruitment drive by the Anglican Church will see Sydney homes receive bibles and DVDs in a campaign that draws on next year’s World Roman Catholic Youth Day (ABC News, Australia)
• Loving your neighbour not a game of chance | The Anglican Church may ban raffles because they are a form of gambling allowing you to “enrich yourself at the expense of your neighbour” (The Sydney Morning Herald)

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China:

• Quiet signals cleared new Beijing bishop | The Rev. Joseph Li Shan, the new Catholic bishop of Beijing, has risen steadily through the Chinese Catholic clergy, which was decimated by the Cultural Revolution (The New York Times)
• Also: Catholic bishop ordained in Beijing | China, Vatican seen as trying to ease tensions (The Washington Post)
• Also: Beijing appoints new Catholic bishop | A cleric well-regarded by the Vatican was installed as bishop of Beijing by China’s state-controlled Catholic Church, a move that officials said should help ease tense relations between the communist nation and the Holy See (Associated Press)
• Also: China installs new bishop for capital (Reuters)
• China’s pre-Olympic religious crackdown | Foreign missionaries find themselves China’s persona non grata (ABC News)
• China defends its record on religion | Government says all Chinese can worship as they choose with no restrictions, and it blasted a U.S. government report that said Beijing persecutes some believers (Associated Press)
• Chinese Catholic bishop dies in custody | Bishop Han Dingxiang, who led an underground congregation of Roman Catholics and was repeatedly detained in China for his loyalty to the Vatican, died in police custody, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said Tuesday (Associated Press)
• Also: Pro-Rome Chinese bishop is reported dead | Han Dingxiang, 70, who is said to have had cancer, had spent a total of 35 years in custody, Vatican supporters say, questioning the apparent speed with which he was cremated (Los Angeles Times)
• China releases house church leader Cai Zhuohua | Pastor is warned to stop practicing faith outside of government-sanctioned church (Compass Direct)
• Also: Church leader released from China prison | A leader of China’s underground Protestant church has been released from prison after serving a three-year sentence for distributing Bibles and other religious literature without a business license, the China Aid Association said Sunday (Associated Press)
• China to reduce death penalty use | China’s Supreme Court has ordered judges to be more sparing in the imposition of the death penalty (BBC)
• Has China’s one-child policy worked? | It looks likely that, nearly 30 years after the policy was first introduced, it will not be relaxed to allow couples to have more children (BBC)
• White House: No U.N. funding for China | For the sixth consecutive year, the Bush administration has decided to withhold funding from the U.N. Population Fund, saying the agency contributes to China’s “coercive abortion” program (Associated Press)
• China credited with progress on Darfur | Andrew Natsios, President Bush’s envoy to help solve the 4 1/2-year-old conflict in Sudan, said neighboring Libya also has begun to cooperate (Associated Press)

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Korean hostages:

• Former SKorean hostages recount ordeal | The 21 South Koreans held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the insurgents used bayonets and beatings to pressure some of them to convert to Islam, but that a few were relatively well treated by their captors (Associated Press)
• South Korea hostages freed by Taliban leave hospital | South Korean Christian volunteers held hostage in Afghanistan for nearly six weeks left hospital on Wednesday, with their doctor saying they were physically fit but may still need counseling (Reuters)
• 3 alleged Taliban kidnappers killed | Afghan police killed three Taliban commanders allegedly involved in the abduction of 23 South Koreans two months ago, the Interior Ministry said (Associated Press)
• S Koreans told ‘convert or die’ | “I still cannot look at cameras” (BBC)
• Gov’t to send mission on Korean residents in Afghanistan | The government will send in early October a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan to determine whether it is safe to allow about 100 South Korean residents to continue to stay in the war-ravaged nation, officials said Sunday (The Korea Times)
• Korea’s Protestant church needs dialogue with outside world | Excessive attacks on the church may strengthen the position of these members. We need to take a step back and pool our wisdom to turn this disaster into an opportunity, an opportunity to promote understanding and peace between the many religious groups in our society. (Lee Seon-min, Chosun Ilbo, Seoul)
• They must learn a lesson | Faith is fine; but if the cost of one’s faith or personal missions has to be borne by an entire country, it is unacceptable. Penalising the freed hostages, even if it seems unusual and perhaps extreme, will send the right message (Editorial, The Times of India)

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East Asia:

• Religion today: Taiwan’s spiritual bust | Sixty years after Roman Catholic and Presbyterian missionaries first converted large numbers of Taiwanese aboriginals in their leafy mountain villages, Christianity here is entering a new phase. Adherents are leaving the faith. (Associated Press)
• South Korea’s top court to review law against adultery | Judge Do Jin-ki Sunday appealed to the nation’s top court that punishment on adultery can be seen as the violation of the constitution, citing human nature and the right to choose sex partners (The Korea Times)
• Prayer in Pyongyang | Activists cast a light on the underground church (Newsweek)

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South America:

• Argentine church faces ‘dirty war’ past | The Roman Catholic Church in Argentina is beginning to come to terms with its complicity in the atrocities committed during the dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 (The New York Times)
• Catholic Church ready to speak up on changes to Venezuela’s Constitution | The Venezuelan Catholic Church is to entrust an ad-hoc committee headed by Jorge Cardinal Urosa Sabino with drafting a paper to express the bishops’ opinion on the changes to the Constitution spiked by President Hugo Chávez (El Universal)
• 9 pilgrims killed in Mexico bus crash | A bus carrying worshippers on a pilgrimage to a famous shrine in central Mexico plunged into a valley Monday, killing nine passengers and leaving 38 injured (Associated Press)

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Africa:

• Njonjo, Nzimbi clash on new trends in the church | Former Attorney General, Mr Charles Njonjo, and the head of Anglican Church, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi have clashed over reforms in the Church. The rift stemmed from an assertion by Nzimbi that the Anglican Church was changing its worship style by allowing youth to sing and dance during sermons to encourage them (East African Standard, Kenya)
• Promises of miracles attract millions to Nigeria’s churches | Evangelical churches in Africa appeal to traditional beliefs in miracle cures as charismatic preachers use electronic media to spread their powerful message to millions and fill church coffers with donations (Deutsche Welle, Germany)
• Ethiopia rings in Millennium with fireworks, prayers | Ethiopia follows a calendar long abandoned by the West, that squeezes 13 months into every year, and entered the 21st century seven years after the rest of the world (Reuters)
• In southern Sudan, peace slowly alters a way of life | After suffering 50 years of war, the Dinka people of Southern Sudan are finally witnessing peace, development and change (The New York Times)
• Sudan: Leader ready for cease-fire | Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir said Friday his government is ready to implement a cease-fire with rebel forces at the start of peace talks over the conflict in Darfur, scheduled for next month in Libya (Associated Press)
• Church vigilantes raid hostels | Instead of attending church on Sunday morning, a congregation of about 900 people rampaged through Nyanga hostels, businesses and informal settlements in search of articles stripped from their church at the weekend (Cape Argus, South Africa)
• Evangelist taken from a mosque in Mogadishu | Government forces took an evangelist right inside a mosque at W/ digley district in Mogadishu yesterday evening (Shabelle Media Network)
• To Liberia, with faith | Pastor receives cry for help from war-torn country (York Daily Record, Pa.)
• Mark’s guards beat up Thisday reporter at Makurdi church service | Security guards attached to Senate President David Mark, yesterday, beat up the Makurdi reporter of Thisday Newspapers, after a church service at the Catholic Chapel of the Benue State University (BSU), Makurdi (Daily Trust, Nigeria)
• Clergyman remanded in prison for theft | A reknowned clergyman in Akwa Ibom State has been accused of theft and remanded in prison (Daily Trust, Nigeria)

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Ncube resigns:

• Church leader critical of Mugabe resigns | Pius Ncube, who once said he was ready to lead a popular uprising against Mugabe, said he had offered his resignation to the pope “within days” of being accused of having an affair with a parishioner in July (Associated Press)
• Speculation that former Archbishop Ncube will run for presidency | The former Archbishop of Bulawayo Pius Ncube who resigned his post over allegations of adultery, is reported to have thrown his hat into the political ring and it’s been alleged that he will challenge Robert Mugabe in next year’s elections (SW Radio Africa)
• In Zimbabwe, scandal fells Mugabe critic | Pius Ncube resigns as archbishop after lurid photos and allegations of a ‘love nest’ are published. His supporters say the regime is behind the stories (Los Angeles Times)

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Mugabe & Zimbabwe:

• Tutu calls for action on Zimbabwe | He told a British television station that South Africa’s “softly-softly” diplomatic approach had failed and more forthright measures were needed (BBC)
• Saving Zimbabwe is not colonialism, it’s Britain’s duty | The time for ‘African solutions’ alone is now over (John Sentamu, The Observer, London)
• Tackle Zimbabwe, archbishop urges | The Archbishop of York has launched a fierce attack on Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe and called for Britain to lead sanctions against his government (BBC)
• Zimbabwe’s ruling party OKs reforms | The plan calls for modest changes before March elections. Critics say it doesn’t do enough to curb Mugabe’s powers or fix voter rolls (Los Angeles Times)
• Wrangling marks Central African Synod | Wrangling over Robert Mugabe, homosexuality, the place of The Episcopal Church within the Anglican Communion, and the aspirations of national churches, marked the General Synod of the Province of Central Africa (Religious Intelligence)
• Controversy stalks Kunonga | Fissures have emerged in the local chapter of the Anglican Province of Central Africa following reports of the withdrawal of the Harare Diocese from the union at a recent synod held in Malawi (Financial Gazette, Zimbabwe)

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Lebanon:

• Christian leader says Hezbollah could torpedo vote | Samir Geagea, a prominent member of the ruling coalition, accused pro-Syrian Hezbollah of training Christian and Druze allies to prepare them to sabotage the election by force if it believed it would not be able to get a friendly president (Reuters)
• Car bomb near Beirut kills Christian lawmaker | A powerful car bomb that killed a Christian lawmaker was the latest in a deadly string of bombings that have rocked Lebanon as the country prepares to select a new president (The New York Times)
• Anti-Syrian lawmaker killed in Beirut blast | Six others dead in Christian area (The Washington Post)

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Iraq:

• U.S. working to reshape Iraqi detainees | Moderate Muslims enlisted to steer adults and children away from insurgency (The Washington Post)
• Trying to see today through the eyes of Jesus | Left-leaning Baptist author’s article asked WWJD about Iraq? An interview with Tony Campolo (The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)
• Report: Iraqis losing religious freedom | Religious freedom has sharply deteriorated in Iraq over the past year because of the insurgency and violence targeting people of specific faiths, despite the U.S. military buildup intended to improve security, a State Department report said Friday (Associated Press)
• Binding up the wounds of war | Targeted Christians and other religious minorities find shelter—for now—in Iraq’s northern provinces (World)

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Pakistan:

• “Blasphemous” Christian freed after a year: he was innocent | Shahid Masih, 18, was imprisoned in September 2006 accused of having blasphemed Islam. His presumed accomplice, a Muslim released on caution nine months ago, also absolved. The Christian’s mother died from heartbreak following his arrest (AsiaNews.it)
• Pakistan Christian unexpectedly acquitted of ‘blasphemy’ | Witnesses drop claim that teenager tore book containing verses of Quran (Compass Direct)
• Pakistani militants attack Buddha statue | Islamic militants tried to blow up a statue of the Buddha carved into a mountainside in northwestern Pakistan but did not damage the structure, officials and a witness said Wednesday (Associated Press)

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India:

• Church groups spar over mass | Bitterness between two warring factions of the Roman Catholic Church in Delhi seems to have disrupted the Christian spirit of brotherhood and harmony (The Times of India)
• Dalit Christians plan stir for Scheduled Caste status | The National Council of Dalit Christians on Tuesday stepped up their demand for granting Scheduled Caste status to all dalits irrespective of religion, and deletion of Para 3 of the Presidential Order of 1950 (The Hindu, India)
• Indian government accused of blasphemy | India’s government is being accused of blasphemy by its political opponents for saying some of Hinduism’s most important texts are not proof of the existence of Hindu gods (Reuters)
• Gods row minister offers to quit | India’s culture minister has offered to resign in a row over whether Hindu gods are mythological figures (BBC)
• Report on Hindu god Ram withdrawn | The Indian government has withdrawn a controversial report submitted in court earlier this week which questioned the existence of the Hindu god Ram (BBC)
• Plan for sea canal puts Hindu belief in sharp relief | Some Indians see controversial route as threat to divinely created shoals (The Washington Post)
• Dredging channel sparks Hindu furor | The project has set off a blistering debate about who created the shoals and sand to be dredged: Mother Nature or the Hindu god Rama (Associated Press)

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Religious freedom:

• Religious freedom exhibit set to open | ‘Religious freedom is still an imperfect struggle’ (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.)
• Ex-Muslims demand right to renounce Islamic faith | Controversially, 9/11 was chosen as the date to sign the “European Declaration for Tolerance.” It aims to draw attention to what the former Muslims see as the lack of freedom of religion within Islam (Deutsche Welle, Germany)
• U.N. expert: Defaming religions a threat | A U.N. expert on racism on Friday branded the defamation of religions — in particular critical portrayals of Islam in the West — a threat to world peace (Associated Press)
• State appeals court says custody order burdens father’s religious exercise | A Minnesota court of appeals has ordered a lower court to narrow the order it issued in a custody proceeding that prohibited the non-custodial father from discussing “inappropriate” religious topics with his children (Religion Clause)
• Religion and the law — an issue, unveiled again | A Muslim woman is suing Anaheim because she had to remove her scarf in jail. Rules are rules, but more to the point: Here’s the question in yet another form (Dana Parsons, Los Angeles Times)
• Woman sacked for wearing Hindu nose stud | A Hindu woman, sacked from Heathrow for wearing a nose stud signifying her religion, is today fighting to be reinstated (The Times, London)
• Bishop warns that Muslims who convert risk being killed | One of the Church of England’s most senior bishops is warning that people will die unless Muslim leaders in Britain speak out in defence of the right to change faith (The Observer, London)

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Israel:

• Christian network asks to stay on air | A Christian TV network that runs missionary advertisements directed at Jews has petitioned the High Court of Justice after Israeli cable television decided to drop the station (The Jerusalem Post)
• Israeli man arrested for donning phylacteries at Church of Nativity | The man, a native of Australia who converted to Judaism and immigrated to Israel, was transferred to Israel Police after being handed over to representatives of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (The Jerusalem Post)
• Drilling for God | Guided by the Bible, a quest to find oil in Israel (Portfolio)
• The most selective outrage | The United Methodists consider banning Caterpillar out of concern for “fellow Christians” in Israel (Mark D. Tooley, FrontPageMag.com)
• Dutch church to reexamine policy of solidarity with Israel | After 37 years of boasting of “inalienable solidarity” with the people of Israel, the Netherlands’ second largest church plans to reexamine its stance this fall (Haaretz, Tel Aviv)
• The problem isn’t ‘Christianity’ – it’s disaffected youth | Israelis have a xenophobic fear that any Russian who is not halachically Jewish must be a Christian, and any Russian Christian must be a potential Nazi! (Ludmilla Oigenblick & Yona Triestman, The Jerusalem Post)
• No way to treat our Christian friends | They come here not as conquerors, nor as soul-snatchers, but as devoted, God-fearing individuals who wish to stand in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people (Michael Freund, The Jerusalem Post)

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Jewish holidays:

• Rabbinate bans Jews from Succot march | The Chief Rabbinate has banned Jewish participation in the Feast of the Tabernacles march in the capital, scheduled to take place next month, due to concern that some of the groups participating are involved in Christian missionary work (The Jerusalem Post)
• Story of Abraham can vex the faithful | Rabbis marking the Jewish New Year note that the biblical account of sacrifice holds lessons for their flocks on fanaticism and sacrifice in the modern world (Chicago Tribune)

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Fasting and Ramadan:

• Jews fast, Muslims fast, so should Christians | Nothing could be more foreign to a consumerist attitude in religion, where self-esteem is the cardinal virtue. (Christopher Howse, The Telegraph, London)
• The purpose of fasting | Scientists have not deeply studied the ways in which fasting alters the human brain, but Andrew Newburg, a radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has some ideas (Newsweek)
• We’re not all marking Ramadan | Christian Arabs in the Middle East are much like Jews in the West. When the official holidays roll around, we are both pretty much pushed off to the side and forced to sing along with everyone else. (Ray Hanania, The Jerusalem Post)

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Holidays:

• Non-Christian events concern for employers | Rosh Hashanah, Ramadan, other holidays deserve consideration to avoid lawsuits, experts say (The Indianapolis Star)
• On Pagan Pride Day, visibility for the occult | “It’s a day for us to network, get together, show our pride … because, you know, a lot of people are in what we call the broom closet” (The Boston Globe)
• Council to mull crèche | The Christmas crèche, one of the most universal Christian symbols of the holiday season, has been absent from the Sonoma Plaza since the early 1990s. Now freshman Councilmember August Sebastiani is exploring the possibility of bringing it back (Sonoma Index-Tribune)
• Debate over parade name should take a holiday | Is Christmas, at heart, a religious or a secular holiday? I ask you, is there anything—anything—less nourishing to the body politic than this demented food for thought? (Locan Jenkins, San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Religion and the workplace | Know what accommodations you’re legally required to make when employees need time off work for religious observances (Jeffrey Steinberger, Entrepreneur)

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Missions & ministries:

• A tug-of-war at Habitat for Humanity | CEO Reckford says a new governing agreement will protect the charity’s brand. Affiliates worry it will bring bureaucracy and a loss of autonomy (Business Week)
• Habitat homes concern Riverside residents | “Habitat for Humanity does not have the right to choose our neighbors” (Press & Dakotan, Yankton, S.D.)
• Hospital chaplain fired for objecting to Gideons’ Bible distributions | Hospital CEO Alan Newberry told Myers that as Director of Pastoral Care, she should be taking the lead in placing Bibles in patient rooms (Religion Clause)
• Sidewalk ministry must get permit | Hundreds opposed ordinance in Walnut Cove; town says it isn’t trying to limit free speech (Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.)
• Twist in eviction fight: charity as landlord | Tenants are taking the owner of the Manhattan building where they live to State Supreme Court, hoping to block their eviction. The owner: the Salvation Army (The New York Times)
• Revealing facts you wouldn’t volunteer | Even if you perform a public service without pay, agencies may do a background check. But who controls the data? (Los Angeles Times)
• Church leader asks city to halt homeless program | A Dallas church that has had a large presence in helping the homeless is asking the city to end an operation they claim has done more harm than good. (WFAA, Dallas)
• Christian outreach gets extreme for God | Motocross sports, tricks, stunts and bands all part of fun-filled event (The Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville, Tenn.)
• Knife, whip expert shows off skills at church | World-record holder wants to spread message (Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, Ind.)

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Amish:

• State trooper praised at Amish shooting | The first state trooper to breach the Amish school where 10 girls were shot last year got inside by ripping out part of a window frame with his bare hands, helping save the lives of five of them, the state police chief said (Associated Press)
• Amish share massacre survivors’ stories | One shooting survivor depends entirely on her family for care and is fed through a tube. Another just endured surgery to repair a damaged shoulder and arm. A third suffers lasting vision problems (Associated Press)
• Growth of evangelicals has some Amish leaders worried | About 18 months ago the Old Order Amish church excommunicated Steve Lapp, 37, and everyone associated with his healing ministry, including his wife and two of his brothers (Religion News Service)

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Church life:

• From workplace to worship | Seeking a place for their growing congregation, ministers, working with Naperville, are preparing to move into a former office building (Chicago Tribune)
• Confession makes a comeback | Churches are encouraging sinners to repent by modernizing an ancient rite (The Wall Street Journal)
• Moscow-affiliated Russian Orthodox church grows in Helsinki | Two Orthodox Christian congregations in Helsinki affiliated with the Russian ecclesiastical tradition have grown in the Helsinki region in recent years (Helsingin Sanomat, Finland)
• Insurer pays out £3.5m to cover cost of thefts from churches | A rise in metal theft from churches has led to insurance claims worth more than £3.5m, with most covering the cost of damage to buildings from rain water pouring through roofs stripped of lead (The Guardian, London)
• Also: Church of England claims £3.5m after thefts | Ecclesiastical Insurance said rising international metal prices had led to an increase in thefts of copper and lead from church buildings (BBC)
• So what’s been happening with religious worship attendance? | According to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, not much (DallasNews Religion)
• The iconoclasts | Evangelicals turn toward … the Orthodox Church? (Jason Zengerle, The New Republic)
• Harlem to Ethiopia, in search of their spiritual roots | More than 150 members of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem boarded a plane Saturday for the church’s first pilgrimage to Ethiopia, its spiritual homeland (The New York Times)
• A new sanctuary for a flock of thousands | Church in Upper Marlboro will allow First Baptist of Glenarden space to grow (The Washington Post)
• Roselle church’s flock of ages | Among innovative programs, intergenerational day care offers benefits for young and old (Chicago Tribune)
• Texas family embraces organic farming | A small movement of conservative Christians believe the Bible demands an organic or natural approach to agriculture (Reuters)
• Congregation moves into a home more its size | After years of long lines, cramped quarters and sermons via television monitor, the 7,500 members of the First Baptist Church of Glenarden had the opportunity yesterday to worship as one big family in their new Upper Marlboro sanctuary (The Washington Post)
• Lightning hits church steeple- twice | Two lightning strikes on the same day didn’t topple the steeple of the 117-year-old Newman United Methodist Church but they exposed something that might have. They blew out the siding and exposed dry rot that might have brought the steeple down (Associated Press)
• A young evangelist draws thousands to worship at ‘The Basement’ | Matt Pitt, 23, operates a youth-oriented church in Birmingham, Ala., that features laser lights, hip-hop music, testimonials, and prayer (The Christian Science Monitor)
• A sacred tie that binds | Traditional music and liturgy link worshippers with church history (Houston Chronicle)
• Men’s church groups fill growing need | Male-oriented events lead to raising funds for religious charities, helping those in need, bettering themselves (The Arizona Republic)
• Change of faith for a QC church | After years of being home to Catholics, Legacy Christian Church is the new owner of a historic church building. But one Davenport alderman calls the new owner’s changes to the church sacrilege. This after the new owner sold the pews to a furniture refinisher Tuesday, to help pay for the future of the parish (WQAD, Davenport, Ia.)
• Somerset churches mull denominational split | With a growing frustration with the national organizations that oversee them, many congregants at two local churches are considering cutting ties with their national groups and forming a new church (The Tribune-Democrat, Johnstown, Pa.)
• Pastor soothes church tensions | Worshipers once feared the 32-year-old Fremont sanctuary may close (The Argus, Fremont, Ca.)
• Los Gatos, San Jose evangelical churches become one | Los Gatos Christian and South Valley Christian in San Jose are “blending cultures” (San Jose Mercury News, Ca.)
• A biblical garden | Pastor hopes plot educates, inspires (The Sacramento Bee, Ca.)
• Two churches at war in the land of Dracula | Catholics have been trying to reclaim their churches from the Orthodox ever since the Communists were overthrown in the 1989 revolution (The Scotsman)

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Property and zoning:

• NJ judge: Diocese has rights at parish | A state judge has affirmed the property rights of a Russian Orthodox diocese locked in a dispute with a breakaway parish in southern New Jersey, but declined to intervene in doctrinal matters (Associated Press)
• Bedford County weighs church zoning changes | Bedford County officials are looking at whether zoning laws dealing with “religious assemblies” should be loosened throughout the county (News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.)
• It’s about land use, not religion | A Hancock Park activist objects to a Times editorial about a zoning dispute with a synagogue (Leonard Hill, Los Angeles Times)
• A breath of fresh air | In a decision involving O’Hare airport’s planned expansion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rightly rejects a religious land use claim (Marci A. Hamilton, FindLaw.com)
• Buffalo Grove to look at church’s music academy | The Buffalo Grove plan commission will be looking at claims that a church in town is violating zoning codes by offering a music academy (The Daily Herald, Chicago suburbs)
• Church plans to reopen pantry | Decision comes after lawsuit stalls (The Washington Post)
• Community group seeks new uses for closed churches | Bus tour of sites on diocesan closure list aims to lift hope for creative alternatives (The Buffalo News, N.Y.)
• Church complex proposed in Snellville | Location had been considered for retirement homes (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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Prayer:

• Council keeps prayer policy intact | Sectarian invocations to stay in Tracy (The Stockton Record, Ca.)
• Earlier: Tracy takes up prayer policy | A new set of meeting policies to be presented to the Tracy City Council tonight would require anyone offering religious invocations before city meetings to leave out references to specific religions (Stockton Record, Ca.)
• Over 1,000 take part in prayer march | More than 1,000 marchers walked from City Hall to Leesburg Regional Medical Center Saturday morning to show support for Danny Harvey, recently fired from the hospital after he refused to stop praying for patients in the name of Jesus Christ (The Orlando Sentinel)
• Students’ right to pray outlined | The American Center for Law and Justice, in a letter this week to nearly 1 million supporters, outlined the rights of students to pray and express their faith at school in an effort to stave off any challenges or questions this school year (The Washington Times)
• Praying for our pets | Cat’s cancer raises questions of what’s right (Cathleen Falsani, Chicago Sun-Times)

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Atheism:

• Defender of the Faith? | In old age, Sigmund Freud, committed atheist, began to see what’s so great about God (The New York Times)
• The nonbelievers | An increasing number of young people in America – and adults around the world – don’t believe in God. Greg Epstein, who advises fellow atheists and agnostics at Harvard University, wants to create a kind of church for those who reject religion. But he’s encountering resistance from some of the very people he wants to unite (The Boston Globe)
• Writer journeys from atheist to apologist | An interview with Lee Strobel (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
• In Europe and U.S., nonbelievers are increasingly vocal | On both sides of the Atlantic, membership in once-quiet groups of nonbelievers is rising, and books attempting to debunk religion have been surprise bestsellers (The Washington Post)
• In America, nonbelievers find strength in numbers | A legion of the godless is rising up against the forces of religiosity in American society (The Washington Post)
• The future of atheism | Damned if you don’t, damned if you don’t (Alan Jacobs, Books & Culture)

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Books:

• Rejected by Baylor U. Press, book on university’s history finds another publisher | A book that recaps 20 tumultuous years of Baylor University’s history has been scooped up by an independent publisher more than a year after the university’s own press decided to drop it (The Chronicle of Higher Education, sub. req’d.)
• Reading is believing, or not | A former professor of Hebrew backs modern scholarship, disdains fundamentalism and holds on to God. David Plotz reviews How to Read the Bible by James L. Kugel (The New York Times)
• Also: Irreconcilable differences in Bible’s interpretations | How to Read the Bible propounds that Bible readers face two radically different ways of approaching Scripture and that the approaches are fundamentally incompatible. (Peter Steinfels, The New York Times)
• First Chapter: How to Read the Bible (The New York Times)
• Coastal disturbances | In Dennis McFarland’s latest novel, heirs of a Gulf Coast estate have a new evangelical brother-in-law to play with. Richard B. Woodward reviews Letter From Point Clear (The New York Times)
• Revisiting the canon wars | Two decades after Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, it’s generally agreed that his multiculturalist opponents won the canon wars (The New York Times)
• A meddlesome priest | Behind the 1998 murder of Bishop Gerardi, a Guatemalan human-rights activist. Roger Atwood reviews The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? by Francisco Goldman (The Boston Globe)
• Move over, Christian Coalition: The new political kingmakers | An excerpt Robert Frank’s new book, Richistan (The Denver Post)
• Copy of Book of Mormon is auctioned for $105,000 | There were originally 5,000 first-edition copies of the Book of Mormon, and some collectors estimate that fewer than 500 may remain today (The New York Times)
• Reading the signs | Alan Jacobs reviews Church Signs Across America by Steve and Pam Paulson and Bible Road: Signs of Faith in the American Landscape by Sam Fentress (First Things, sub. req’d.)
• Author explores apocalyptic Christian culture | An interview with Nicholas Guyatt, author of Have a Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans are Looking Forward to the End of the World (Reuters)
• Stick to the Today job | John Crace digests In God We Doubt by John Humphrys (The Guardian, London)
• Brideshead Revisited revisited | The religious themes it dealt with included one that few writers in modern times have tackled (Hal G.P. Colebatch, The American Spectator)
• US exceptionalism meets Team Jesus | An interview with James Carroll (Asia Times)
• The bell tolls for Britain’s churches | Val Hennessy reviews A Little History of the English Country Church by Roy Strong (Daily Mail, U.K.)

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God’s Harvard:

• Political fundamentals | Patrick Henry College trains religious students for the secular fight. Nina Easton reviews God’s Harvard by Hanna Rosin (The New York Times)
• First chapter: God’s Harvard | Patrick Henry prides itself on not being your run-of-the-mill Bible college (The New York Times)
• College for Christ’s sake | A new book chronicles how one school prepares young Christians to compete in a secular world. Kiera Butler reviews God’s Harvard by Hanna Rosin (Mother Jones)
• Books: ‘God’s Harvard’ | Exploring the Bible school to executive branch pipeline at Virginia’s Patrick Henry College. An online conversation with Hanna Rosin (The Washington Post)
• Debating God’s Harvard | The brave new evangelical world (David Kuo and Hanna Rosin, Slate)
• On the campus of true believers | Dan Gilgoff reviews God’s Harvard (The Washington Post)
• God’s Harvard: A tragicomedy | Plus: news from Baylor University, music from Peter Case, and more (John Wilson, Books & Culture)

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The Stillborn God:

• The political and the divine | Mark Lilla argues that the separation of church and state was not, as some would have it, a foregone conclusion. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein reviews The Stillborn God (The New York Times)
• What happened to the City of God? | Two books trace the history of secularization in the Western world. Jack Miles reviews A Secular Age by Charles Taylor and The Stillborn God by Mark Lilla (Los Angeles Times)
• Contested authority | A Philosophical history of the shifting power of religion in politics. Peter Berkowitz reviews The Stillborn God by Mark Lilla (The Wall Street Journal)

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Media & entertainment:

• Zondervan fills two top posts | But company has yet to announce the appointment of a new president to replace Doug Lockhart who left in June (Publishers Weekly)
• Christian media shakeup, Salem Publishing acquires CMCentral.com | It bought ChristianMusicPlanet.com six months ago (CMSpin.com)
• Former cult member assesses damage in ‘Children of God’ | Noah Thomson, raised on a commune in Brazil, takes an emotional ride in his Cinemax documentary (Los Angeles Times)
• Statlers, Winans headed to Gospel Hall | The Statler Brothers, the Winans, Phil Keaggy, Larnelle Harris and Joe Moscheo will be inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (Associated Press)
• Medieval texts detail development of choir music | Some visitors to the Getty exhibit of handwritten, ornate books and parchments even try to sing along (Los Angeles Times)
• CBA decides less is more | CBA, the association of evangelical Christian retailers, has unveiled plans for a winter meeting to replace the former CBA Advance, which was scrapped this past summer in response to protests over the expense of a second annual trade show (Publishers Weekly)
• Christian movie co. execs tour Plymouth | A self-described family-friendly movie company is examining options to develop a massive, Hollywood-type studio in Plymouth (Boston Herald)
• A priest searches to recharge his faith | There are several expeditions going on in “100 Saints You Should Know,” Kate Fodor’s promising new drama that has opened the fall season at off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons (Associated Press)
• When religion, politics and theater meet | Sarah Ruhl’s “Passion Play” is many things, but one thing it isn’t: a Passion play (Chicago Tribune)
• Seeking spiritual bonds and earthly ones, too | Kate Fodor’s “100 Saints You Should Know” is a decent play, with all that the adjective implies (The New York Times)
• Religion up for grabs | In “100 Saints You Should Know,” Kate Fodor’s comes closer than any playwright in recent memory to making sense of modern Christianity (The New York Sun)
• Munich Catholic leaders oppose MTV awards on All Saints’ Day | Catholic Church officials in Munich have called on the city to withdrawal its approval for the MTV Europe Music Awards to be hosted in the Bavarian capital on a religious holiday, but the mayor said the show must go on (Deutsche Welle, Germany)
• Chariots rerun ‘overplays religion’ | Relatives fear sequel to classic film, written by a committed Christian disregards the facts (The Observer, London)
• Holy toyland | The mega toy retailer, Wal-Mart is now selling Biblical toys like the talking Jesus (In These Times)
• Religious messages in the toy box | Oh, for the days when children could just be children, and not pawns in someone’s culture war (Kevin Eigelbach, The Cincinnati Post)

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Kathy Griffin:

• Griffin’s Emmy remarks to be censored | In her speech, Griffin said that “a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.” (Associated Press)
• Censoring anti-religious comments could be used to restrict religion | Why Kathy Griffin’s comments should have aired (Corey Hodges, The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Also: Kathy Griffin’s Jesus remark cut from Emmy show (Reuters)
• Miracle cast wants America to know Griffin comments simply went too far | The Miracle Theater placed a full-page ad in Monday’s USA Today defending Christian beliefs (The Mountain Press, Sevierville, Tenn.)

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People:

• ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ author L’Engle dies | The Newbery Medal winner wrote more than 60 books, including fantasies, poetry and memoirs, often highlighting spiritual themes and her Christian faith (Associated Press)
• Wrinkles in time | Rereading Madeleine L’Engle (Meghan O’Rourke, Slate)
• Kitna says ‘miracle’ allowed him to go back in game | Quarterback Jon Kitna thinks divine intervention helped him recover from a concussion and lead the Detroit Lions to the game-winning field goal in overtime Sunday against Minnesota (The Detroit News)
• Why Christopher Hitchens is wrong about Billy Graham | Over the course of his long public ministry, Graham has certainly acquired his share of critics — a group which includes Graham himself (Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, Time)
• Ex-hostage Waite urges talks with al Qaeda | Waite, a former Anglican church envoy held captive for nearly five years in Lebanon in the 1980s after being seized during a mission to negotiate hostage releases, made the call in a television debate to be broadcast by BBC World (Reuters)
• Carlton Pearson | Houston’s Unity Church hosts the former megachurch preacher who wrote, “God Is Not a Christian.” The preacher’s Gospel of Inclusion cost him his church — and a lot of money. (Houston Press)
• Secret life of Michael Cleary | It was the story which shocked Ireland – the revelation that one of the country’s most popular clerics had a live-in lover and two children. Now, television footage has been discovered which sheds light on his unconventional private life (Belfast Telegraph)
• Greek Orthodox leader nears transplant | The leader of Greece’s Orthodox Church has been getting physically and mentally ready for a liver transplant by exercising and watching his diet, his surgeon said Wednesday (Associated Press)
• Goodbye to American Christendom? | The death of D. James Kennedy gives hope to those who buried traditional Christianity long ago (Mark Tooley, The American Spectator)
• Also: Who will answer the call? | I wonder who will be left to carry the banner when this generation of leaders is gone. God has always ordained men and women to fulfill His purposes, and I know He will do it again. But the question is, will the younger generation heed the call? Dobson’s remarks at the funeral of Dr. D. James Kennedy (James Dobson, WorldNetDaily)

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Science, evolution, &faith:

• Is ‘do unto others’ written into our genes? | Where do moral rules come from? From reason? From God? Some suggest morality can be found buried deep in evolution (The New York Times)
• ‘Tip of the iceberg’ | A new study of a skeleton of a member of a race of three-foot-tall ‘hobbits’ who lived 12,000 years ago in Indonesia shows that they were a species of human—and that the evolutionary path to Homo sapiens has been tortuous indeed (Newsweek)
• Faith upon the earth | In many parts of the world, religious groups and environmental scientists are teaming up—albeit sometimes reluctantly (The Economist)
• Two paths: Religion and psychiatry | Of all medical specialties, psychiatrists are the least religious, a survey has found, and the most religious doctors are the least likely to refer their patients to psychiatrists (The New York Times)
• Religion vs. evolution | We don’t have to choose, says science teacher (Margaret McEwen, The Dallas Morning News)

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Cremation:

• Christians taking to cremation in big way | The Bible says, “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” But for a growing number of Christians, the dust – as burial ground – also translates into increasingly scarce and expensive real estate (The Times of India)
• More people choosing cremation instead of cemeteries | It’s impossible to overstate the impact of cremation on the funeral services industry, insiders say (The Orlando Sentinel)

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Other:

• Free-lunch foragers | ‘Freegans’ are a growing subculture that has opted out of capitalism by cutting spending habits and living off consumer waste (Los Angeles Times)
• Tapping into the secrets of the stall | Experts say anonymous sex in public places is a compulsive behavior (The Washington Post)
• German cleric criticized for Nazi phrase | A Roman Catholic cardinal used the term “degenerate” at the opening of an art museum on the ruins of a church, drawing criticism Saturday for employing a phrase strongly linked to the Nazi persecution of artists (Associated Press)
• Update: German ambassador ‘regrets’ Irish speech ‘misunderstandings’ | Germany’s ambassador to Ireland said he “regretted any misunderstandings” arising from remarks he made in a speech that the Irish government called “inaccurate, misinformed and inappropriate.” (Bloomberg)
• The geography of religious experience | Following the path that William James, the American philosopher and brother of the novelist Henry James, took in 1898 (The New York Times)
• Highway to hell | A long and winding spiritual path — or lack thereof (Tom Ruprecht, The New York Times Magazine)
• Indiana girl left behind at zoo on church trip | 11-year-old wandered city alone for 6 hours before finding help (WBBM)
• Unitarians seek members through new ad campaign | Denomination targets crowd that watches ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ (Daily Review, Hayward, Ca.)
• You can’t beat a religious retreat | The food is good, the rooms are comfy and non-believers are welcome. Louise Roddon recommends breaks with religious communities (The Telegraph, London)
• Finding room, but no place to worship | A Muslim congregation, made up mostly of professionals or business people working for Westchester institutions like I.B.M. or Phelps hospital, are having trouble finding a suburban home for prayer (The New York Times)
• Little slice of heavan riles North End priest | The cheesed-off pastor of St. Leonard’s Church in the North End threw the cast and crew of the Dane Cook-Kate Hudson flick out of his parish hall after the Hollywood bunch staged a rather impudent pizza scene in a nearby eatery (Boston Herald)
• Aldrin note up for auction | A handwritten card containing a Bible verse that Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin used during a lunar Holy Communion service is up for sale Thursday at a space-related auction (Associated Press)
• British church recreates Anne Frank room | A replica of the Amsterdam room where Jewish teenager Anne Frank wrote her diary will be housed in a British cathedral as part of a commemoration of the Holocaust (Associated Press)
• Red Cross attacks company’s trademark charges | The American Red Cross on Thursday asked a federal court to throw out a lawsuit charging that the charity infringed a trademark held by the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson (The Chronicle of Philanthropy)
• Church island offers sceptics a second chance to become virtually good | The Bible says that Christians should build their house on rock, not on sand, but has nothing to say about building it in virtual reality. Taking that as a sign they should not be afraid to venture out there, Church leaders in Britain have bought an island in the virtual world of Second Life (The Times, London)
• Christians 3—Senate 0 | Those Christians charged with disrupting Senate proceedings during a Hindu prayer? They’re modern Shadrach, Meshach and Abednegos (Roy Moore, WorldNetDaily)
• Enough religion. Stop shoving it down my throat | It is a peculiar reversal of social logic that the decline in the practice of religion should be met with such a rise in reference to it (Carol Sarler, The Times, London)
• Fundamentalism part of religion — as it was and ever shall be | Once a religion ceases to be fundamentalist in its basic beliefs, it has usually strayed from the faith of its fathers. (T.R. Fehrenbach, San Antonio Express-News)
• Doubting God but still doing good | Is it a desire to believe that pushes people like Mother Teresa to help those whom others abandon? (Gregory Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times)

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(CT Assistant Online Editor Susan Wunderink organized stories into categories today.)

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1. Minn. campus supervisor dismissed for off-campus ministry “A dedicated Christian, [Prior Lake High School campus supervisor Chris] Lind has become a de facto advice-giver, friend, and religious mentor to some students,” the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Tuesday. “He said the district told him not to talk to students — even off campus — about ‘traditional values,’ namely, the district didn’t want him to talk to students about abstinence or their sexual orientation. He didn’t listen.” So he was placed on administrative leave, and a school board vote Monday may terminate him completely.

2. National Right to Life dumps Colorado chapter Last month, Colorado Right to Life, Operation Rescue, and the American Life League took out ads in The Colorado Springs Gazette and The Washington Times criticizing Focus on the Family’s James Dobson for his views on the partial-birth abortion ban. The groups say the ban doesn’t actually save lives and distracts from efforts to ban abortion altogether. “It’s our contention it’s a wicked ruling,” Colorado Right to Life vice president Leslie Hanks told the Rocky Mountain News. The national committee says it disagreed with the ad and with the state chapter’s approach. Focus on the Family praised the national body’s decision.

3. Does Amnesty International support abortion? Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican’s justice and peace department, says the human rights organization does, and says “individuals and Catholic organizations must withdraw their support” of the organization. Amnesty says its new policy does not promote abortion as a universal right. “Amnesty International’s position is not for abortion as a right but for women’s human rights to be free of fear, threat, and coercion as they manage all consequences of rape and other grave human-rights violations,” said the organization’s Kate Gilmore. But Amnesty says it does support the “decriminalization of abortion.”

4. Trouble at one of the world’s top evangelical seminariesThe Guardian reports that the former principals of Wycliffe Hall, the evangelical theology college at Oxford University, are criticizing the current head, Richard Turnbull. They have written a letter to the bishop of Liverpool, who is chairman of the school’s governing council.

“One of the authors acknowledged yesterday that the letter had been prompted by The Guardian‘s disclosure four weeks ago that staff felt bullied and intimidated and a culture of homophobia and misogyny was developing,” The Guardian‘s Stephen Bates reported. “More than a third of the academic staff have recently left, including the vice-principal, and its best-known academic, the Thought for the Day speaker Elaine Storkey, has been threatened with disciplinary proceedings for raising concerns at a private staff meeting.” Alister McGrath, who preceded Turnbull, was one of those who “authorized” the letter, says Bates. It’s unclear if “culture of homophobia and misogyny” only means support of limiting ordination to men who do not engage in extramarital sex, and if the three former principals would agree with the Guardian‘s characterization.

5. Episcopalians thumb their nose at Anglican Communion, orthodox members So what else is new?

Quote of the day “This year, newspapers across the country are struggling hard to find something bad to say about this convention. May they only be able to report [that] the name of the Lord Jesus was lifted high.”

—Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page, at the close of the denomination’s annual meeting.

More articles

Education | Higher education | Raleigh teacher’s evangelist invitation | Missions and ministry | Ruth Graham | People | Priest kidnapped in Philippines | Iraq | Social justice | Crime | Abuse | International religious liberty | Amnesty International and abortion | More on abortion | Colorado Right to Life | Life ethics | Stem cell research | 2008 election | Politics | Land and zoning disputes | Church and state | Fiji | Australia | Immigration | Protests | Cathedral video game dispute | Entertainment and media | Sexual ethics | Homosexuality | Anglicanism | Southern Baptists | CRC | Catholicism | Church life | Creflo Dollar in Uganda | Money and business | Books | Health and sickness | Science | Spirituality | Other stories of interest

Education:

• Role as religious mentor may lead to staffer’s firing | The possible dismissal of a campus supervisor at Prior Lake High School has some community members accusing the school district of religious discrimination (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
• Also: High school campus supervisor firing possible | The recommendation to fire a Prior Lake High School campus supervisor was pulled from the School Board agenda Monday evening (Prior Lake American, Minn.)
• Senior wins fight to stay on team, attend a religious convention | A North Oldham High School senior, who was told by her volleyball coach that she’d have to choose between being on the squad or going to a Christian convention, will be allowed to do both after her parents claimed the ultimatum was religious discrimination (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.)
• Congregation will continue to worship at school | With a lawsuit looming, Richland officials agreed to allow an Upper Bucks Christian congregation to continue worship services at a local school (The Intelligencer, Horsham, Pa.)
• Judge upholds constitutionality of vouchers for disabled, foster kids | Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bethany G. Hicks rejected the lawsuit’s claim that the voucher programs appropriate public money for private religious schools in violation of the Arizona Constitution (The Arizona Republic)
• Catholic educational tradition thrives in suburbs | In stark contrast to the struggles of some of their urban counterparts, these suburban Catholic schools are thriving. Some see a familiar pattern (The Boston Globe)
• School shut over prayers row | Private school’s proprietor sends students home, arguing that since the school was sponsored by missionaries from South Korea, no other religion should be practised except Christianity (The Nation, Kenya)
• Funding faith-based schools: Tory attempts to secure religious minority vote | In an apparent attempt to lure religious minority communities to vote for his party, he is dangling the carrot of funding their private, segregated religious schools (Tarek Fatah and Salma Siddiqui, Toronto Star)

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Higher education:

• Theological college’s head is undermining it, say predecessors | The principal of Wycliffe Hall, the Oxford University Anglican evangelical theological college, was under renewed pressure last night after his three immediate predecessors claimed he was undermining its reputation and threatening its survival as an academic institution (The Guardian, London)
• Dalit Christians plan protest march | The Dalit Christians would organise a march to the Pushpagiri Medical College at Thiruvalla on Friday in support of their demand for reservation in professional educational institutions owned by Christian managements (PTI, India)
• Christian college appealing aid denial | Colorado Christian University said Wednesday it is appealing a federal court decision denying state aid to its students (Associated Press)
• Faith is secret to his success | San Leandro native given a top position at Colorado Christian University (The Daily Review, Hayward, Ca.)
• Students and faith | Colleges can’t be blamed for declines in religious activity, study says, because graduates are more religious than others (Inside Higher Ed)
• Religion today: Quigley goes under | For more than a century, Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary has prepared teenage boys for the priesthood, largely unchanged as the city transformed around it from gritty industrial center to modern metropolis. But another kind of change finally caught up with Quigley (Associated Press)

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Raleigh teacher’s evangelist invitation:

• Teacher fights on in flap over anti-Islam speaker | The former Enloe High School history teacher who invited a Christian evangelist to speak to his students is not taking his reprimand quietly (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
• Students speak up for Raleigh teacher | A high school educator was reassigned after a Christian denounced Islam in his classroom (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
• Earlier: Schools forbid selling religion | Teacher relocated after Enloe episode (The News & Observer, May 24)
• Reason and religion | Students are not in school to be recruited by religious groups (Editorial, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)

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Missions and ministry:

• Hispanic Christian fair set to draw members | In a reversal of U.S. missions to Latin America, Mexican preachers will come to Roanoke to preach to the growing Hispanic community here (The Roanoke Times, Va.)
• W.Va. students get NBA players’ castoffs | Players hated synthetic basketballs, so league donated them to World Vision (Charleston Daily Mail, W.V.)
• Youngsters field-test Bible school programs | Long before the halls of local churches are readied for active youngsters who will take part in vacation Bible school, children at a Colorado church are getting a preview of next year’s curriculum (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Also: Reevaluating VBS | The problem as I see it now, though, is that VBS is spread out over the summer, and for the most part, many of the churches are doing the same VBS. What happens is that “church kids” end up attending several different VBSs, often getting the same programs (Editorial, The Piggott Times, Ark.)

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Ruth Graham:

• A beacon of spiritual strength | Spiritual. Sensitive. Devoted. Loving. Funny. When talking about Ruth Bell Graham, who died Thursday at 87, the list of adjectives could go on and on. But it wouldn’t be complete without the word “tough” (Asheville Citizen-Times, N.C.)
• Wife of Rev. Billy Graham dies at 87 | For more than 60 years, Ruth Bell Graham devoted herself to her husband’s career as the 20th century’s most enduring evangelist (The New York Times)
• Billy Graham’s wife Ruth dies at 87 | Ruth Graham, who surrendered dreams of missionary work in Tibet to marry a suitor who became the world’s most renowned evangelist, died Thursday (Associated Press)
• Ruth Graham; evangelist’s wife led private crusade | She pursued a vigorous if reclusive Christian ministry for six decades in the shadow of her famous husband (The Washington Post)
• Ruth Graham, 87; had active role as wife of evangelist | It was Ruth Graham who dissuaded her husband from launching a campaign for the U.S. presidency: She told him she would leave him if he quit his ministry. The American public would not accept a divorced man as president, she warned (Los Angeles Times)
• Graham: Wife to be buried in Charlotte | She said she favored Montreat site as recently as a week and a half ago (The Washington Post)
• Ruth Graham was husband’s anchor, but shined on her own | From her youth in China through her years at Little Piney Cove in Montreat, she constructed a remarkable life as a writer and poet, as a devoted and fun-loving mother to her five children, as a thoughtful neighbor and friend and as the beloved wife of the most famous evangelist of his time (Editorial, Asheville Citizen-Times, N.C.)
• She was so much more than an evangelist’s wife | Her place in history may well be as the woman behind the evangelist. But it doesn’t begin to describe her place in the heart of those who knew her. (Ken Garfield, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)

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People:

• Skepticism, hope greet Paris’ conversion | Paris Hilton says she has found God in jail. The public’s response: Doesn’t everybody? (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Also: Petrified Paris asks for prayer | A law enforcement source has told TMZ that before Paris left Twin Towers last night, she begged the deputies to pray for her. (TMZ.com)
• Pilot, two pastors narrowly avoid fiery deaths | Flames engulf plane seconds after smoky landing (Associated Press)

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Priest kidnapped in Philippines:

• Bossi kin optimistic as general bares threat to harm priest | A Marine general on Thursday said the fifteen-man armed group holding Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi might execute their captive if the government is not careful in its actions (The Philippine Inquirer)
• Troops searching for Bossi zero in on mountain village | Security forces searching for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi have zeroed in on a mountain village in Naga town, Zamboanga Sibugay province, where his abductors were reported to have taken the clergyman, a military official said (The Philippine Inquirer)
• Philippine general says Muslim rebels locate kidnapped Italian missionary | Muslim separatist rebels have located a mountain area where gunmen are holding an Italian missionary priest, and a suspected accomplice in the kidnapping has been arrested, a Philippine marine general said Thursday (Associated Press)
• Related: U.S. hands over $10 mln bounty to Philippine Muslims | Two of the men were former Abu Sayyaf rebels who turned themselves in and led Philippine soldiers to the grave of their leader. They shared $5 million (Reuters)
• Philippines says may have located captive priest | Philippine soldiers may have located an area where they believe Muslim gunmen are holding an Italian Catholic priest kidnapped five days ago, a Marine commander said on Friday (Reuters)

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Iraq:

• Local Lutherans take stand against war in Iraq | Calling the war in Iraq “neither just nor moral,” Lutherans from a synod representing more than 52,000 members in Western Washington have voted to take a stance against it (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Iraq: Priest still missing one week after kidnapping | Islamic militias threaten more than 1,000 Christian families in Baghdad (Compass Direct)
• Iraqi Christians’ most urgent needs according to a Chaldean priest | As a result of ongoing violence, persecution and the forced exodus of Christians, Churches are re-structuring their pastoral activities to cope with new challenges that range from spiritual assistance, help to the poor and fighting corruption. Christian leaders must make a common front in dealing with the state, international coalition forces and terrorism (Bashar Warda, AsiaNews.it)

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Social justice:

• Jerusalem church leaders plea for end to violence in Gaza | “We urge our brothers in Fatah and Hamas movements to listen to the voice of reason, truth and wisdom. So we implore that you immediately announce the cessation of all bloody fighting and to return back to the path of dialogue and attempt, through understanding, to solve all differences.” (Religious Intelligence, U.K.)
• Man on a mission: In a Bangladesh forest, priest fights for tiny tribe | Father Homrich battles logging and old age | Murder of an activist (The Wall Street Journal)
• Zimbabwe ‘will collapse in 6 months’ | Inflation is likely to bring Zimbabwe’s economy to a standstill with the possible paralysis of the Government and civil unrest (The Times, London)
• Indecisive moment | Will U.N. peacekeepers really be allowed into Darfur? (Eric Reeves, The New Republic)

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Crime:

• Five years’ jail for ‘religion’ rape | A man who raped a Muslim woman because she showed an interest in Christianity has been jailed for at least five years by a Sydney court (AAP, Australia)
• Dozier slaying lawyer: We’re still inquiring | Defense attorney says it’s too early to predict case (Berkshire Eagle, Mass.)
• Winkler might stay jailed | Mary Winkler is eligible for transfer from the McNairy County Jail to a mental facility today but may have to remain in jail through the weekend as her attorneys make arrangements, authorities said Thursday (The Jackson Sun, Tenn.)
• Former treasurer accused of embezzling from church | A former treasurer at the New Hudson United Methodist Church stands accused of embezzling at least $5,000 (South Lyon Herald, Mi.)
• Youth group treasurer charged with embezzling | Laurel-area church finds more than $18,000 missing from camp fund (The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.)
• Plaintiffs winners in bingo battle | Ruling states leaders of Avon church must repay $623K (The Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria, Oh.)
• Also: Salvation comes in the form of money to cheated churchgoers (The Morning Journal, Lorain, Oh.)
• Priest’s plea deal: 4 years for stealing nearly $200k | Mark Sorvillo charged with spending St. Margaret Mary Church cash on clothes, dining, liquor (Chicago Sun-Times)
• $21 million settlement in hedge fund suit | XL and the Vision Fund collected nearly $24 million from 450 investors, including several church and religious organizations based in Colorado Springs. Many of the investors were recruited by Scott, former pastor of the nowdefunct local River of Life Church (Colorado Springs Gazette)
• Motel patron uses Bible to set blazes | The Bible does mention fire and brimstone — but nothing about motel rooms. Fire officials said a man set several small fires in a Best Western Heritage Inn motel room May 27, using pages from a Bible as kindling (Associated Press)
• Prison break in Papua New Guinea during religious service | Eleven inmates at Papua New Guinea’s largest jail have taken advantage of a prisoners’ religious service to cut a hole in a perimeter fence and escape (AAP, Australia)
• Back to the shrine | How peasant farmer and his sons created a violent cult (The Nation, Kenya)

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Abuse:

• Protestants: 260-plus abuse cases a year | The three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members (Associated Press)
• Also: A look at abuse in Protestant churches | Facts and figures (Associated Press)
• Portland archbishop apologizes to abuse victims | In “this great darkness,” John G. Vlazny says, victims “have carried many burdens” (The Oregonian)
• Pastor to appear before grand jury | Bruce Alvin Curtis, pastor at Community Friendship Church of God in Christ, allegedly “inappropriately touched” a 17-year-old female member of his congregation (Journal News, Hamilton, Oh.)
• Steven Moore, former Ringgold pastor, case set for July 19 | Pastor Steven Andrew Moore, who resigned from his position in May, is charged with patronizing prostitution within a mile and a half of a church or a school (The Chattanoogan)
• Croatian priest detained on pedophile charges | A priest from a small Croatian island has been detained on suspicion of abusing five boys aged between 10 and 12 — the second such case in recent years in the predominantly Roman Catholic Croatia, police said Thursday (Associated Press)
• Second young woman accuses former youth minister of abuse | Another young woman has come forward, saying she was raped by Brent Krum, a former youth minister with the now-defunct Summit View Community Church in Redmond. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Two more civil suits filed against Trinity Baptist Church | ore legal action is being taken against Trinity Baptist. Two more civil suits have been filed. They stem from the alleged sexual abuse by former pastor Bob Gray (WTLV, Jacksonville, Fla.)
• Priest indicted in abuse of girl in early 1990s | Clergyman faces extradition from Spain in cases involving minors in both Yuma, Phoenix (The Arizona Republic)
• Church convicts priest of abuse | Former Janesville priest Kenneth Klubertanz has been found guilty in a church trial of sexually abusing a minor (The Janesville Gazette, Wisc.)
• Also: Man wants former Lodi pastor on offender registry | Abuse victim seeks answers from diocese (The Capital Times, Madison, Wis.)
• Euclid priest is suspended over sex claim | The pastor of St. Christine Catholic Church in Euclid has been suspended because of an allegation he sexually abused a minor in the mid-1970s (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
• Catholic diocese in Memphis settles sex abuse cases | The Diocese of Memphis announced Thursday three cases of alleged sexual abuse against Father Joseph Nguyen have been settled (The Jackson Sun, Tenn.)
• Ex-priest won’t attend upcoming abuse trial | Alfred Willis said in a Monday letter to diocesan attorney David Cleary that the allegations against him are untrue but he cannot afford the cost of traveling to Vermont for the trial (Burlington Free Press, Vt.)
• Preacher again accused of sexual assault | A preacher who had served time for sexually assaulting female members of his church eight years ago is being accused of sexual assault again at the same church in Chungli, Taoyuan County (The China Post, Taiwan)

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International religious liberty:

• Pakistan’s blasphemy laws castigated | The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has deplored the abuse of blasphemy laws in Pakistan, calling them a severe violation of the universally guaranteed right to the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief, while expressing concern over a draft bill in the National Assembly on apostasy (Daily Times, Pakistan)
• Andhra Pradesh churches decry Tirumala ban on non-Hindu activities | The Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches has decided to take ‘all possible actions’ to oppose the recent Andhra Pradesh government ban on non-Hindu religious activities in Tirumala and surroundings, calling it a violation of fundamental rights (Indian Catholic News Service)
• China blasts Bush tribute to victims of communism | Communist-ruled China has blasted U.S. President George Bush for attending the founding of a memorial to victims of communism, accusing Washington of “cold war” thinking and provoking ideological confrontation (Reuters)
• Tolerance, truth and religion, and where they fit in history | Michael Gerson goes to Turkey (Terry Mattingly, Scripps Howard News Service)

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Amnesty International and abortion:

• Cardinal faults Amnesty on abortion | Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican’s justice and peace department, said Wednesday that Roman Catholics shouldn’t contribute to Amnesty International because the group adopted a new policy calling for access to abortion services for women under certain circumstances (Associated Press)
• After Vatican criticism, Amnesty defends new policy on abortion | Amnesty claims that it did not promote abortion as a universal right and that it remains silent on the rights and wrongs of abortion (Catholic News Service)
• Amnesty rejects Vatican criticism on abortion | “The Catholic Church, through a misrepresented account of our position on selective aspects of abortion, is placing in peril work on human rights,” Kate Gilmore, Amnesty’s deputy secretary-general, said (Reuters)
• Vatican urges end to Amnesty aid | The Vatican has urged all Catholics to stop donating money to Amnesty International, accusing the human rights group of promoting abortion (BBC)

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More on abortion:

• Council repeals ‘pro-choice city’ resolution | The original measure was strictly symbolic but provoked criticism. Cardinal Rigali praised the 13-4 turnaround (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Police want limits on anti-abortion events | The city of Jefferson’s police chief wants a group of anti-abortion protesters to tone down their act and has asked the Jefferson City Council to adopt an ordinance to help him do that (Morris News Service)
• Abortion stance bill stalls | A bill that would force pro-life pregnancy counselling services to disclose that they don’t refer for abortion appears to be in doubt, with some of its supporters claiming they had been prevented from voting on the issue (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)

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Colorado Right to Life:

• National group boots Colorado Right to Life | Colorado Right to Life, which ran a full-page ad in The Gazette last month criticizing Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, was ousted Wednesday from the National Right to Life Committee (The Colorado Springs Gazette)
• National group boots Right to Life | Colo. chapter had ripped Dobson in newspaper ads (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• Right to Life drops Colo. affiliate | Colorado Right to Life was kicked out of the National Right to Life coalition on Wednesday, in part for publicly criticizing Focus on the Family founder James Dobson (Associated Press)
• Colorado pro-life group joins National Right to Life | Rogue affiliate cut loose. (CitizenLink, Focus on the Family)

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Life ethics:

• Kaine stays execution pending high court appeal | “Basic fairness demands that condemned inmates be allowed the opportunity to complete legal appeals prior to execution,” the governor’s statement said. (The Washington Post)
• The national pastime | A Harris poll suggested that more than 40 percent of Americans would use genetic engineering to upgrade their children mentally and physically (David Brooks, The New York Times, sub. req’d.)

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Stem cell research:

• The red and blue of stem cells | Anyone who says we don’t need human embryos in this scientific pursuit has forgotten a couple of things (Editorial, The Boston Globe)
• Cardinal sins: fudging the science of stem cell research | Shrill language does not help the debate on therapeutic cloning (Sushi Das, The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• A stem-cell solution | Real scientific opportunities (Mitt Romney, National Review Online)

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2008 election:

• Abortion wars, uninterrupted | The campaign of Arizona Senator John McCain launched a new broadside against Mitt Romney today over Romney’s reversal on abortion, but Romney’s campaign quickly hit back by saying McCain’s move was borne out of “desperation.” (The Boston Globe)
• Abortion feud has 2008 Republicans on edge | Barbs flew between the McCain and Romney camps on the pivotal issue of abortion, in a grab for hearts and minds of grass-roots conservatives, who hold the fate of the race in their hands (AFP)
• Romney woos anti-abortion activists | Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday told hundreds of anti-abortion activists that his conversion to their cause is genuine as he sought to fend off rivals’ criticism that he’s inconsistent on the issue (Associated Press)
• Democrats disappoint abortion-rights advocates | Abortion rights advocates cheered when Democrats took control of Congress. But hopes that their agenda would become a legislative priority have since faded. proposed increase to fund abstinence-only sex education programs (Morning Edition, NPR)
• Romney faces another ‘flip-flop’ question: Has he changed on stem cells? | Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is now facing questions on whether he has shifted his stand on expanded federal support for stem cell research (The New York Times)
• Faith in Romney: A new religious team | Romney’s new faith team will be headed by Jay Sekulow (Mark Silva, Chicago Tribune)
• Politics and religion | The Democrats’ forum showed that politicians of every ideological stripe can have strong religious convictions (Editorial, Toledo Blade, Oh.)
• When it comes to faith, partisan lines are blurring | It is a political world turned upside down. Republicans running away from religion and Democrats acting like evangelists. (David Kuo, All Things Considered, NPR)
• Dems’ finding God: no big deal | Candidates’ embrace of religion won’t affect policy much, will shift debate to cultural issues (Bruce Ledewitz, Newsday)

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Politics:

• Justice Dept. reshapes its civil rights mission | The Bush administration has refocused the government’s role on religion-oriented cases instead of racial issues (The New York Times)
• A questionable nominee | A prospective surgeon general’s 1991 paper on gay men haunts him in 2007, and deservedly so (Editorial, The Washington Post)
• Washington diary: Prohibition lite | The bizarre and selective Puritanism of the US is as old as the nation (BBC)
• Christers at the gate | Church of Christ members aim for electoral top (Nashville Scene)
• A covenant to take care of the Creator’s handiwork | The “Genesis Covenant” is not intended to be adopted by a parish here and a synagogue there, but promoted and acted upon by the associations, councils and assemblies that speak for denominations and faiths (Lance Dickie, The Seattle Times)

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Land and zoning disputes:

• Pastor, whose church ran afoul of county ordinance, speaks | The Cowboy Church in Moneta briefly stopped meeting last year, then started meeting as a private party, the Cowboy Round-up, which did meet the letter of the law. After another short time it returned to meeting as the Cowboy Church (Bedford Bulletin, Va.)
• Dania closer to easing rules on churches locating in neighborhoods | City commissioners on Tuesday tentatively approved a proposal lifting a restriction under which churches and houses of worship are allowed in residential districts only by special exceptions granted on a case-by-base basis (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

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Church and state:

• Post removes Bible study guides | A Web site is cleared of the material after a religious freedom group calls some passages anti-Semitic (The Kansas City Star, Mo.)
• Judge: Police can ban religious Muslim garb | A Philadelphia police officer has no right to wear a head covering as required by her Muslim faith when she is in uniform, a federal judge ruled yesterday (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Also: Judge: Philly police can ban scarves | The city’s police department can forbid a Muslim officer from wearing a head scarf on the job, a federal judge ruled (Associated Press)
• Kelsey says ruling knocks out state funds to churches | Rep. Brian Kelsey said he received a state attorney’s general opinion today stating “it is unconstitutional to use state taxpayer dollars to further religion by providing unrestricted Community Enhancement Grants to churches.” (The Chattanoogan, Tenn.)
• Also: Kelsey to churches: No dough for you! | Turns out, state lawmakers can’t give tax dollars to churches, as some tried to do earlier this year — and an Attorney General’s opinion says so, according to Rep. Brian Kelsey, a Germantown Republican (The Tennessean)
• Do public accommodation laws limit ability to carry out shunning? | Suits filed yesterday by the Arizona Attorney General against two restaurant owners raise the interesting question of how far members of religious groups can go in implementing a religious decision to excommunicate or “shun” a fellow member without violating civil rights laws (Religion Clause)
• New hope in church-state conflict | Commission will look at issues of compensation and proper role of the church (The Prague Post)
• Jordan eases up on patriarch | Jordan said yesterday that it was rescinding its decision to withdraw recognition of Greece’s Orthodox patriarch in Jerusalem, as Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis arrived in Amman for talks (Kathimerini, Athens)
• Also: Jordan hopes for resolution with Greek patriarch (Associated Press)

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Fiji:

• Churches oppose national council initiative | Two Christian church groups have opposed the setting up of a National Council for Building a Better Fiji. (Fiji Times)
• Regime’s plan illegal, says Methodists | Fiji’s Methodist Church has strongly objected to the interim administrations proposal of the setting up of the proposed National Council deeming it an illegal act. (FijiLive)
• Bainimarama lashes out at church | Interim Prime Minister Commander Voreqe Bainimarama has hit out at the leaders of the Methodist Church for deliberately misleading their followers to accomplish their own political agenda (Fiji Times)
• Church leaders face flak | Leaders of the Methodist Church are deliberately misleading their followers to accomplish their own political agenda, says interim Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama (The Fiji Times)

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Australia:

• Pell could be in contempt | Cardinal George Pell could be found in contempt of Parliament pending an inquiry into his comments on therapeutic cloning last week (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Watershed week for church/state relations in Australia | Cardinals threatening Catholic politicians; Archbishops being reported to Parliamentary privileges committees; priests writing letters to editors of newspapers offering alternative communion arrangements. Has Cardinal Pell taken us back to the belligerent days of B.A.Santamaria? (The Religion Report, ABC, Australia)

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Immigration:

• Raid makes debate over sanctuary real | Area churches decide whether or not to aid illegal immigrants (The Oregonian)
• Archbishop Vlazny blasts federal raid against illegal immigrants | In a news release, the Roman Catholic leader in Western Oregon called the move “an affront to a nation whose tradition has always welcomed the stranger in search of the security and livelihood which he cannot find in the country of his origin” (The Oregonian)
• Church sets stage for battle over immigrant workers | Cave Creek officials are steeling themselves for a heated hearing Monday when citizens will revisit the practices at Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church (The Arizona Republic)
• Immigration bill has new life in Senate | Roman Catholic leaders, among others, launched a push to revive the bill. (The Washington Post)
• Who speaks for the church? | On Cardinal Mahony’s immigration advocacy (Richard John Neuhaus, First Things)
• God and the immigration bill | At the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, everybody went to Sunday School and supports immigration reform (Andrew Leonard, Salon.com)

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Protests:

• Clergy to avoid jail for protest | The pastors, who protested what they called “poverty wages” being paid to janitors, will pay $150 fines (The Indianapolis Star)
• Four found guilty over Pine Gap break-in | Four activists were convicted on Thursday in the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Alice Springs for breaking into the Pine Gap spy base (AAP, Australia)

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Cathedral video game dispute:

• Sony: Sorry for cathedral shootout game | “It was not our intention to cause offense by using a representation of Manchester Cathedral in chapter eight of the work,” the letter said. “If we have done so, we sincerely apologize” (Associated Press)
• Cathedral shoot-out game condemned as PM blames business | Tony Blair told Parliament there was a need for large organisations such as Sony to have both “some sense of responsibility and some sensitivity to the feelings of communities.” (The Times, London)
• Church of England asks Japanese to join Sony campaign | “Today I want to appeal directly to the people of Japan to help us put pressure on Sony to respond. So I speak directly to those citizens who share our concerns,” the dean of Manchester Cathedral, the Very Rev. Rogers Govender said (Associated Press)
• Don’t get angry over murder in the cathedral | As videogames begin to explore themes more akin to movies and literature, social commentators are going to have to re-evaluate their responses to the medium. (Keith Stuart, The Guardian, London)
• The business of the church | If I was such a church, the last thing I would want, simply out of principal, would be money made off a videogame that shat all over my institution (Josh Kron, New Times, Rwanda)

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Entertainment and media:

• Band: People are turned off by the word Christian | An interview with Flyleaf’s affable guitarist Jared Hartmann (The Canton Repository, Oh.)
• Cable choice would empower families | Ministry with largest Christian radio program on opposite side of issue from National Religious Broadcasters (CitizenLink, Focus on the Family)

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Sexual ethics:

• Michigan-based ministry helps porn addicts | Porn and Pancakes is organized by XXXChurch.com, an online ministry created to get Christians talking about their X-rated addictions (Associated Press)
• Mexico City considers legal prostitution | The leftist party that has already legalized gay unions and abortion in Mexico City said Wednesday it wants to make prostitution legal in the capital of this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country. (Associated Press)
• Also: Mexico City lawmakers seek to legalize prostitution | Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Mexico City archdiocese, said the Catholic Church was concerned the city government was spending time passing laws that affected minorities rather than resolving issues like crime and water shortages (Reuters)

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Homosexuality:

• Ministers say hate crimes act could muzzle them | Harry Jackson, pastor of the Hope Christian Church in Maryland, says his coalition is concerned ministers could be charged under a hate crimes act for preaching against homosexuality. Advocates of the bill say that is untrue (USA Today)
• At ease with faith and their sexuality | Being gay and practising a religion are often thought of as incompatible because many churches take a negative view of homosexuality. Here three gay Edinburgh people tell how they have reconciled their sexuality and their religion (Evening News, Scotland)
• Right of gays to marry set for years to come | Vote keeps proposed ban off 2008 state ballot (The Boston Globe)
• Massachusetts marriage amendment fails | The amendment needed the support of 50 lawmakers to be put on the November 2008 ballot, but the joint legislative session opposed it by a 151-45 vote (The Washington Times)
• Massachusetts gay marriage to remain legal | Same-sex marriage will remain legal in Massachusetts, as its proponents won a pitched months-long battle (The New York Times)
• Personal stories changed minds | The nine lawmakers who switched sides seemed to share something in common: a desire to listen to all sides and a concern about hurting gay couples and families who they believed in many cases had experienced discrimination (The Boston Globe)
• Fear and then, ‘I can’t believe it’ | Gay activists jubilant after the quick vote (The Boston Globe)
• Mass. may inspire advocates in other states to action | The vote yesterday to protect same-sex marriage in Massachusetts is likely to embolden gay rights supporters in other liberal-leaning states considering similar policies, political analysts and advocates said (The Boston Globe)
• Gay marriage to remain legal in Mass. | Massachusetts lawmakers threw out a proposed constitutional amendment Thursday that would have let voters decide whether to ban gay marriage in the only state that allows it (Associated Press)
• Earlier: A legislator finds himself tugged in two directions | Paul Kujawski could be forced to decide whether to reaffirm his support for the proposed constitutional ban or switch his vote, giving same-sex marriage supporters one of the few votes they need to defeat the amendment (The Boston Globe)
• Earlier: Tight vote looms on same-sex marriage | Lobbying intense on both sides (The Boston Globe)
• A good day for marriage | Time is on the side of equality (Editorial, The Boston Globe)
• A political grenade | Today’s vote may have settled the issue in Massachusetts. It has unsettled it everywhere else (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe)
• Late gain for sex ed committee | Staff will add a brief passage to the new sex education lessons that also instruct teachers on how to answer a specific question if asked by a student: “Is homosexuality an illness?” (The Washington Post)
• The quiet gay revolution | As gays have moved into the mainstream, Republicans have landed on the wrong side of history (Michael Kinsley, Time)

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Anglicanism:

• Anglican demand for change is rebuffed by Episcopalians | The executive council of the Episcopal Church announced that it would not comply with demands from Anglican leaders to retract the church’s liberal position on homosexuality (The New York Times)
• Anglicans’ demand on gays is rebuffed | Top Episcopal officials instead say they’ll take up the issue at their General Convention — in 2009 (Los Angeles Times)
• Episcopal panel rejects Anglican demand | “We question the authority of the primates to impose deadlines and demands upon any of the churches of the Anglican Communion,” the Episcopal Executive Council said in a statement, after a meeting in Parsippany, N.J. (Associated Press)
• U.S. move on gay bishops may widen Anglican split | Leaders of the Episcopal Church told worldwide Anglican bishops on Thursday they had no authority to try to make the church’s U.S. branch change its stand on the consecration of gay bishops (Reuters)
• Bless same-sex unions, retired archbishops urge | Six senior clerics champion yes side in historic Canadian vote (The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
• US conservatives to defy Archbishop of Canterbury | Anglican Church rifts deepened further with the disclosure of plans to consecrate yet another conservative bishop in the US in defiance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams (The Times, London)

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Southern Baptists:

• Baptists approve global warming measure | Southern Baptists approved a resolution on global warming Wednesday that questions the prevailing scientific belief that humans are largely to blame for the phenomenon and also warns that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor (Associated Press)
• Global warming resolution passes | Urges “Southern Baptists to proceed cautiously in the human-induced global warming debate in light of conflicting scientific research.” (Baptist Press)
• Unpopular Bush still a hit with Baptists | Conservative white evangelical Protestants remain his most loyal base — a point driven home on Wednesday when he made a televised address to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in San Antonio and received multiple standing ovations (Reuters)
• SBC: doctrinal statement ‘sufficient,’ but impact on hiring remains unclear | The Southern Baptist Convention affirmed the Baptist Faith & Message June 12 as the “sufficient” doctrinal guide for its agencies and institutions. But SBC leaders immediately disagreed over whether the action will keep those agencies from adopting more restrictive policies. (Associated Baptist Press)
• Baptists want hate-crimes bill to be defeated | The Southern Baptist Convention, which wrapped up its two-day visit to San Antonio on Wednesday, passed a resolution asking the U.S. Senate and President Bush to prevent hate crimes from being prosecutable, saying it would add an extra layer of protection for homosexuality, which they say the Bible denounces (San Antonio Express-News)
• SBC steps up ministry to homosexuals | Bob Stith is the convention’s National Strategist for Gender Issues (Baptist Press)
• Also: SBC appoints strategy coordinator for churches’ ‘ex-gay’ ministries | Bob Stith, who said God convicted him more than a decade ago about how he addressed the issue of homosexuality, filled the slot June 1 (Associated Baptist Press)
• Baptists adopt sex-abuse statement | After repeated calls for a stand on sexual abuse, the Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday adopted a resolution urging churches to perform criminal background checks on clergy and employees. The statement also renounced child abusers and those who cover up their actions (The Birmingham News, Ala.)
• Southern Baptist leader urges winning of souls, not arguments | The nation’s largest non-Catholic religious body must spend as much passion on lost souls as it does on its internal squabbles, its leader told 8,300 messengers Tuesday in San Antonio (San Antonio Express-News)
• SBC president fields reporters’ questions | “I do believe we’ve gone far enough and that the Baptist Faith and Message is enough and I encourage entities not to go beyond that in their doctrinal parameters.” (Baptist Press)
• Baptisms at a crossroad | National decline is reflected in some local churches (Daily News Journal, Murfreesboro, Tenn.)
• Moderate shift seems mostly a nod to political realities | Should Southern Baptists change? (Editorial, The Tennessean)
• Church is in second phase of reformation | Whereas the conflict of the early ’80s was theological, the emerging conflict is generational and institutional (Kevin Shrum, The Tennessean, Nashville)
• Meeting did little to alter old struggle | Old-guard and new-wave fundamentalists battled this week over the perimeters of exclusivity in the Southern Baptist Convention (Robert Parham, The Tennessean)

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CRC:

• Synod repents of racism in 1920 Africa decision | Chagrined by the past and mindful of its multiethnic future, the Christian Reformed Church Synod on Thursday repented of racism in a 1920 decision not to send missionaries to Africa (The Grand Rapids Press)
• Synod: When can kids take communion? | The Faith Formation Committee has five years to come up with a statement on when youths should take communion — a question on which many CRC congregations disagree (The Grand Rapids Press, Mi.)
• Women look to expanded roles in CRC’s future | Even those who oppose women clergy hope the CRC will benefit from moving beyond a decades-old conflict (The Grand Rapids Press, Mi.)

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Catholicism:

• Theological society head warns against publicly criticizing church | In his presidential address to the Catholic Theological Society of America, theologian Daniel K. Finn warned the society against issuing public statements critical of church policies or church authorities (Catholic News Service)
• Pope and Russian Patriarch could meet within a year | Pope Benedict and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexiy could hold a historic meeting within a year, a senior Vatican cardinal was quoted as saying on Thursday (Reuters)
• Old Latin Mass makes a comeback | The 1,600-year-old Mass isn’t used much today, but it’s making a comeback. That effort will get a boost Friday when Burke — one of the most devoted supporters of the old Latin rite among U.S. bishops — will ordain two deacons of the Institute at the Cathedral Basilica (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Cardinal rebukes Pfleger for ‘threat’ | Priest says words against gun shop owner misconstrued (Chicago Sun-Times)
• ‘Testing the miraculous, judging the holy’ | While a teenage girl’s claimed encounters with apparitions of the Virgin Mary have made news headlines and had thousands flocking to her family’s Benoni home, her startling revelations are by no means unusual (The Star, South Africa)
• Matt Dillon, Patron Saint of St. Brigid’s? | “This church is part of our history,” said Dillon, who said he first fell in love with St. Brigid’s when he filmed it for a scene in his movie, City of Ghosts (The Village Voice, N.Y.)

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Church life:

• Pastors cancel visit to Pilgrim Baptist | Local black leaders decided to cancel plans to visit Pilgrim Baptist Church this Sunday, after hearing threats that white hate groups might rally there at the same time (Gaston Gazette, N.C.)
• Also: Church leaders: Apology accepted | Blackface show wasn’t intended as an insult, pastor says in e-mail (The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)
• Fitness tips for body and soul | Church’s health exposition offers classes, preventive care (The Washington Post)
• Church choir walks out in revolt over vicar’s ‘bullying’ | A church choir has walked out in protest at its vicar’s “autocratic” style. The revolt in the stalls at the church of St Gregory the Great in Dawlish, south Devon, followed the departures of the organist and choirmaster, who resigned after 20 years’ service (The Times, London)
• Holy war brews over plans to remove church pews | Changes are afoot for the 800-year-old Grade I listed Prestbury church, and the 300-year-old Macclesfield Forest Chapel, that could mean ripping out ancient pews which would be replaced by modern removable chairs to enable places of worship to be used as community meeting halls (Macclesfield Express, England)
• Guide dog leads chapel’s singing | A guide dog is helping to lead the hymns every Sunday at a Welsh chapel (BBC)
• Church values its neighbors, neighborhood | First Baptist Church of Shreveport and First Baptist Church School have gained attention for reasons other than our core mission. A computer-operated sign project, begun months ago and quite innocently, created unexpected public attention because of newspaper and television coverage (Greg Hunt, The Shreveport Times)

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Creflo Dollar in Uganda:

• Thousands throng Dollar crusade | Hundreds of Christians, some from as far as Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Sudan, thronged the Namboole Stadium last evening for a crusade against poverty by American evangelist Dr. Creflo Dollar (New Vision, Uganda)
• Dollar warns on misused money | Many came eager to see what the prosperity evangelist, Dr. Creflo Dollar, would bring them but he gave them “no quick fixes.” (New Vision, Uganda)
• Dollar gives tips for prosperity | “This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme that I am going to share. The principles that I am going to share with you will change your life,” he said (The Monitor, Uganda)

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Money and business:

• Draft version of new IRS Form 990 | The U.S. Internal Revenue Service released on Thursday a draft revision of its Form 990 informational tax return, the primary tax document that charities and other tax-exempt organizations, including nonprofit colleges, file each year with the government (The Chronicle of Higher Education, sub. req’d.)
• The bingo haul | Church and synagogue games in Milton buck a statewide decline (The Boston Globe)

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Books:

• Historic first printing for Lucado book | Thomas Nelson has ordered a 1 million-copy first printing for 3:16: The Numbers of Hope by Max Lucado—the largest first printing in the company’s history (Religion BookLine, Publishers Weekly)
• God is mankind’s original sin | Edward Skidelsky reviews In Defence of Atheism: the Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam by Michel Onfray and God Is Not Great: the Case Against Religion by Christopher Hitchens (The Telegraph, London)
• This book won’t change your life | Christopher Hitchens has been good value and highly entertaining in the past, but his latest book fails to tell us anything we didn’t already know (John Crace, The Guardian, London)
• The Gospel of Judas: Jesus did not die for your sins | We don’t think the Gospel of Judas belongs in the canon — but we also don’t think it belongs in the trash. Instead, it belongs in the history of Christianity — a history that now, in light of all these recent discoveries, we now have to rewrite completely (Elaine Pagels, Chicago Sun-Times)

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Health and sickness:

• I do not fight | Sickness isn’t an enemy, it’s a rooster’s crow (Walter Wangerin Jr., The Lutheran, sub. req’d.)
• United Church head goes online to describe cancer battle | The leader of one of Canada’s largest churches is sick with cancer and fighting for his life, and detailing the whole experience in public — in sometimes graphic detail — on the Internet (CanWest News Service)

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Science:

• One scientist’s junk is a creationist’s treasure | Without your “junk DNA” you might be reading this article while hanging upside down by your tail. That’s one of the key findings of the opossum genome-sequencing project, and a surprising group is embracing the results: intelligent-design advocates (Wired News)
• Intricate toiling found in nooks of DNA once believed to stand idle | The first concerted effort to understand all the inner workings of the DNA molecule is overturning a host of long-held assumptions about the nature of genes and their role in human health and evolution, scientists reported yesterday (The Washington Post)
• Can’t buy me altruism | You don’t need to donate to charity to feel all warm inside. Researchers have found that even when money is taken from some people involuntarily, they feel good about the transaction, as long as the funds go to a good cause (ScienceNow)
• Spanish nuns show hops are good for you: study | A study in which teetotal Spanish nuns drank a regular half-liter of beer showed that beer may help reduce cholesterol levels, a group financed by the Spanish Beer Makers’ Association said on Thursday (Reuters)

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Spirituality:

• Coast men may surprise you if you let them | Mississippi Coast men may be bending the numbers when it comes to devoted church-going (Jean Prescott. Biloxi Sun Herald, Miss.)
• Many Mississippi Coast men more religious than you might imagine | Approximately 30 male friends and acquaintances were asked five questions about their churchgoing habits. They agreed to answer on condition of anonymity. Their responses could inspire or infuriate (Biloxi Sun Herald, Miss.)
• Boys to men | Raising three sons has helped me appreciate the masculine virtues (Tony Woodlief, The Wall Street Journal)
• The decline of the Sabbath | Less praying, more working and playing (Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, The Wall Street Journal)
• The magic numbers | Purveyors of the psychic arts worry as Salem’s city leaders look to expand the witchery marketplace (The Boston Globe)

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Other stories of interest:

• Orange Order’s leader revisits anti-Catholic foundations | The Grand Master of the Scottish Orange Order revealed he had rewritten much of the organisation’s founding document in a bid to tone down its anti-Catholic sentiments (The Scotsman)
• Steps Jesus walked to trial restored to glory | One of the Roman Catholic Church’s holiest relics, which contains the steps believed to have been climbed by Jesus on his way to trial before Pontius Pilate, has been restored (The Telegraph, London)
• Religious extremists in 3 faiths share views: report | Violent Muslim, Christian and Jewish extremists invoke the same rhetoric of “good” and “evil” and the best way to fight them is to tackle the problems that drive people to extremism, says a report commissioned by security think tank EastWest Institute ahead of a conference on Thursday (Reuters)
• Where Jesus spent his old age | Forget the Da Vinci Code: This Japanese farming village knows that Christ died here, at age 106. And they have the “tomb” to prove it (Time)
• The church of skepticism | Seattle’s one true faith gets mobilized (The Stranger, Seattle)

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Christian Reformed Church Removes Bars to Women in Leadership | Plus: The big news from the Southern Baptist Convention, Romney’s faith team, and other stories (June 13)

Italian Priest Kidnapped in Philippines | Plus: ‘Virtual desecration’ of a famous cathedral, an important IVF finding, another pastor mariticide, Paris Hilton (of course), etc. (June 12)

Stem Cell Bill’s Bad (Or Providential?) Timing | Plus: Surgeon general nominee’s Methodist work under fire, Time interviews Rowan Williams, church building conflicts, and more. (June 8)

The God Debates of ’08 | Plus: More tragedy for Iraq Christians, another blow to Iowa’s faith-based prison program, America’s new pilgrimage points, and other stories. (June 7)

See also the Christianity Today Liveblog, especially for many items about Ruth Graham’s passing.

The post Should School Workers Be Banned from Off-Hours Counseling? appeared first on Christianity Today.

1. Will K.A. Paul face more scrutiny after moment in spotlight? Or will his platform grow? You won’t find much about K.A. Paul on the Christianity Today site. Every reference to the Indian preacher is from a Weblog, mostly from outlets raising questions about his ministry. (One exception: The New Republic was mildly positive, apparently because he talks about poverty more than he does about abortion.) We didn’t report on his expulsion from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability over oversight and financial transparency concerns. We didn’t report on the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention taking the unprecedented step of issuing a vote of no confidence in his ministry, or of the Assemblies of God leadership similarly criticizing his work. We haven’t followed up on reports that his orphanage ministry spends more on jet fuel for Paul’s plane than on actual orphans, nor that he has taken credit for other people’s work. We have no plans to report his recent claims that the Republican Party is delaying the Second Coming of Christ and that the Iraq war is “genocide.” Quite honestly, we haven’t covered him because there are many self-promotional ministers out there with grossly exaggerated claims, outrageous statements, and problematic finances. Paul has had more success in getting himself into The New Yorker and other publications, but getting such clips seems to be his ministry’s real focus. So why give him more attention?

Well, he’s certainly getting attention this week. Amid the Mark Foley scandal, Paul scored a meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert at the speaker’s home. What’s more, Paul claims that Hastert promised him he’d resign. He told Mother Jones, “God convinced him through me in prayer.” Paul claims Hastert said, “God gave me this position that I don’t deserve. For the good of the people, I will do it.” The Mother Jones story is full of other … eccentricities. (Example: Paul says he knew Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “when he was nobody.”)

Hastert’s office told the Chicago Sun-Times that the meeting was a mistake, that Hastert thought the hastily scheduled meeting was with a constituent of his district, and that the Speaker will not resign.

The thing is, this meeting is the buzz of Washington right now and raises his profile. It might raise Paul’s reputation as a publicity hound, the “craziest preacher ever,” and a “nut job,” but that hasn’t stopped the press corps from quoting every crazy thing Pat Robertson says. Is Paul going to be the new media darling for reporters looking for a juicy religious quote? Don’t bet on it: His political views are probably too unpredictable for “fill-in-the-blank” reporting.

2. The New York Times: “American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government” Much of The New York Times series can be summarized (no surprise) at the end of its final article:

[T]ax and regulatory exemptions that have become available to religious organizations in America … benefit religion in ways that some critics say go beyond the limits of the Constitution.

Until several years ago, “it was inconceivable for most to think that religion might well be aggressively expanding its power in a way that is harmful to the public good,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor. … But now, Professor Hamilton said, the power of religious entities “is at its apex.”

Defenders of these exemptions deny that they raise any questions of excessive power or constitutional violations.

That or is important. It’s not just about the limits of the Constitution. It’s about people worrying about religious influence (or, if you will, power).

3. The Boston Globe looks at religious involvement in foreign aid While The New York Times is getting attention for its look at religious tax and regulatory exemptions within the U.S., The Boston Globe has more quietly been examining how international Christian groups get funding from the U.S. government’s foreign aid budget. “Many of these groups do excellent work, and the government has been relying on them for decades, especially during emergencies,” the Globe says in a roundup editorial. “But all have an overriding purpose—to convert people to Christianity—and the government needs to distribute the money with a skeptical eye … [T]he U.S. government should not subsidize their work unless it comes without religious content.” The Globe is going a bit further than the usual (and important) keep-the-money-separate argument. The paper instead argues that the only religious groups that should get funding are secular ones.

4. The Denver Post: Watch out for Dennis Leonard At least we at Christianity Today had heard of K.A. Paul. Who is Dennis Leonard? Apparently, he’s a hugely popular prosperity gospel preacher in Colorado. His Heritage Christian Center “is a Pentecostal congregation with weekend attendance of about 7,000 – roughly 40 percent black, 40 percent white and 20 percent Latino and other races,” church officials told The Denver Post. The paper examines Leonard, his theology, and his money in a special report that’s worth reading, even if you’ve never heard of him. (What’s up with this week and special reports on religion?)

5. Did the Amish forgive too quickly? While several newspapers are doing in-depth special reports on religion, the religion story getting the widest attention this week is still the Amish. But this week, it’s less about the school shooting per se and more about the Amish reaction to it. Op-ed writers and columnists around the country are astounded at speed and extent to which the Amish community—including some immediate family members of the victims—forgave shooter Charles Roberts. It was “religion in its best light,” said Bruce Kluger of USA Today. “I don’t know about you, but that kind of faith is beyond comprehension,” Rod Dreher wrote in a widely reprinted Dallas Morning News column. “I’m the kind of guy who will curse under my breath at the jerk who cuts me off in traffic on the way home from church. And look at those humble farmers, putting Christians like me to shame.” (Former “Professional Catholic” Dreher, by the way, “came out” as a communicant of the Orthodox Church today, though The Washington Post mentioned as much a few months ago and he earlier said he was “considering Orthodoxy.”)

Other op-ed writers are wondering about the lessons to be drawn. “Hatred is not always wrong, and forgiveness is not always deserved,” Jeff Jacoby wrote in The Boston Globe. “I admire the Amish villagers’ resolve to live up to their Christian ideals even amid heartbreak, but how many of us would really want to live in a society in which no one gets angry when children are slaughtered? In which even the most horrific acts of cruelty were always and instantly forgiven? There is a time to love and a time to hate, Ecclesiastes teaches. If anything deserves to be hated, surely it is the pitiless murder of innocents.”

Quote of the day “National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy.'”

—David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and author of the forthcoming book Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. According to early reports, Kuo’s book alleges that the faith-based initiatives office was “used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.”

More articles

New York Times series on religious organizations | Boston Globe series on faith-based organizations abroad | Denver Post on Dennis Leonard | Amish school shooting | Amish and forgiveness | Philippine killings | Indonesia | War and violence | Australia stabbing over conversion | Crime (non-U.S.) | Crime (U.S.) | Abuse | Foley scandal | K.A. Paul and Denny Hastert | Sexual ethics | Ex-gay ministries | Family | Politics | Mitt Romney | Environment | Abortion | Church and state (U.S.) | Requiring immunizations | Church and state (non-U.S.) | Education | Evolution | Higher education | Church buildings | Church life | Catholicism | Pope and Islam | Europe’s culture clash | China | People | Billy Graham’s grandson holds crusade | Other Grahams | Media | New York Hell House | Music | Film | Youth | Missions and ministry | Money, business, and giving | Israel | History | Atheism | Other stories of interest

New York Times series on religious organizations:

• Series: In God’s name | How American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government (The New York Times)
• As exemptions grow, religion outweighs regulation | Religious organizations enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly (The New York Times)
• Where faith abides, employees have few rights | For years, U.S. judges have used the separation of church and state to shield religious employers of all faiths from labor laws and most employee lawsuits (The New York Times)
• As religious programs expand, disputes rise over tax breaks | As religious organizations extend their scope beyond traditional worship, government at all levels is increasingly extending their tax exemptions (The New York Times)
• Religion-based tax breaks: Housing to paychecks to books | Churches and ordained clergy of all faiths get a series of tax exemptions that secular organizations and workers do not (The New York Times)
• In the Congressional hopper: A long wish list of special benefits and exemptions | For all their gains, some advocates for religious freedom say government must do more to protect religious institutions from the hostile environment of modern America (The New York Times)
• New York Times takes on First Amendment (Mollie Hemingway, GetReligion)

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Boston Globe series on faith-based organizations abroad:

• Exporting Faith: Religious right wields clout | Secular groups losing funding amid pressure (The Boston Globe)
• Past foes of church-state ties turn supporters | New Hope Baptist Church of Danbury is seeking tax dollars for a church-affiliated building (The Boston Globe)
• A US boost to Graham’s quest for converts | The Rev. Franklin Graham came to Lubango in triumph, to dedicate a $5 million medical center, which he is building with private donations and US government funds. He stayed a week and led 13,496 souls — including about 6,000 children — to Jesus (The Boston Globe)
• Bush brings faith to foreign aid | As funding rises, Christian groups deliver help — with a message (The Boston Globe)
• Together, but worlds apart | Christian aid groups raise suspicion in strongholds of Islam (The Boston Globe)
• For those excluded, loan program is no success | Partners Worldwide has been hailed by the White House as a model for international assistance, but it only helps Christians (The Boston Globe)
• Healing the body to reach the soul | Evangelicals add converts through medical trips (The Boston Globe)
• A piece of Hollywood is converted into a call to Christianity | Propelled by missionaries who have made it a central part of their conversion efforts, “The Jesus Film” has become the most-watched movie of all time, shown in 235 countries, translated into nearly 950 languages, and viewed by a worldwide audience of perhaps 3 billion (The Boston Globe)
• Is foreign aid Christian? | The United States should be exporting its historic insistence on the separation of church and state, rather than allowing them to be intermingled far from home (Editorial, The Boston Globe)

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Denver Post on Dennis Leonard:

• Sold on the spirit | Bishop Dennis Leonard has build a booming church by bringing hope to a needy world. But his ministry has its critics, calling him ruthless, controlling and unaccountable (The Denver Post)
• The gospel of prosperity | Bishop Dennis Leonard has created a multimillion-dollar enterprise fed by devoted followers, some with little to spare (The Denver Post)
• Bank on God: storing up riches on earth | Do Leonard’s prosperity gospel claims bear fruit? (The Denver Post)

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Amish school shooting:

• Amish school where 10 girls were shot razed by heavy machinery | Within 15 minutes, the building was reduced to a pile of rubble (Associated Press)
• Church bells toll for Pa. Amish victims | Church bells tolled across Amish country Monday morning in memory of five young girls who were shot to death in their tiny, one-room schoolhouse a week earlier. (Associated Press)
• Dozens of Amish mourn schoolhouse killer | Dozens of Amish neighbors came out Saturday to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage (Associated Press)
• Murder visits an Amish school house | An overview of the shooting (Associated Press)
• Not fit to print for Amish | The community may grieve its slain children, but its newspaper will focus, as it always has, on ripening apples, shifting families—renewal (Los Angeles Times)
• Tragedy scene: What to do? | Some Amish would burn the school. It’s a familiar issue (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Gifts to grieving Amish community soar | The Amish community grieving the loss of five girls shot in a schoolhouse say they have been overwhelmed by gifts from the outside world — about $700,000 in donations so far (Associated Press)

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Amish and forgiveness:

• Undeserved forgiveness | Hatred is not always wrong, and forgiveness is not always deserved. I admire the Amish villagers’ resolve to live up to their Christian ideals even amid heartbreak, but how many of us would really want to live in a society in which no one gets angry when children are slaughtered? (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe)
• most demanding virtue (Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune)
• Forgiveness and repentance | For our culture, Christian and otherwise, to consistently hold up as praiseworthy the notion that those who have had terrible crimes committed against them, crimes that end or should end a relationship, that they must extend unilateral forgiveness and wipe the moral slate clean — or at least that to do so is inherently virtuous — well, that should naturally and rightly offend the person wronged (Betsy Hart, Scripps Howard News Service)
• Everyday forgiveness | Living without electricity, automobiles and televisions is a small price, perhaps, for the peace that no individualistic and schismatic American denomination can truly promise its members – the peace that the world cannot give (Elizabeth Eisenstadt-Evans, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• The amazing virtue of forgiveness | Two news stories offer contrasting, yet similarly illuminating, lessons in the value of that A glimpse of grace | The swift blur of tragedy that struck the Amish community last week should provide a moment of clarity for the rest of us. For a change, what we saw was religion in its best light (Bruce Kluger, USA Today)
• Amish set an enviable example of forgiveness | They did exactly what Christians know Jesus would have done, exactly what we are quick to say we can’t do. They forgave. Not just with words, but with deeds (Merlene Davis, Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.)
• Reject vengeance in death penalty vote | In contemporary America, where the biblical requirement to forgive has been all but lost in a rush to lay blame and to punish, the Amish way is, for most non-Amish, so archaic as to be incomprehensible (John Nichols, The Capital Times, Madison, Wis.)
• Lancaster Amish have powerful weapons of mass forgiveness | We should have immediately forgiven the 9/11 terrorists (Russ Eanes, The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, Pa.)
• ‘If necessary, use words’ | The Amish people have shown the public through this terrible incident that forgiveness is what a person should be doing when someone hurts or kills our loved ones (Dean Koldenhoven, Daily Southtown, Chicago)
• The Amish culture of forgiveness | The brutal shooting last week in a rural Pennsylvania schoolhouse met not with cries of anger, but with forgiveness from the Amish community. In an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Donald Kraybill writes that forgiveness is woven into the very life of the Amish; and is more than just a gesture (Talk of the Nation, NPR)

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Philippine killings:

• Ramento slay sends chill through int’l Christian community | Church leaders comment (The Philippine Inquirer)
• Death of a bishop | The killing of Bishop Alberto Ramento of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente [Philippine Independent Church], or IFI, delivers a strong shock to state-church relations (Editorial, The Philippine Inquirer)
• Killer ‘toyed’ with Ramento, says fact-finding mission | Scenario made to ‘look like robbery’ (The Philippine Inquirer)
• 2nd Aglipayan cleric shot dead | A priest of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, also known as the Aglipayan Church, was shot and stabbed dead inside his home in Surigao del Sur last Sunday, less than a week after an Aglipayan bishop was killed by suspected robbers in a convent in Tarlac City (The Philippine Star)
• 5 Aglipayan priests fear they’re next | Five more priests belonging to the church of slain Bishop Alberto Ramento expressed fears they were next in line in the spate of extra-judicial killings believed to be orchestrated by the military (The Philippine Inquirer)

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Indonesia:

• Christians don’t expect eye for an eye in Indonesia | After three of their own are executed, members of the minority group are skeptical about the fate of three similarly condemned Muslims (Los Angeles Times)
• Two killed in Indonesia over Christians’ execution | Two Muslim men were killed by a crowd angered by last month’s execution of three Christian militants in Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province, police said on Monday (Reuters)
• Police make arrests over Poso deaths | Two Muslim men were allegedly slain by a crowd angered by last month’s execution of three Christian militants in Central Sulawesi province, police said Monday, while a small explosion shook Poso on Sunday (The Jakarta Post, Indonesia)

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War and violence:

• Over 35,000 Christians have fled Iraq | According to Emmanuel Khoshaba, the Syrian head of the Assyrian and Democratic Movement (Associated Press)
• Also: Iraq’s forgotten Christians | As the battle for peace and security wages on in Iraq, the nations small but ancient Christian community is witnessing devastating attacks on some of its’ leaders and women (Vatican Radio)
• Treason suspect once on spiritual quest | At one point he dabbled with demonic heavy metal music and later studied Christianity (Associated Press)
• Plea from churches for Hicks | Australia’s two most senior church leaders have condemned the treatment of David Hicks and called on the Federal Government to ensure he is given a fair trial as quickly as possible (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• Class-action suit seeks release of detainees | ACLU says U.S. agency is ignoring a Supreme Court ruling against holding immigrants awaiting deportation for more than six months (Los Angeles Times)
• Sudan ‘kills hundreds in Darfur’ | Hundreds of Sudanese have been killed in attacks in Darfur, with the apparent knowledge and support of the government, a UN report says (BBC)
• Somali Islamists declare “jihad” on Ethiopia | Somalia’s powerful Islamists on Monday declared holy war against Horn of Africa rival Ethiopia, which they accused of invading Somalia to help the government briefly seize a town controlled by pro-Islamist fighters (Reuters)
• Judge: Doctor a conscientious objector | Coptic Orthodox Christian says her religious feelings rekindled after the death of her father, a former Egyptian military officer, in 2003 (Associated Press)
• Sectarian rivals optimistic after Belfast talks | Even more unusual than the meeting itself, perhaps, was that each side seemed cheerful, almost optimistic, afterward (The New York Times)
• Torture, corruption, and religion | Christians should be particularly sensitive to torture (John Dijoseph, The Washington Times)

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Australia stabbing over conversion:

• Muslim religion blamed for fatal stabbing | Police are investigating suggestions the violence erupted after the 17-year-old girl told her father she wanted to opt out of the Islamic faith and convert to Christianity (The Courier-Mail, Qld., Australia)
• Islamic leader condemns conversion death | A Muslim leader has condemned the death of a woman in a Gold Coast family’s domestic dispute, believed to have been sparked by a daughter’s wish to convert from Islam to Christianity (AAP, Australia)
• School death link | Friends of the Muslim mother stabbed to death in her Southport unit say she fought to enrol her daughter in a prestigious Christian school which her father blamed for ‘brainwashing’ her into converting from the family’s devout faith (The Bulletin, Australia)

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Crime (non-U.S.):

• Youth gets 18 years for killing priest | A Turkish court sentenced a teenager to 18 years and 10 months in prison for shooting to death an Italian Roman Catholic priest as he knelt in prayer inside his church, his lawyer said (Associated Press)
• Plane hijacking probe said to take years | A prosecutor investigating the hijacking of a Turkish airliner to Italy said Tuesday that it will take about two years to complete the inquiry and start the trial of the suspected hijacker (Associated Press)
• Church split on amnesty | The Catholic Church is divided on whether to have those who plundered public resources prosecuted (The East African Standard, Kenya)

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Crime (U.S.):

• Church is in a bind after brawl at party | With few attendees, the church balanced its $85,000-a-year budget by renting out the basement for parties — $150 for a small event and up to $700 for something bigger (The Record, N.J.)
• Also: Stabbings injure 6 in church hall brawl | Neighbors said the church has become a popular destination for weekend parties, gatherings that can feature loud music and rowdy crowds. (The Record, N.J.)
• Hunt for icon peers into black market | In the dark world of art theft, religious items are some of the hottest commodities — driven partly by the same, insatiable interest in mysteries of faith that catapulted “The Da Vinci Code” to international fame and created a sensation around the recent “Gospel of Judas.” (Associated Press)
• Threats of violence as homes for sex offenders cluster in Suffolk | As laws radically restrict where sex offenders can live, residents of Suffolk County object, sometimes violently, to the ex-convicts living in their communities (The New York Times)
• Also: Group challenges Ga. sex offender law | Some authorities have recently begun to enforce the church provision (Associated Press)
• Activists take to Prince George’s pulpits to break a pattern of domestic violence | Project Safe Sunday started four years ago to bring the clergy into the effort to fight the problem (The Washington Post)
• Delray priest admits taking Easter collections and other church money, says warrant | Retired cleric claimed he was not paid properly, police say (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
• Also: Out of Ireland: Priests left home to serve new frontier | Region’s growing parishes lured them here (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
• Protesters object to fund-raiser for murderer-priest | Perrysburg attorney John Donahue, who is representing Robinson before the Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals in Toledo, said the event was organized by supporters who believe in Robinson’s innocence (The Toledo Blade, Oh.)

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Abuse:

• Insurer sues to escape abuse claims | Firm denies liability for possible damages in 22 pending cases (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• Diocese in Iowa files for bankruptcy | After paying out more than $10.5 million to resolve dozens of sex abuse claims and now facing a new set of lawsuits, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (Associated Press)
• Also: Bankruptcy last choice for dioceses | Roman Catholic dioceses facing clergy abuse claims once avoided seeking Chapter 11 protection, but now a fourth American diocese has brought its case to bankruptcy court (Associated Press)
• Report: Mexican priest to stand trial | A judge in the central Mexico state of Puebla ordered a Roman Catholic priest to stand trial in the rape of a 9-year-old boy in 1999, Mexican daily Reforma reported Saturday (Associated Press)

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Foley scandal:

• Evangelicals blame Foley, not Republican Party | Evangelical Christians interviewed in Virginia insisted the Mark Foley episode would have little impact on their intentions to vote (The New York Times)
• Conservatives fear Foley scandal will cost votes | Some conservatives said they expected the Congressional page scandal to prove costly for Republicans in November (The New York Times)
• Page scandal exposes GOP’s gay identity crisis | “Has the social agenda of the GOP been stalled by homosexual members or staffers?” Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council wrote in an e-mail message to the organization’s activists this week. In an interview, Perkins says that while he has not drawn any conclusions, “these are questions that need to be resolved.” (USA Today)
• Victim advocates, Fla. diocese urge Foley to name alleged abuser | Alexis Walkenstein, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach diocese, said Foley has not reported the abuse to local Catholic Church officials, either (The Washington Post)
• ‘Values’ choice for the GOP | It’s possible that the Mark Foley scandal could finally end the phony, trumped-up “culture war” that the Republican Party has so expertly exploited all these years — possible, but not likely. I’m afraid the Foley episode will be remembered as just another bloody battle, one with lots of collateral damage (Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post)
• For the faithful, a trying time | There may not be much Good News in the pews for the GOP. The tawdry parable of Mark Foley is only one reason (Howard Fineman, Newsweek)
• Related?: Former city councilor is arrested on sex charge | Charged with trying to entice a minor (The Boston Globe)

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K.A. Paul and Denny Hastert:

• Hastert meets with critical evangelist over scandal | K.A. Paul, founder of the Global Peace Initiative, had hoped to persuade him to resign (Associated Press)
• Evangelist who counseled Saddam says Hastert promises to resign | Eccentric preacher K.A. Paul says when he met with Dennis Hastert yesterday, God convinced the speaker to step down over the Foley scandal. But the real question is: Why did the speaker even take the meeting (Josh Harkinson, Mother Jones)
• Hastert on KA Paul: “I do not know the man” (Bartholomew’s notes on religion)
• Hastert duped into letting stranger inside | How K.A. Paul and his aide, Dennis Ryan, got to Hastert’s door is a tale of apparent chance (Chicago Sun-Times)

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Sexual ethics:

• Episcopal Diocese may quit all marriages | Same-sex debate drives Mass. plan (The Boston Globe)
• Amendment 43 lights fuse in the pews | Gay marriage battle spills over aisles in Colorado churches (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• Groups use faith to back both sides of marriage amendment | People of faith are both targets and activists in the rival campaigns waged around the so-called marriage amendment, and efforts to win over religious voters are likely to intensify before the Nov. 7 election (The Virginian-Pilot, Hampton Roads, Va.)
• Also: Groups target state’s proposed amendment on same-sex marriage | Scores of advocacy groups are mustering their troops for this fall’s referendum on a proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in Virginia (The Virginian-Pilot)
• Pastors differ on ‘one man, one woman’ statement | Not all of Natrona County’s church leaders are willing to sign a “marriage covenant” as it was proposed at a meeting of pastors on Tuesday (Casper Star Tribune, Wy.)
• R.I. lesbians win right to wed in Mass. | A lesbian couple from Rhode Island who won the right to marry in Massachusetts held their ceremony Sunday (Associated Press)
• Spitzer vows to push for gay marriage | Most prominent Democrats have shied away from the stance of Eliot Spitzer, who is running for governor (The New York Times)
• Same-sex rite stalls judge nomination | A judge’s elevation to the federal bench could be derailed because she helped preside over a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple four years ago (Associated Press)
• Activists slam hearings on same-sex unions | Several gay and lesbian activists feel that parliament’s recent public hearings on the Civil Union Bill turned out to be a platform for hate speech, rather than a place to gather public opinion (Pretoria News/Cape Times, South Africa)

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Ex-gay ministries:

• Online students fight anti-gay Christian course | Students nationwide have joined an online protest against a campus based Christian course which encourages gay students to suppress their homosexuality (The Times, London)
• ‘Straight to Jesus’ and the Christian ex-gay movement | Tanya Erzen is the author of the new book, Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement. It’s about New Hope Ministry, a residential program for evangelical Christian men in the San Francisco Bay area who are struggling with homosexuality. It’s part of a larger movement to convert gays to the straight Christian life (Fresh Air, NPR)
• Group says it leads gay men to the straight life | Alan Chambers is the president of Exodus, the largest evangelical group devoted to converting homosexuals to heterosexuals. He himself was a gay teen and young adult before the church helped him overcome his homosexuality (Fresh Air, NPR)
• One Christian man’s journey through sexuality | Shawn O’Donnell is a former ex-gay and a Christian. He was involved with Exodus for many years, before he left the program and to live as gay man. His story was part of the documentary Fish Can’t Fly (Fresh Air, NPR)
• “Ex-gay” lies and God’s love | Like Kyle Rice (“I hate being gay”), this author grew up fundamentalist and gay. As a monitor of “ex-gay” ministries, he knows their lies. As a Christian, he knows God’s acceptance (Timothy Kincaid, The Advocate, gay newspaper)
• Earlier: I hate being gay | This Washington State teen faces a daily battle between the sexual attraction he feels for other men and his religious convictions that tell him being gay is against God’s word (Kyle Rice, The Advocate, gay newspaper)

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Family:

• Cohabitation laws dwell | Today, just seven states still criminalize cohabitation and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is eager to reduce that number to zero (The Washington Times)
• Church backs co-habiting rights | The Church of England has backed proposals to give thousands of co-habiting couples similar legal rights to married people (BBC)
• Also: Church backs legal rights for parents who live in sin | Risking accusations that it was undermining marriage, the Church said that cohabiting couples with children should be granted significant legal protection if they split up (The Telegraph, London)
• Also: Marriage is more than a tax break The creation of marriage is much, much more than a tax break or a source of benefits for the children. It is a glorious image of the love of a Trinitarian God—three in one, as marriage is two in one. If only our spiritual leaders had the courage to celebrate it (Anne Atkins, The Telegraph, London)
• Bucking norm, some relish big families | The families involved cut across economic lines, though a sizable part of the increase is attributed to a baby boom in affluent suburbs, with more upper-middle-class couples deciding that a three- or four-child household can be both affordable and fun (Associated Press)
• Pope urges couples to back family values | Pope Benedict XVI spoke in support of Christian marriage and traditional family values on Sunday, urging couples to resist modern cultural currents inspired only by a search for happiness and pleasure. (Associated Press)

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Politics:

• Exclusive: Book says Bush just using Christians | Tempting Faith author David Kuo worked for Bush from 2001 to 2003 (MSNBC, video)
• Poll: trust in the administration is dropping | 66% of white born-again or evangelical Christians felt that President Bush was truthful and honest with regard to the Iraq war. (Time)
• Black churches always at center of politics | When a group of Columbus ministers complained to the Internal Revenue Service that two central Ohio evangelical megachurches were engaged in unlawful political activity, the pastors of those churches countered with a simple question: What’s the difference between what we’re doing and what black churches across America have done for decades? (The Columbus Dispatch, Oh.)
• ‘Values’ decline as issue in Ohio | Economic woes boost Democrats (The Washington Post)
• For Ohio’s GOP, a slate of foreboding | While Blackwell leads among evangelical Protestants who attend church weekly (52 percent to 26 percent for Democrat Ted Strickland), he lags in every other religious grouping (Akron Beacon Journal, Oh.)
• A balancing act in the upper South | Hopeful Democrats tread warily on social issues (The Washington Post)
• Harris meets with Jewish group about ‘legislating sin’ comment | Whether the meeting solved anything wasn’t immediately clear (Tallahassee Democrat, Fla.)
• Fight crime, not souls | Our attorney general has become a national figure within the Christian conservative community (Steve Rose, The Johnson County Sun, Kan.)
• Different bridges | Mr. Danforth’s goals are well intentioned and achievable on a limited basis, but current political dynamics probably preclude long-term change in the direction he seeks (Claude R. Marx, The Washington Times)
• Liberal paranoia | A magnifying trick that goes beyond Christophobia (Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online)
• The Religious Right’s crusade for ‘decency’ | The Christian right has done its best to keep America obsessed with clean, friendly family values. But what constitutes ‘decency’ — and where does the Foley scandal fit in? (Celina R. De Leon, AlterNet)

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Mitt Romney:

• Romney’s 2008 bid faces issue of faith | Massachusetts’ GOP governor has political promise, but voters may not embrace a Mormon (Los Angeles Times)
• Boston to be part of nationwide forum on discrimination laws | The wife of Governor Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak this weekend at a national event hosted by The Family Research Council in a campaign that opposes including gays and lesbians in nondiscrimination laws (The Boston Globe)
• A bigger tent | Why religious conservatives are ready for a Mormon president (Damon Linker, Slate)
• It’s the agenda, stupid | A Mormon president? Why not? (Gregory Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times)

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Environment:

• Evangelicals discover environmentalism | Bill Moyers’ intriguing one-hour documentary, “Is God Green?,” details the efforts that American evangelical Christians are making to become involved in environmental causes (The New York Times)
• God’s green Earth: Faith-based interest in environment spreads | Rise in evangelical Christian participation is a local and nationwide trend, as witnessed by evangelicals signed up for a seminar (The Orange County Register, Ca.)
• Global warming film aimed at evangelical Christians | “The Great Warming” is substantively similar to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” but it courts Republican evangelical Christians (The Bakersfield Californian)
• Evangelicals cool to scientists as ally | Some, anyway (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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Abortion:

• South Dakota’s stark abortion choice | A proposed ban on the ballot would be the nation’s strictest since the 1973 Supreme Court ruling upholding the practice (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Pastors unite against ban | Group stands apart from other churches (Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D.)
• South Dakota nears vote on abortion ban (Associated Press)
• Abortion opponents energized in key U.S. state | Widely seen as the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, the South Dakota law has shaken abortion rights groups and emboldened their opponents, making this wind-blown farm state ground zero in the U.S. war over abortion (Reuters)
• Antiabortion campaign waves feminist flag | The ballot box fight to preserve a tough South Dakota ban is framed as a women’s rights issue (Los Angeles Times)
• Court rejects Roe v. Wade companion case | The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned aside the case of Sandra Cano, one of the women behind the legalization of abortion, who had sought to reverse the victory she won 33 years ago (Associated Press)
• Giving up too much on choice | Those fighting to undo the abortion ban have, with the best of intentions, also gone too far in conceding the moral terrain of the abortion debate (Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post)

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Church and state:

• Cities opt for economics instead of religion to boost downtown areas | Churches are being turned away by cities and towns that hope to enliven a fading downtown or boost their tax base (USA Today)
• AG’s probe takes no action on town loans | Some of Middletown’s loans, grants found to be unconstitutional (The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.)
• Invoking God’s blessing — but whose God? | Military chaplains are asked to keep secular events religion-neutral to avoid alienating troops of other faiths. Some Christians object (Los Angeles Times)
• Court won’t hear ex-nun’s bias claims | A federal appeals court is standing by its decision to refuse to hear a discrimination case involving a former nun who said she was forced to resign from her job at a Catholic university after helping expose a priest’s alleged misconduct (Associated Press)
• Wis. charitable program faulted for excluding religious groups | Federal judge says state must allow charities that refuse to adopt anti-discrimination hiring policy to participate in program funded by state employees’ paycheck donations (Associated Press)
• Gov. courts black clergy with aid from Prop. 49 | Aides urge ministers to apply for money under Schwarzenegger’s Prop. 49. The approach may lure voters, but some pastors are skeptical. (Los Angeles Times)
• O’Connor defends division of church, state | The system has served the U.S. well, the retired justice tells a W&M audience (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.)
• IRS should keep its nose out of free speech | Threatening to withdraw tax-exempt status to quiet a church or get it to publicly agree with government policy is unlawful and in direct conflict with free speech provisions guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. (Editorial, The Argus, Fremont, Ca.)
• The IRS & church | Investigation of All Saints Episcopal carries whiff of politics (John W. Whitehead, Los Angeles Daily News)
• When religion is worse than internet porn | Welcome to the libraries of California’s Contra Costa County. (Perry L. Glanzer, The American Spectator)

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Requiring immunizations:

• Study links whooping cough to lax laws | 48 states allow exemptions for personal or religious beliefs (Associated Press)
• Foolish vaccine exemptions | States need to work harder at educating parents about the value of vaccination and should get tougher in granting exemptions (Editorial, The New York Times)

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Church and state (non-U.S.):

• A hundred thousand Dalits gather in Maharashtra to burn anti-conversion laws | “World Freedom of Conscience and Freedom of Religion Day” will be held on October 14 in Nagpur. People will be able to forsake India’s caste system by making a written statement (AsiaNews.it, Catholic site)
• Finnish Lutheran church is doing fine financially | The Church’s tax revenues have been growing over the past four years because of higher taxable incomes following pay rises and the good financial results of businesses (Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland)
• Government to formulate policy on religion | The Government is to design a national policy on religion. Ethics state minister Dr. Nsaba Buturo said the policy aims at streamlining government support to religious institutions (The New Vision, Kampala, Uganda)
• Law should treat all religions uniformly | How can a nation that allows the nation’s churches to deny equal opportunity to women assert that gender equity is a fundamental Aussie value? (Leslie Cannold, The Age, Melbourne, Australia)

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Education:

• Parent gains right to dispute school ban of religious music | A federal appeals court has revived a parent’s court challenge of a 2004 decision by a New Jersey school district to ban music with religious overtones from its holiday programs (The New York Times)
• Also: 3rd Circuit lets suit proceed on religious music in school | A lawsuit challenging a restriction on religious music in a New Jersey public school district can continue, a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel decided Oct. 5 (First Amendment Center)
• Religion drama plays out in St. Lucie schools | The same week Principal Bernadette Floyd axed a penguin Christmas play she deemed religious, 200 public high school students from three counties sang about Jesus in an honors choir in Fort Pierce — a dichotomy some say proves the St. Lucie County School District needs a countywide policy on religion in the schools (Palm Beach Post, Fla.)
• Prayer rally to protest ACLU suit | Mt. Juliet official wants religion to be part of school (The Tennessean, Nashville)
• Debt of thanks to church schools | I can’t help thinking that ideas about church schools have been turned on their heads. It is as if all money magically originates with the state, which then kindly hands out largesse for the benefit of religious believers (Christopher Howse, The Telegraph, London)

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Evolution:

• Evolution wins out in Mich. curriculum | The State Board of Education on Tuesday approved public school curriculum guidelines that support the teaching of evolution in science classes — but not intelligent design (Associated Press)
• Intelligent design gets political (Nature, sub. req’d.)

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Higher education:

• Not so godless after all | Professors may be more skeptical of God and religion than Americans on average, but academic views and practices on religion are diverse, believers outnumber atheists and agnostics, and plenty of professors can be found regularly attending religious services (Inside Higher Ed)
• Also: A majority of believers | While less religious than most Americans, professors are more religious than might be commonly assumed, according to a new survey. Only 10 percent of professors surveyed said they did not believe in God (The Chronicle of Higher Education, sub. req’d.)
• Working paper: How Religious Are America’s College and University Professors? (Neil Gross and Solon Simmons)
• University of the Cumberlands drops request for suit’s dismissal | The University of the Cumberlands has dropped its request for dismissal of a lawsuit that challenges an $11 million state appropriation to the private, church-affiliated university for a pharmacy school and pharmacy scholarships (Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.)
• Spirituality follows students to FGCU | Faith-based groups popular on campus (The News-Press, Fort Myers, Fla.)
• Exeter University students vote to ban ‘Christian Union’ name on campus | Group might be forced to change its name to Evangelical Christian Union (Inspire, U.K.)

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Church buildings:

• Church runs afoul of land reform efforts | A herd of elephants and a church were caught up in South Africa’s efforts to right one of the wrongs of the apartheid era by returning land to black communities forced from their homes by the former rulers (Associated Press)
• A hopeful First United Methodist congregation holds services | “We are the church,” says church pastor, congregation (The Commercial Appeal, Memphis)
• Saturday: Blaze guts church, rips Court Square | Downtown Memphis smolders as if hit by a bombing raid (The Commercial Appeal, Memphis)
• Time and gravity take a toll on St. Bartholomew’s Church | The triple-portal facade of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, fronting on Park Avenue, was until 1914 the entrance to an earlier St. Bart’s on Madison Avenue (The New York Times)

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Church life:

• Terry Waite joins Quakers to escape ‘chirpy’ vicars | Terry Waite, one of the world’s best-known Anglicans, has taken to attending the simple prayer meetings of the Quakers because he is fed up with the antics of Church of England services in which vicars act like “television hosts” (The Times, London)
• Carey notes signs of schism, hope | Former Archbishop of Canterbury on the state of the Anglican Communion today, peace in the Middle East and his reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s recent citation of a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who described the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings as “evil and inhuman” (The Press-Register, Mobile, Ala.)
• Anglican Church ‘hung up on sex’ | The Anglican Church is preoccupied with sex and in need of “spiritual therapy” to restore its sense of priorities, the Archbishop of Perth, the Most Reverend Roger Herft, will tell his diocese’s annual synod today (The Australian)
• Church’s challenge: Curb that criticism | A pastor uses purple bracelets to get his congregation to cut back on complaining (The Kansas City Star)
• Just 60 percent of churches ‘functioning’ in New Orleans | So says An ongoing study by Bill Day at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (Baptist Press)

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Catholicism:

• Pope set to ease Latin Mass restrictions | Pope Benedict XVI has decided to loosen restrictions on use of the old Latin Mass, making a major concession to ultraconservatives who split with the Vatican to protest liberalizing reforms, a Vatican official said Wednesday (Associated Press)
• Pope keeps limbo in limbo, for now | The media reports had said the Pope would formally cancel limbo on Friday but a key participant, Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte, said the 30-member commission were still fine-tuning their document (Reuters)
• How can limbo just be abolished? | The Pope may be about to abolish the notion of limbo, the halfway house between heaven and hell, inhabited by unbaptised infants. Is it really that simple? (BBC)
• Everybody limbo | If you feel a commotion beneath your feet today, that’ll be gazillions of unbaptised children moving out of Limbo (Stuart Jeffries. The Guardian, London)
• Pope condemns use of religion for hate | Pope Benedict XVI met Thursday a delegation of the Anti-Defamation League and said that religion should never be used to justify hatred and violence (Associated Press)
• Keeler injured in auto accident | Car crash in Italy kills Pa. priest on vacation with Baltimore cardinal (The Baltimore Sun)
• Collection for abusers angers victim advocates | Money is for priests removed from ministry (Concord Monitor, N.H.)
• Earlier: Priests asked to give $1,000 | A dozen Roman Catholic clergy are reaching out to fellow priests who are sick, retired or were stripped of their ministry for sexually abusing minors, offering support and financial aid to any who need it. (The Manchester Union Leader, N.H.)
• Activists shun married archbishop | It would seem that Roman Catholics challenging the ban on married priests have found a leader (Associated Press)
• Vatican okays resignation of Iowa bishop | The Vatican announced the bishop of Davenport’s retirement Thursday, two days after the Roman Catholic diocese filed for bankruptcy amid dozens of lawsuits alleging priest sex abuse (Associated Press)
• Woman dedicates her virginity to Jesus | Saturday’s rare Catholic ceremony, one her own pastor didn’t know existed, turned the 42-year-old into a “consecrated virgin.” Fewer than 200 women in the United States and 2,000 worldwide have declared their perpetual virginity this way, according to U.S. Association of Consecrated Virgins. (Associated Press)
• If it flies, swims, hops or barks — it’s blessed | Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano celebrates the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (Los Angeles Times)
• Also: Honoring all creatures great and small | Pets blessed on Saint Francis feast day (The Washington Post)
• Guerin’s path to sainthood | There are nuns and there are nuns. And then there’s the Blessed Mother Theodore Guerin. (BBC)
• Pope Benedict, his namesake, a debate | Julia Duin reviews The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World by David Gibson (The Washington Times)
• Ross Douthat v. Damon Linker on American Catholicism (The New Republic)

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Pope and Islam:

• No dilution of Christian identity in dialogue: Pope | Pope Benedict said on Wednesday Christians could not allow their beliefs and identity to be diluted for the sake of dialogue with other religions (Reuters)
• Pope makes additions to text on Islam | Pope Benedict XVI has taken another step to placate anger in the Islamic world over his remarks on holy war, making additions to his original text affirming that a quotation from a 14th century Byzantine emperor was not his personal opinion (Associated Press)
• Also: Vatican ‘clarifies’ Pope speech | The Vatican has released a final version of an address by Pope Benedict XVI in Germany last month, which angered Muslims around the world (BBC)
• Also: Wouldn’t you like to join our sinking ship? | Muslims may see the Pope’s offer for what it is: an invitation to the demise of their faith (Andrew Potter, Macleans, Canada)
• ‘Bravo Papa!’ | The pontiff is neither naive nor a fool (Isi Leibler, The Jerusalem Post)

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Europe’s culture clash:

• Across Europe, worries on Islam spread to center | More people in the political mainstream are arguing that Islam cannot be reconciled with European values (The New York Times)
• Drive for multi-faith Britain deepens rifts, says Church | The Church of England has launched an astonishing attack on the Government’s drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society (The Telegraph, London)
• Scholar sees bleak future for Europe | About 600 people turn out to hear George Wiegel speak on a “civilizational crisis” (Rich Barlow, The Boston Globe)
• Religious expression or veiled threat? | The culture wars in America are between Christians and post-Christians who share very many assumptions. In Europe, they are between Muslims, Christians and post-Christians who have much less in common. (John O’Sullivan, Chicago Sun-Times)

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China:

• Archbishop preaches on China tour | The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has begun his first trip to China with a sermon in Shanghai (BBC)
• Chinese Christian member of unregistered church granted asylum | Xiaodong Li’s case was earlier denied (Religion Clause)

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People:

• Dude, where’s my cross? | Stephen Baldwin preaches to teens that Bono is in league with Satan. Don’t laugh, the born-again actor is a cultural advisor to Bush and one of the most popular new evangelists in the country (Lauren Sandler, Salon.com)
• Rev’d up | Archbishop Desmond Tutu looks back, definitely not in anger (The Washington Post)
• Al Antczak dies at 84 | Former editor of archdiocese newspaper the Tidings (Los Angeles Times)
• NCC leader won’t seek third term | Former lawmaker raised council profile (Religion News Service)
• Alba: Sweatsuits yes, nudity no | Actress tells Elle she left her church after being accused of dressing provocatively (Zap2It.com)
• Mr. T is back — and looking for trouble | It was the chance to do good that lured Mr. T, a devout Christian, into the show and back into the public spotlight (Reuters)
• Please work a miracle Marvin | Faith healer’s hospital dash to save dying cancer dad (Daily Record, Scotland)
• Travelling in search of radical holiness | The new leader of world Methodism is looking East and to Africa to reclaim the Church’s mission (The Times, London)
• Churched up via eBay, he repaid in discussion | Getting churched up burst some of the preconceived images Mehta had of Christian services (The Journal Times, Racine, Wis.)
• Church set up by former medium | James Byrne says his decision to ditch spiritualism and turn to Christianity was finally made for him a year ago following a chilling taped reading for a regular client in Wigan (Chorley Citizen, U.K.)
• Russian judge shows compassion after God enters her life | Belenkaya spoke to the audience through an interpreter, Nikolai Panknatz, who helped her explain that her conversion to Christianity came in 1998 when she was in a serious car accident that should have killed her and her daughter (The Dickson Herald, Tenn.)

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Billy Graham’s grandson holds crusade:

• Billy Graham’s grandson to lead crusade | The Rev. Will Graham, the grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, will lead his first U.S. crusade this week in Gaston, North Carolina (Associated Press)
• A new Graham in the pulpit | Will recognizes legacy of grandfather, father, but adds his own style (The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)
• 5 questions for Will Graham, as he prepares for event in Gastonia | “I see this as kind of a passing of the baton.” (The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)
• Evangelist’s heir to pulpit leads his first U.S. crusade | The Rev. Will Graham, the 31-year-old grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, took the stage in Gastonia, N.C., last night to lead his first U.S. crusade (The Washington Times)
• 4,500 attend 1st crusade of Billy Graham’s grandson | Newest in famed family of evangelists preaches against redefining sin (The Charlotte Observer)

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Other Grahams:

• Evangelist drums up support for Sudan | Part religious zeal, part genuine human outrage, Graham’s message is resonating with growing numbers of evangelicals across the country (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
• Earlier: Graham fundraiser focuses on Sudan | Preacher will speak in Raleigh (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
• Graham brings messages of hope, forgiveness to Beach | It’s Ruth Graham this time (Virginian-Pilot)

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Media:

• Turner quits as anchor | Newsman to focus on evangelism (Detroit Free Press)
• Also: Anchor Frank Turner leaves WXYZ to pursue ministry (The Detroit News)
• Will Ferrell brings comedy to FOX | ‘Church of Steve’ focuses on Jesus’ distant relative (Zap2It.com)
• A slippery slope of censorship at YouTube | The company took a scrub bucket to some questionable political graffiti on its servers, including a video entry from the doyenne of right-wing blogs, Michelle Malkin (The New York Times)
• Losing to veto, O.C. PBS affiliate’s backers vow to fight on | The governor rejects an exception to the highest-bidder rule in a long-running fight with a religious broadcaster trying to buy the station (Los Angeles Times)
• Cover brand | Threading between the gospel of fashion and the Gospel (The New York Times Magazine)
• Reaching out with sermons from the pod | An increasing number of Canadian churches are using podcasts and live Internet broadcasts to connect with ever-busier congregants and stay relevant in a country where just one-third of adults attend weekly religious services (The Globe and Mail, Toronto)
• Faith embraces pop culture, technology | Evangelical Christians have always used innovative outreach to spread their message, and the tech boom has given the movement new platforms to be ‘culturally relevant.’ It’s a wave other faiths might want to catch (Tom Krattenmaker, USA Today)
• The rapture takes Manhattan | New Evangelical video game meticulously re-creates the city so you can destroy it in a battle against the forces of darkness (Michelle Goldberg, New York magazine)

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New York Hell House:

• An evangelical haunted house | The irony in Les Freres Corbusier’s re-creation of a Christian fundamentalist “Hell House” is apparent from the start (Associated Press)
• A ‘Hell’ of an act | Brooklyn theatrical haunt stages a Halloween horror (Howard Kissel, New York Daily News)
• This show gives ’em ‘Hell’ | “‘Hell House’ has had many opponents over the years,” says creator Keenan Roberts. “This is about creating an audience for the message, and we’re just messengers. I never had any question that it would survive. God will have the last word. This is his deal; it’s not my deal.” (Newsday)
• Review: Hell House | For all the shrieks, howls and blood-letting that assault the sensibilities of its captive audiences, this quickie tour of Hell and its earthly antechambers isn’t frightening enough to win converts to the evangelical Christian faith of the minister who devised the official playbook for its presentation. Nor is this “Hell House” funny, in the ironic fashion one might expect from the avant-garde creatives of Les Freres Corbusier (Variety)

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Music:

• Pirating songs of praise | Some Christian music fans believe digital downloading is a way to spread the Word. Other voices tell them: Thou shalt not steal (Los Angeles Times)
• Christian rock band Skillet eyes mainstream fans | “Skillet has paid their dues, and I think the time is now.” (Reuters/Billboard)
• Cows tip their music for God | Although the Harsh Cows enjoy performing for Christians and believers, they would prefer to play for “sinners and Pharisees.” (Yakima Herald-Republic, Wash.)
• Amy Grant bringing it back home with live CD/DVD | Few artists’ names are more synonymous with a specific genre of music than Amy Grant (Reuters)
• Angry Christians force Slayer album out of India | U.S. heavy metal band Slayer’s latest album has been recalled from music stores across India after the country’s small Christian community said the cover depicting Christ with amputated arms and a missing eye was insulting (Reuters)
• The Narnia of Prog | Glass Hammer brings a musical army to the Tivoli (The Pulse, Chattanooga, Tenn.)
• It’s hip to be uncool | Mining emotionally difficult ground, Mindy Smith has risen in alt-country-folk esteem. Now comes a new CD (Los Angeles Times)

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Film:

• Filmmakers say God was their co-producer | ‘Facing the Giants,’ shot on a shoestring and a prayer, does miraculously at box office (The Washington Post)
• Film on pedophile priest revives focus on cardinal | The documentary film has heightened interest in a possible criminal case against Cardinal Roger M. Mahony (The New York Times)
• Believers preach gospel of green | “An Inconvenient Truth” ended up basically preaching to the converted. New documentaries on global warming activism show a different kind of convert (Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times)

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Youth:

• Evangelicals try to get youths back on track | Ron Luce goes to Colorado (The Denver Post)
• U.S. “disciple generation” skateboards for Jesus | Whether they are playing heavy metal music or pulling stunts on skateboards, they are doing it for Jesus, author Lauren Sandler says in a book about a new generation of evangelicals that aims to reshape public policy along Christian lines (Reuters)
• Youth preaching scripture and politics | New breed of ‘hippies’ sweeping across America (Daily News, South Africa)
• What’s wrong with young people today? | They tune into Christian rock stations and kneel in church devoting themselves to Jesus (Lionel Shriver, The Guardian, London)
• Mixed signals on teen evangelicals | Some experts claim that Christian evangelicals, seemingly at the height of their political power on the national scene, are praying they aren’t simultaneously on the precipice of extinction, as church leaders fear an apocalyptic prediction is coming true (Bonnie Erbe, Scripps Howard News Service)

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Missions and ministry:

• Missions prove to be backbone of Gulf Coast relief | Faith drives rebuilding effort (Asheville Citizen-Times, N.C.)
• Philanthropy from the heart of America | The middle of the country has developed a culture of philanthropy that the coasts and the Southwest, for all their wealth, do not yet have (The New York Times)
• Group is a beacon of help for vision-impaired | Lighthouse Central Florida offers rehabilitation, training classes and support groups. Meet 2 men who say the group has changed their lives (The Orlando Sentinel)

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Money, business, and giving:

• Managing by the (Good) Book | Bosses at public, private firms mix business with their faith; it can discomfit some workers (The Wall Street Journal)
• Debt, a 3-way loser | For the past several weeks, I’ve been spending my Wednesday evenings taking a class at my church called “Financial Freedom.” Among other things, the class aims to teach how debt can put you in bondage (Michelle Singletary, The Washington Post)
• Call centres are blamed for a rise in loose living among India’s affluent new elite | Why does it take so long to get through to an Indian call centre? Because everyone is too busy chatting up their colleagues—and more—if the Catholic Church is to be believed. (The Telegraph, London)

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Israel:

• Evangelicals invest $40m. in aliya | A Jerusalem-based Evangelical Christian organization announced Tuesday that it had assisted 100,000 Jewish immigrants to move to Israel over the last decade and a half (The Jerusalem Post)
• 1/3 of US tourists Evangelicals | One in every three American tourists is an Evangelical Christian, Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog said Sunday (The Jerusalem Post)
• Thousands attend J’lem Succot march | The colorful event was attended by five thousand Evangelical Christians from eighty different countries for the Feast of the Tabernacles celebration (The Jerusalem Post)
• Devout Christians march for Zionism in Jerusalem | More than 5,000 evangelical Christians, including believers from as far afield as Congo and New Zealand, marched through Jerusalem on Tuesday to voice their support for Zionism and the state of Israel (Reuters)

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History:

• Newly unveiled necropolis at Vatican soon open to visitors | Visitors to the Vatican will soon be able to descend into an ancient world of the dead, a newly unveiled necropolis that was a burial place for the rich and not-so-affluent during Roman imperial rule (USA Today)
• Also: Unveiled necropolis at Vatican opens | Visitors to the Vatican soon will be able to descend into an ancient world of the dead, a newly unveiled necropolis that was a burial place for the rich and not-so-affluent during Roman imperial rule (Associated Press)
• Antique false teeth go on display | The 18th Century teeth, which belonged to the Archbishop of Narbonne, who died in 1806, were found in his coffin after an archaeologists’ dig in London (BBC)
• Also: The playboy bishop’s priceless false teeth | The two-hundred -year-old false teeth of a wealthy archbishop with a host of mistresses have been discovered on the site of London’s new Channel Tunnel station at St Pancras (The Evening Standard, London)
• Archive to open on ‘Black Bishop’ | Austrian prelate thought to have helped Nazis escape trial (ANSA, Italy)
• Monastery wins World Heritage bid | The twin Anglo-Saxon monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow has been named as the UK’s nomination for World Heritage Site status in 2009 (BBC)
• Historic stone saved for future | One of Scotland’s finest carved grave slabs has been saved for future generations at a medieval abbey (BBC)

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Atheism:

• Atheist kicks up storm about act | If you believe in God, knowing that Union attorney Edwin Kagin opposes something might make you support it (Kevin Eigelbach, The Cincinnati Post)
• Gospel of spaghetti monster | Ludicrous, but no more ludicrous than a white-bearded man sitting in a throne behind pearly gates who creates a paradise called Eden from which he promptly ejects its two sole human occupants because they ate an apple and thus condemned humankind to eternal suffering (Sarah Carey, The Times, London)
• A pair of atheists agree: Time to let go of God | Emily Bobrow reviews The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (New York Observer)
• The need to believe | In his new book, Richard Dawkins argues that God is a delusion. But, asks Rod Liddle, isn’t ‘evangelical atheism’ an article of faith in itself? (The Times, London)

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Other stories of interest:

• Practicing moral hygiene | Study links guilt and the urge for clean hands. (Now, pass the towelettes, please.) (The Washington Post)
• ‘Renewalist’ impact grows | Pentecostals and charismatics, one-quarter of the world’s Christians, will shape politics and culture (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Shortcuts: How to achieve inner peace | We all crave inner peace but the path — cruelly — is never easy. As Homer Simpson so succinctly put it: “This inner peace stuff is a tough on the ol’ coconut.” (CNN)
• The last word on the last breath | Who decides whether to resuscitate a dying patient? The doctor? The family? The law is often unclear (The New York Times)
• Rest: It’s required | Adequate sleep is as crucial to a healthy life as diet and exercise, researchers are finding (Los Angeles Times)
• Not every misfortune can be prevented | Amid all the agonizing and political post-9/11 posturing over whether we are safer than we were five years ago I found myself thinking of the fifth-century monk, Pelagius, and the heresy that bears his name (H.D.S. Greenway, The Boston Globe)
• Getting religion | Naomi Harris Rosenblatt reviews The Faith Club (The Washington Post)
• Temptation, the priest, the youth and his mother | Edmund De Santis has written a clever comic drama with satisfyingly acidic attitude, considerable passion and a killer ending (The New York Times)
• Religion news in brief | Leaders of America’s Orthodox Christian churches meet, and other stories (Associated Press)

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Pope:

• Bonhoeffer and pope—parallels | Both stressed that discipleship was costly and involved suffering (Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI)
• France urged to skip official papal honors | While the death of Pope John Paul II has brought widespread mourning, there has also been pressure on the secular French Republic not to honor him officially (The New York Times)
• John Paul II won in the East, lost in the West | Where were all these people when the pope was alive? (Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal)
• Global respects | The pace of the world seemed to slow for the world to mourn a holy man (Editorial, The Wall Street Journal)
• Prayer for Rome | Many new believers don’t know much of the struggles of Luther, Calvin, and Knox, but they all know of John Paul II and see him as having championed a social agenda that they largely share (Hugh Hewitt, World)
• Pope wrote he considered resigning in 2000 | What’s in John Paul II’s last will and testament (Associated Press)
• Archbishop of Canterbury to set precedent | He’ll be the first serving leader of the Church of England to attend a pontiff’s burial (Associated Press)
• News channels’ challenge: How to fill the airtime | “I keep looking to this experience to find some sanctifying grace out of this,” says Chris Matthews, covering the Pope’s death in Vatican City for MSNBC (The New York Times)
• In Russian Church, still an undercurrent of animosity to the Vatican and the pope | Pope John Paul II pope never managed to heal the millennium-long schism between Catholicism and Orthodoxy (The New York Times)
• Zimbabwe’s Mugabe attends pope’s funeral | The trip was immediately denounced by one of Mugabe’s fiercest human rights critics, Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo (Associated Press)
• In memory of Pope John Paul II | Dr. Dobson discusses the life and legacy of Pope John Paul II with Albert Mohler, Priests for Life’s Frank Pavone, and the Acton Institute’s Robert Sirico (Focus on the Family)
• Castro praises pope for defense of poor | Church officials said it was the first time Castro had been inside the cathedral in decades, with one of the last occasions being his sister’s wedding in 1959 (Associated Press)
• President, First Lady attend church | President Bush attended church at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House on Sunday, where worshippers remembered Pope John Paul II (Associated Press)

Protesting half staff flags:

• Flag order spurs controversy | The president’s order to fly flags at half- staff in honor of Pope John Paul II is rated appropriate by the ACLU, but schools have received complaints from parents (The Denver Post)
• Flag shouldn’t be lowered for pope, group says | An anti-religion group is denouncing Gov. Jim Doyle’s executive order to lower flags to mark the death of Pope John Paul II (The Capital Times, Madison, Wi.)
• Half-staff flags for pope questioned | A Madison secular organization is protesting Gov. Jim Doyle’s order to fly flags at half-staff at public buildings all week to remember Pope John Paul II (Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Wi.)
• Some in France criticize pope observance | Secularists criticized the French government Monday for lowering flags to half-staff out of respect for Pope John Paul II, calling it an attack on the country’s century-old separation of church and state (Associated Press)

Protestant Brittan & the pope:

• Anglicans ponder passing of their identity and power | As the funeral of John Paul II nears, some suggest that the English response to his death has shown that “Protestant England is dead” (The New York Times)
• The strange death of Protestant England | Who would have thought the death of Rome’s supreme pontiff would interfere with the marriage plans of the next Supreme Governor of the Church of England? (Mark Almond, The Guardian, London)
• Protestant identity threatened, says Jensen | The decision to postpone the wedding of the Prince of Wales to make way for the funeral of Pope John Paul II is a “strange turn of events” that chimes the demise of a sole Protestant identity in England, says the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Last time I looked, Britain wasn’t Catholic | Why has this Anglican country gone all Pope-crazy? (Vicki Woods, The Telegraph, London)

Opinion:

• Criticizing John Paul II | Yet another thing the mainstream press doesn’t understand about the Catholic Church (Hugh Hewitt, The Weekly Standard)
• The pope and hypocrisy | We pay him no tribute if we lower our flags to half-staff and send a grand presidential delegation to his funeral, when at the same time we avert our eyes as villagers are slaughtered and mutilated in the genocide unfolding in Darfur (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times)
• How much more can we take? | This is the third pope who’s passed away since I became a lapsed Catholic. Time flies when you no longer live your life holding to the beliefs of a church based on fear and real estate (Barry Crimmins, The Boston Phoenix)
• A papacy of spirit | If John Paul stood for one large thing, it was primacy of the spiritual over the material (E. J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post)
• Passing of a worthy pastor | His firm fidelity to God’s truth strengthened orthodox belief in almost all religions (John O’Sullivan, The Washington Times)
• Be not afraid | What Pope John Paul II taught us (Larry Kudlow, National Review Online)
• Yes, the Pope was gifted. And heroic. But he was no saint | For a Protestant like me, the repeated assumption that John Paul is now in heaven cannot be sustained theologically (Ron Ferguson, The Herald, Glasgow)
• A model of moral strength | The world, and not just the Catholic world, has lost a leader and a servant like few it has ever seen. Pope John Paul II modeled faith, courage and forgiveness — three qualities I will always associate with this pope (Franklin Graham, USA Today)
• Cardinal is first-class pope material | Should Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony have flown first-class to Rome? (Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times)
• How the pope ‘defeated Communism’ | The pope’s role in the end of the communist regime was far less conspiratorial than the rumors, but no less significant — which is why it might be worth remembering what it was, actually, that he did (Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post)
• Above all else, life | Of the many great legacies of Pope John Paul II, the one I prize the most is this: he was instrumental in helping the Catholic Church reach a position of principled opposition to the death penalty – an opposition that brooks no exceptions (Helen Prejean, The New York Times)
• Pope John Paul appraised as pope, not rock star | The panoramic television coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II has represented him as an athlete, an actor, an enemy of totalitarianism, a world traveler, a polyglot, a pacifist, a penitent and an ecumenist. He has also been described, almost compulsively, as a rock star. What has been harder to divine in all these television images is the pope’s identity as a Roman Catholic (Virginia Heffernan, The New York Times)
• Papal power | John Paul II’s other legacy (Christopher Hitchens, Slate)
• Remembering Wojtyla, shepherd of freedom | Karol Wojtyla’s life demonstrated that an unswerving devotion to the truth of Jesus Christ results in a responsible freedom that lifts up all God’s children in peace and justice (Chris Seiple, Institute for Global Engagement)

George Weigel on the pope:

• The heroic papacy | From his ecumenical work to his travels to his saintmaking, John Paul II revitalized the Office of Peter (George Weigel, Beliefnet)
• Mourning and remembrance | The pope believed that “history” is His-story–the story of God’s quest for man (George Weigel, The Wall Street Journal)

Catholicism:

• John Paul II and the Anglicans | There is common ground between the two churches, and for years they have been trying to find ways of showing a more united face (BBC)
• Real men of God | Holy blasts from the past to invigorate the present (Carol Iannone, National Review Online)
• Mourning brings Law into public eye | Service Tuesday offered a glimpse of Law’s pastoral role as the head of one of Rome’s three grand basilicas — and the distance Law has traveled from the harsh spotlight of the priest sex abuse scandal that prompted his resignation as head of the Archdiocese of Boston in December 2002 (The Boston Globe)
• Cremation gaining acceptance among Roman Catholics | Practice was forbidden until 1969 (USA Today)
• Parishioners decide to continue vigil at Sudbury church | Parishioners at a Sudbury church, while pleased that the Boston Archdiocese has decided to reopen their church as a chapel and will allow regular Sunday Mass, will continue their round-the-clock occupation until the long-term future of their parish is made more clear (Associated Press)
• Cardinal’s bad judgment | From Boston, it is difficult to hear Cardinal Bernard Law’s voice and not think about promise unfulfilled, ambition derailed, and accountability deferred (Joan Vennochi, The Boston Globe)
• Catholicism challenged in Brazil | In a region often roiled by economic hardship and violence, many Catholic clergy believe, people are abandoning Catholicism for what they see as more flexible, personable creeds or, worse, a rejection of worship altogether (The Boston Globe)

China & Catholicism:

• China arrests two elderly Roman Catholic priests | A U.S.-based rights group says Chinese authorities arrested two elderly Roman Catholic priests in the days before the death of Pope John Paul (Voice of America)
• Beijing tells Vatican not to ‘interfere’ | China on Tuesday demanded the Vatican stay out of its internal affairs and break off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, reiterating its long-standing conditions for establishing diplomatic relations severed more than 50 years ago (Associated Press)
• China’s divided Catholics unite, if just to mourn | Pope John Paul II’s death is a reminder of the division of 12 million Chinese Catholics from the rest of the church (The New York Times)
• Vatican mulls cutting ties with Taiwan, says bishop | The Vatican is reluctantly ready to cut ties with Taiwan and recognize China if Beijing can guarantee religious freedom, the head of the Hong Kong Roman Catholic diocese said on Tuesday (Reuters)

Religious freedom & persecution:

• Two Christians found dead | Police found the bodies of two Christian workers of a non-government organisation in Palsai area on Thursday (The Daily Times, Pakistan)
• Brazil arrests suspect in nun’s death | With Thursday’s arrest, five men are accused in the death of the nun, Dorothy Stang, who spent the last 23 years of her life trying to protect the rain forest and peasants from loggers and ranchers in the eastern Amazon state of Para (Associated Press)
• Hillary backs religious goal in foreign, domestic policy | Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that protecting the freedom to practice religion throughout the world is one of the most important missions of U.S. foreign and domestic policy (The Washington Times)
• Protest at Pakistan priest murder | About 200 Pakistani Christians have marched in Peshawar to protest over the murder and mutilation of a priest and his driver (BBC)
• Protestant pastor, driver killed in Pakistan (Reuters)
• Guyana probes U.S. missionary killings | Police said Friday that two American missionaries had been found slain at a farm they rented in southwestern Guyana near the border with Brazil (Associated Press)
• Where being a Christian leads to prison and torture | When Kim Tae Jin was being interrogated after his forcible repatriation to North Korea from China, he swallowed a nail in the vain hope of receiving medical treatment, rather than return to his prison cell (The Independent, London)
• Police warn rioting Christians | The police have warned Christians against inciting violence during church services, saying culprits would be prosecuted (The Monitor, Uganda)
• Faith hate bill dropped to save crime legislation | Plans to outlaw all faith hate crimes were finally dropped today when the Government backed down in order to save its flagship crime legislation from defeat (PA, U.K.)
• Preserve free speech | What may be most damaging about National Review’s act of reference-cleansing is that it helps legitimize CAIR’s drive to tar all criticism of Islam as “hate speech” and thus squelch it (Diana West, The Washington Times)

Conversion:

• Conversion ‘attempt’ lands Jharkhand school in trouble | A police complaint has been lodged against a Jharkhand missionary school for allegedly attempting to force two tribal students to convert to Christianity – but the school says the boys themselves wanted to convert (IANS, India)
• Lanka to have ‘conscience vote’ on religious conversions bill | There will be no party whip on this issue, and members of the ruling party (and presumably the opposition also) will vote according to their individual conscience (Hindustan Times)

German churchgoers attacked by swordsman:

• One person killed in German sword attack | A man wielding a sword stormed into a Protestant church in southern Germany on Sunday, killing one person and injuring three, including a man whose hand was hacked off, police said (Associated Press)
• ‘Bloodbath’ at church in Germany | A man wielding a sword has killed a woman and injured at least three other people during a service at a church in southern Germany (BBC)
• Woman killed in church sword attack (The Guardian, London)

War & terrorism:

• Christian youths watch Beirut streets after bombs | A spate of bombings has brought Christian youths onto the streets of east Beirut, checking each night for parked cars from outside the neighborhood and occasionally stopping drivers to ask where they are heading (Reuters)
• Jury selection to start in Rudolph trial | Court officials have summoned about 500 people for preliminary jury selection in the trial of Eric Rudolph, who is accused in the 1998 bombing of an abortion clinic in which a police officer was killed (Associated Press)
• Rwanda marks 11th anniversary of genocide | Rwanda marked the anniversary of the 1994 genocide Thursday with the beginning of a week of mourning for the more than 500,000 people who died in an orgy of killing that remains fresh in the minds of the survivors (Associated Press)
• Trail of fear left behind by moral crusaders | Left Behind may seem preposterous, but when we encounter similarly insane religious delusions in Muslims we don’t laugh (Terry Lane, The Age, Melbourne, Australia)

Warning of Temple Mount attack:

• Israeli security warns of attack on Temple Mount | Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, did not give specific scenarios but confirmed it could include an attempt to put an Israeli flag on one or both of the mosques at the shrine (Associated Press)
• Ezra: Mount rally is very problematic | A scenario in which thousands of Jews plan to flood the Temple Mount is highly problematic and the police will not enable them to reach the site, Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra said on Thursday (The Jerusalem Post)
• High alert amid warnings of Temple Mount attack | Shin Bet raises alert amid signs that extremist Jews are planning to attack mosques. (Haaretz, Tel Aviv)

Religion & politics:

• DeLay says federal judiciary has ‘run amok,’ adding Congress is partly to blame | “Judicial independence does not equal judicial supremacy,” Mr. DeLay said in a videotaped speech delivered to a conservative conference in Washington entitled “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith” (The New York Times)
• The crusaders | Christian evangelicals are plotting to remake America in their own image (Rolling Stone)
• Get the faith outta here! | Religious tyranny is the price for appeasing fundamentalists (Mick Farren, Los Angeles City Beat)
• Christian minority, women vote slants left | Christian blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans and women of all races tend to heavily support Democrats even though their conservative moral stances may be more in line with Republicans a panel of experts said Wednesday during the second day of Claremont McKenna College’s three-day “Religion and the American Presidency’ Conference (San Bernardino Sun, Ca.)
• Same-sex marriage ban leaders eye other causes | Same-sex marriage ban: accomplished. Next up: evolution, abortion and gambling (The Kansas City Star)
• The backlash paradox | Religion is filling a vacuum left by the failure of state politics to explain, moderate or accommodate the forces of change unleashed in the superconnected and superstimulated world of globalization (Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post)
• Kaine has faith in the importance of ‘values’ | The first radio ad of Virginia’s 2005 gubernatorial campaign was about religion (The Washington Post)
• In the name of values, not politics | I was Danforth’s legislative counsel when he was Missouri’s senator. I have tremendous regard for him but, speaking as a Jew, I think Danforth’s lament does unwarrantable damage — not least of which is to needlessly inflame religious divisions that have only recently begun to be overcome (Jeff Ballabon, Forward)
• Ethics panel finds conflict with senator’s job as physician | For years, Republican Tom Coburn juggled his duties as a House member and a family physician back in Oklahoma, where he delivered dozens of babies annually. But since winning a Senate seat last fall, Coburn has clashed with Senate ethics committee members over whether he could continue to do double duty as a lawmaker and an obstetrician (The Washington Post)
• Faithful power up with prayer | Officials reaffirm moral stance during annual prayer breakfast (The Desert Sun, Palm Springs, Ca.)
• Dobson critique | Broadcaster relied on false and misleading statements to bash judges, called for Supreme Court impeachments while hailing himself as “prophetic” (Media Matters)
• In God do these Libs trust | Onward Christian Soldiers is soon to become the battle hymn of the Liberal Party in NSW (Mike Steketee, The Australian)
• Religious progressives resist Christian right | Coalition launching campaign to redefine, broaden moral agenda (The Dallas Morning News)
• Texas Democrats eye religious voters | At a time when Republican politicians have made religion a big part of their formula, Texas Democrats are working to assert their own kind of morality (The Dallas Morning News)
• Crusading once again | A series of setbacks forced Randall Terry out of the public eye, but the ‘family values’ champion has returned (Newsday)
• Fiery priest may seek Haiti’s presidency | Mix of praise and condemnation has only fueled beliefs that the pro-Aristide Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste will seek Haiti’s presidency in fall elections — a move that could re-ignite tensions with the United States (Associated Press)

Jim Wallis:

• God’s Democrat | The church of Jim Wallis (Katherine Mangu-Ward, The Weekly Standard)
• Faith that’s of the people, by the people, for the people | Faith, said Wallis, the editor of Sojourners Magazine, is not just about abortion and gay marriage. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Dems. block FDA nomination over morning after pill:

• Democrats block nomination over morning-after pill | Two Democrats said that they would hold up a vote on President Bush’s nominee until the FDA settled the issue (The New York Times)
• Contraception debate delays nomination of FDA chief | The nomination of Lester M. Crawford to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration was put on indefinite hold yesterday by two Democratic senators to protest the administration’s long delay in deciding whether to allow non-prescription sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B (The Washington Post)

Stem cells:

• Changes are weighed on stem cells | The director of the National Institutes of Health said that loosening President Bush’s restrictions on federal financing for research would benefit science (The New York Times)
• Romney finds middle ground on stem cells | But GOP reaction still a question (The Boston Globe)
• His bait and switch | Qualms about the potential for abuse of embryos, and the women who produce them, are not Romney’s problem. Believability is (Eileen McNamara, The Boston Globe)

Abortion:

• U.S. court panel hears Navy abortion case | Government wants wife to reimburse cost of procedure (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Local lawmakers sign anti-abortion pledge | Two Yamhill County lawmakers have signed a petition circulated by several new pro-life groups pledging to vote against any element of the state budget that includes money for abortions (News Register, McMinnville, Ore.)
• Montana Senate advances measure limiting abortion protesters | Anti-abortion protesters outside health care clinic will have to keep their distance from patients or be accused of a crime, under a bill tentatively approved Monday by the Senate (Associated Press)
• Teen’s abortion prompts lawsuit | A Hamilton County couple is suing Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio and six of its employees, accusing them of performing an abortion on the couple’s 14-year-old daughter without their consent or knowledge, in violation of Ohio law (The Cincinnati Post)
• Abortion clinics may face tough limits | Abortion clinics in Florida could face new state regulations that clinic operators say could force some to shut down (The Miami Herald)
• Abortion-rights advocates rip suggested clinic rules | Bills that state health officials say are needed to make abortion clinics safer are under attack this week by abortion-rights advocates who contend the requirements will drive up the price of an abortion and run some clinics out of business (The Orlando Sentinel)
• Leading abortion clinic backs 20-week limit | One of Britain’s largest abortion clinics wants to cut the upper limit for terminations to 20 weeks because advances in medical science mean that the babies are “potentially viable” (The Telegraph, London)

Col. Gov. vetoes bill to tell rape victims about emergency contraception:

• Owens vetoes pill bill | Freedom of religion is cited; measure’s supporters outraged (The Denver Post)
• Owens’ wrong call | Veto ensures more abortions, suffering (Daily Camera, Boulder, Co.)
• Owens’ veto, Chaput’s voice | Owens’ veto let anti-abortionists carry the day over common sense and the responsible practice of medicine (Jim Spencer, The Denver Post)

Ill. Gov. orders pharmacists to fill birth control prescriptions:

• Pharmacists might defy Blagojevich order to offer ‘morning-after pill’ | Different pharmacies handle the controversy in different ways (The Dispatch, Moline, Ill.)
• Right to choose vs. the power to compel | “Pro-choice” groups think pharmacists have no right to choose (Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune)
• The governor’s prescription | The rule neatly sidesteps some perilous moral straits by placing the responsibility for filling the prescription on the pharmacy, not the pharmacist. That is wise (Editorial, Chicago Tribune)
• Contraceptive Rxs ordered filled | Druggist refusal spurs governor to enter fray (Chicago Tribune)
• Sell contraceptives, Gov orders druggists (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Bishop lectures Blagojevich on pharmacy rule | Bishop Thomas Paprocki appealed to Blagojevich to rescind his order compelling pharmacists to sell contraceptives, even if they believe the drugs kill the unborn (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Governor dispenses with pharmacists’ nonsense | Pharmacists should not be the arbiters of morality for their customers (Editorial, Chicago Sun-Times)
• Illinois drugstores required to fill birth control prescriptions | Responding to complaints about a Chicago pharmacist who refused to dispense birth control pills, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Friday issued an executive order requiring drugstores to fill prescriptions for contraceptives (Los Angeles Times)
• Ill. pharmacies required to fill prescriptions for birth control | Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich (D) issued an emergency rule Friday that requires pharmacies to accept and fill prescriptions for contraceptives without delay, after a growing number of complaints nationwide that some pharmacists are refusing to dispense birth control pills and the “morning-after” pill (The Washington Post)
• Illinois pharmacies ordered to provide birth control (The New York Times)
• Culture war hits local pharmacy | Many druggists across the country refuse to give out morning-after pills. Legislators weigh in (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Related: Colo. governor vetoes rape bill | Requirement of hospitals to tell rape victims about emergency contraception, would have forced church-backed institutions to violate their own ethics guidelines, says Owens (Associated Press)
• Opinion:
• Moralists at the pharmacy | Any pharmacist who cannot dispense medicines lawfully prescribed by a doctor should find another line of work (Editorial, The New York Times)
• When your conscience goes to work | No one should be forced to sacrifice his beliefs to a job (Crispin Sartwell, Los Angeles Times)
• Religious oppression at the drugstore | Here’s an outrage for you. There’s a growing movement among pharmacists and even doctors to refuse to provide legal and necessary health services (Bonnie Erbe, Scripps Howard News Service)
• Conscience behind the counter | Will female air travelers who carry contraceptives on board eventually be required to carry parachutes, just in case a pilot’s conscience finds their presence objectionable? (Jabari Asim, The Washington Post)

Life ethics:

• “Right to die” | The moral basis of the right to die is the right to good quality life (Editorial, British Medical Journal)
• Egg donation and morality | It’s no surprise that the debate about cloning research has turned a degree or two from focusing on the moral status of the egg to the moral status of the egg donor (Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe)
• S.C. bill would give rights to fetus “at fertilization” | A fetus would have rights to due process and equal protection under a bill passed by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday (Associated Press)

‘Culture of life’:

• ‘Culture of life’ is a culture of fear | These same people who claim to be the guardians of life are the first to demand the death penalty for murderers, indiscriminate bombing for Afghanis, Iraqis, and anyone else they don’t like, etc., etc. The hypocrisy is so blatant, it hardly seems worth spelling out the details (Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org)
• Perpetrating a colossal fraud | The so-called “culture of life” would not benefit human life, but cause massive suffering and death (Alex Epstein, South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

‘Right to die’:

• Peers leave options open on right to die | Peers investigating whether terminally ill patients should be given the right to die have put the issue on hold, saying key questions need resolving before there can be further attempts to change the law (The Guardian, London)
• Peers urge debate on right to die | The House of Lords Select Committee was divided over whether the law should be changed but said any future legislation must make a clear distinction between assisted suicide and euthanasia (BBC)

Terri Schiavo:

• The Schiavo case’s intended and unintended consequences | Will the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s appearance in Florida on behalf of the Schindler family broaden the ‘culture of life’ debate? (Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange.com)
• GOP’s moral agenda doubted | The controversy over Terri Schiavo has raised concerns among many Americans about the moral agenda of the Republican Party and the political power of conservative Christians, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds (USA Today)
• Schiavo case evolved into huge news story | How did one brain-damaged woman’s intensely personal tragedy become a worldwide news story? (Associated Press)
• Terri Schiavo cremated amid family feud | Terri Schiavo’s body was cremated Saturday as disagreements continued between her husband and her parents, who were unable to have their own independent expert observe her autopsy (Associated Press)
• Some see link in deaths of pope, Schiavo | Vatican was involved in Florida woman controversy (Associated Press)
• Terri Schiavo’s sister mourns her at Mass | Speaking before hundreds of mourners at a funeral Mass planned by her parents, Terri Schiavo’s sister said the severely brain damaged woman showed the world perseverance and determination (Associated Press)
• Schiavo memorial exhorts hundreds to go forward | “We are with you,” the Schindlers are told at their memorial service for daughter and sister Terri Schiavo (St. Petersburg Times, Fla.)
• For many, Schiavo’s life was an inspiration | A service held Tuesday in St. Petersburg by family and friends of the deceased brain-damaged woman drew crowds — and emotions (The Miami Herald)
• Calif. woman charged in Schiavo threat | The federal charge against Dera Marie Jones stems from a posting on an America Online message board: “If she dies I will kill Michael Schiavo and the judge. This for real!” (Associated Press)
• Prompted by Schiavo case, lawmakers debate end-of-life issues | Senate panel grapples with government role (Chicago Tribune)
• Schiavo-inspired bills lose momentum in Congress | While defending their actions to keep the woman alive, lawmakers show little zeal for broader legislation (St. Petersburg Times, Fla.)

Schiavo memo:

• Freewheeling aides have shamed Martinez before | The Martinez campaign sent out a support mailer calling opponent Bill McCollum “the new darling of the homosexual extremists” because of his support for the 2000 federal hate-crimes bill, which included protection for homosexuals (The Washington Times)
• Martinez staff probes memo origin | The office of Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) is investigating whether an aide who resigned this week distributed a memo about the Terri Schiavo case to other Senate offices, and whether any other aides in the senator’s office had seen it, his staff said yesterday (The Washington Post)
• Counsel to GOP senator wrote memo on Schiavo | Martinez aide who cited upside for party resigns (The Washington Post)
• Earlier: Was the Schiavo memo a fake? | All 55 Republican senators say they have never seen the Terri Schiavo political talking-points memo that Democrats say was circulated among Republicans during the floor debate over whether the federal government should intervene to prolong her life (The Washington Times)
• Schiavo memo is attributed to Senate aide | Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, said Wednesday that a senior member of his staff had written an unsigned memorandum about the partisan political advantages of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo that became a controversial footnote to the debate over the wisdom and motives of Congress’s actions (The New York Times)

Schiavo politics:

• After Schiavo, GOP’s push on end-of-life issues fades | A week after the battle over Terri Schiavo’s life ended in her death, the Republican push in Congress to legislate on end-of-life issues appears to have stalled, at least temporarily (Los Angeles Times)
• Cheney opposes retribution against Schiavo judges | But he did not criticize House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for declaring that they will “answer for their behavior” (The Washington Post)
• Post-Schiavo questions await Congress’s GOP leaders | Priorities debated as recess ends (The Washington Post)
• Frist says courts in Schiavo case acted fairly | U.S. Senate Republican leader Bill Frist said on Tuesday that courts had acted fairly in the Terri Schiavo “right-to-die” case, differing sharply from a vow of retribution by his House of Representatives counterpart, Tom DeLay (Reuters)

Schiavo opinion:

• Dying sends out loud and clear message of life | I didn’t want to compare Pope John Paul II and Terri Schiavo, but I must (John Kass, Chicago Tribune)
• Stories sway personal choice | Only by giving flesh to the abstractions and getting to the heart of the difficult decisions and consequences individuals face can we convince our culture to deal with these life choices with true compassion (Paul Rogat Loeb, USA Today)
• Fight for life whenever possible | This is not a religious question. It is a question of civic morality (Stanley Crouch, New York Daily News)
• Beware of letting the unacceptable become the norm | Terri Schiavo died of forced starvation and dehydration in a nation that keeps telling itself it protects the helpless (John Kass, Chicago Tribune)
• Activism and the disabled | I am an agnostic, but I would like to believe that we have a soul, a divine spark inside us; and it seems to me that there is nothing more degrading to human dignity, nothing more antilife, than to prolong the physical existence of a body from which that spark is gone (Cathy Young, The Boston Globe)
• No release from death | The witches’ brew concocted by relatives who fall out over compensation payments, by the howls of Christian fundamentalists, and the intervention of opportunist politicians, create the worst conditions for a genuine debate (Editorial, The Guardian, London)
• Private values and public policy | In our pluralistic and secular society, all faith groups should have a place in public discourse. But they can no longer assume they are the dominant voice, especially when their values collide with civil rights (Ann Perry, The Toronto Star)
• End of the affair | A pox on all the houses involved in the Schiavo debate (John Leo, US News & World Report)
• Pro-death politics | The country has just witnessed an interlude of religious hysteria, encouraged and exploited by political quackery. (William Greider, The Nation)
• Backward Christian soldiers | Maybe, just maybe, the religious right went too far with the Terri Schiavo case (Katha Pollitt, The Nation)
• When facts collide with beliefs | Once confronted with incontrovertible proof that they were wrong on a claim they stressed so hard, will House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and others rethink their position on Schiavo’s fate? Not a chance (Jay Bookman, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Schiavo case tests America | In all the three years that I have been reporting from this country, I do not believe there has been a more important moment in its history than this (Justin Webb, BBC)
• You too can lose weight and keep it off: The Terri Schiavo success story | There is much to be angry about the indignant, callous manner the right-wing has exploited the plight of this family. They have taken hypocrisy to new levels, and much ink has been spilt on that. But I am disappointed that the progressive community has not seized upon the publicity generated by this tragedy to do more on two very important moral issues (Zeynep Toufe, CommonDreams.org)
• Terri Schiavo and troubling concerns | I remain troubled about these end-of-life decisions (Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive)
• Knowing our minds | For many, the Schiavo case hinged on the right of individuals to control their own fates. But when it comes to extraordinary medical decisions and the ordinary business of living — the ideal of individual autonomy is not so simple (Michael Bérubé and Janet Lyon, The Boston Globe)
• A mystery of body and soul | It isn’t only that Schiavo’s dilemma has confronted us all with questions about how we will make life-and-death decisions for ourselves or our loved ones. It’s that her last days force us to reflect on the very nature of human identity and the value of an individual life (Philip Clayton, The Washington Post)

Church & state:

• Commissioners clear hurdle for prison | Tom Green County commissioners moved one step closer to building a 620-bed faith-based prison Thursday with the creation of the Concho Valley Community Facilities Corp (Associated Press)
• Feds are mum on church probe | An attorney for the pastor of First Baptist Church of Cold Spring is sure the FBI and the IRS are continuing their investigation into the church (The Kentucky Post)
• Church and state: A broken marriage | The really extraordinary thing about the present constitutional establishment of the Church of England is not its absurdity, but that nobody really believes in it any longer (Editorial, The Guardian, London)
• Religion to have role at Parade of Lights | Christmas season event overturns longstanding policy (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
• Religion gains entry to parade | The Downtown Denver Partnership on Monday announced that religious floats – but not anti-religious ones – will be allowed in its 2005 Parade of Lights (The Denver Post)
• Faith-based jail programs show results in reducing recidivism rate | The general goal of such programs is to use a spiritual foundation to teach practical life skills. These programs typically teach anger management, literacy, music, financial management and Bible study (Rod Thomson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Fla.)

Russia, God, & art:

• God, art, and irony | The Russian government has just finished prosecuting what amounts to a blasphemy case (Will Englund, The Baltimore Sun)
• ‘Offensive’ art | The Russian constitution guarantees freedom of expression and religion and forbids censorship — none of which dissuaded prosecutors from demanding that museum administrators be held criminally accountable for its artwork (Editorial, The Washington Post)

Justice Scalia:

• Scalia bashes contemporary notion of acceptable religion | In a cautionary tale to the educated, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia warned the legal profession not to write off “traditional Christians” (Shreveport Times, La.)
• Scalia: Law shouldn’t write off Christians | The legal profession shouldn’t write off traditional Christians as “simple minded,” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told fellow Catholics, and he urged a blend of reason and faith (Associated Press)

Same-sex marriage:

• Ripples spread as states vote on same-sex marriage | Kansas joined 17 other states this week with a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (The Christian Science Monitor)
• Same-sex marriage foes set broader agenda | Conservatives target abortion, evolution, adoptions by gays (Lawrence Journal-World, Kan.)
• Conn. Senate approves civil unions bill | The state Senate has approved a landmark bill that would make Connecticut the first state to recognize civil unions between same-sex couples without being pressured by the courts (Associated Press)
• Kansas voters approve gay marriage ban | Kansans overwhelmingly voted to add a ban on gay marriage and civil unions to their state constitution, but supporters and opponents predicted court battles over the amendment (Associated Press)
• Christian leaders ponder next moves | After successfully promoting the marriage amendment, conservatives consider abortion, gambling and evolution as targets for action (The Wichita Eagle, Kan.)
• New England holds out on gay marriage ban | Vermont’s civil unions and Massachusetts’ legalized gay marriages are seen by ban supporters as the threat that’s helping their cause. Advocates for gay marriage also see those examples as a plus, by proving that fears gay marriage will somehow destroy society’s social fabric are unfounded (Associated Press)
• Gay marriage targeted in bill | House proposal would ban state from recognizing same-sex unions (Houston Chronicle)
• More Americans oppose gay ‘marriage,’ poll finds | Public opposition to “marriages” between homosexuals is at an all-time high, according to a poll released yesterday (The Washington Times)
• Calif. court upholds domestic partner law | A California law granting domestic partners nearly identical legal rights as married couples does not conflict with a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, a state appeals court ruled (Associated Press)
• Connecticut closer to approving civil unions | Democratic majority driving state measure (The Washington Post)
• Court denies challenge to domestic partners law | An appellate panel rules that a new state statute extending rights does not constitute same-sex marriage or violate Proposition 22 (Los Angeles Times)
• Amendment’s passage brings a perilous shift | Sure, we’re religious people. But this seems like a fearful, worry-induced move, especially for a place where faith supposedly reigns (Mark McCormick, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.)
• Gay couples file suit after Michigan denies benefits | State attorney general says passage of constitutional amendment means gay and lesbian state workers should be ineligible for health benefits for their partners in future contracts (The New York Times)

Homosexuality & gay rights:

• Is Philly the birthplace of gay rights? | 1965 demonstration came four years before the Stonewall Riots in New York City (Associated Press)
• Md. approves bills extending rights to gay people | One measure would allow domestic partners to make medical decisions for each other, and the other would add offenses motivated by sexual orientation to the state’s hate crimes law (The Washington Post)
• ACLU files suit over gay t-shirt ban | LaStaysha Myers, 15, said she was sent home twice from Webb City High. She is heterosexual but wore shirts with handwritten phrases including “I support the gay rights!” (Associated Press)
• God’s velvet rope | It’s been all fire and brimstone since a priest at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in St. Clair Shores turned a lesbian couple away from his congregation (Metro Times, Detroit)
• Gay civil rights bill derailed in Washington Senate | Two conservative Democrats helped Senate Republicans derail the latest attempt by the Legislature to pass a gay civil rights bill, sending it to a hostile committee where it is likely to die (Associated Press)
• It’s unchristian to oppose gay rights | It is time that Michael Heath and the Christian Civic League of Maine live up to their organization’s name and stop using their professed Christianity as a weapon of hate (Todd Ricker, Portland Press Herald, Me.)
• ELCA to debate on sexuality | After years of study and a task force report, local Lutherans will begin this weekend what’s expected to be heated public debate about sexuality issues (The Forum, Fargo, N.D.)
• Child access for lesbian ex-lover | A lesbian has won a “breakthrough” legal battle over access to the two children of her former lover, who is the biological mother of the girls (BBC)
• Lesbian ex-lover wins parental rights | A lesbian who was helping to bring up two little girls before she split up with their biological mother has won the right to share parental responsibility for them (The Guardian, London)

AIDS:

• Bono leading campaign to fight AIDS | Brad Pitt is among the A-list celebrities featured in new public service announcements for a campaign led by U2 singer Bono to fight poverty and AIDS (Associated Press)
• AIDS fighters face a resistant form of apathy | Condom distribution isn’t working in New York’s gay bars (The New York Times)
• God and the fight against AIDS | Do evangelical Christian groups have a role to play in fighting the AIDS epidemic? Maybe they do, but at the moment they are engaged in an unseemly battle with secular AIDS organizations over US government contracts that could derail what little progress there has been in combating the epidemic (Helen Epstein, New York Review of Books)

Gene Robinson says Jesus might have been gay, denies it:

• Bishop denies saying Jesus possibly gay | The first openly gay Episcopal bishop said Tuesday he is being falsely accused of suggesting Jesus might have been homosexual (Associated Press)
• Earlier: Jesus might have been homosexual, says the first openly gay bishop (The Telegraph, London)
• N.H. bishop’s gay Jesus ‘comments’ spur uproar | The war of words continued yesterday between the first openly gay Episcopal bishop and a blogger accusing him of implying that Jesus may have been gay (Boston Herald)

Episcopal church:

• Gay bishop presides over final service at N.H. church | Financial troubles, split over leader leave few in parish (Associated Press)
• Episcopalians told to suffer for beliefs | Leaders in the Episcopal Church and its parent body, the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, told nearly 1,600 Episcopalians in Woodbridge, Va., yesterday to prepare to suffer for their beliefs and perhaps even be ejected from their denomination (The Washington Times)
• Welsh archbishop warns Anglicans of credibility problem | The Anglican Church risks losing credibility if it cannot conduct a debate on human sexuality in a “civilised way”, the Archbishop of Wales has warned (PA, U.K.)

Church life:

• Ringing the praises | A German church is selling Christian ring-tones for mobile phones to raise money for the restoration of its organ (Church Times, U.K.)
• A new church? Not in their backyard | New churches in rural and suburban areas are prompting opposition from homeowners in increasing numbers (The New York Times)
• Church plan to expand concerns Eastgate neighbors | A Tacoma church looking to expand into Bellevue’s Eastgate neighborhood has gone back to the drawing board for some architectural tweaking (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Reviving a church in poor condition | What does an Episcopal church in Brooklyn have in common with the Great Wall of China? (The New York Times)
• Making churches man-friendly | Why do 13 million more women than men attend church services every week? (The Washington Post)
• In Mexico, Catholic Church’s influence wanes as evangelism grows | The Roman Catholic Church continues to be so influential in Mexico that it rivals the federal government for impact on people’s lives, yet in many corners of the country, it is fast losing ground to Protestant churches (The Washington Post)
• With groups’ help, the disabled carve out a place at the altar | Activists and churches work to build accessibility and encourage greater participation (The Washington Post)
• ‘Porn Weekend’ hopes to start discussion | The whole point of “Porn Weekend” at Westwinds Church was to get people talking about pornography — and on that level it certainly succeeded (The Jackson Citizen Patriot, Mi.)
• Claim that Jamaica has most churches worldwide a myth? | The popular view that Jamaica has more churches per square mile than any other country has proven difficult to substantiate, as is the actual number of denominations, congregations, church members and affiliates islandwide (The Jamaica Observer)
• Earlier: The island of too many churches | Jamaica’s fractured fellowship is on the mend (Christianity Today, October 4, 1999)
• Irenaios and Qorei hold talks | Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei held talks yesterday with the beleaguered Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, who pledged to cooperate with any probe into charges that the Patriarchate sold land to Jewish investors (AFP)

Missions & ministry:

• Food banks in Appalachia try diet fare | A surplus of diet food for the overweight has been a boon for the hungry in Appalachia. Once hot and trendy, low-carb Atkins diet foods that never got sold are being shipped to food banks (Associated Press)
• Hunger-based lines lengthen at the faith-based soup kitchens | Soup kitchen administrators across the country are currently eying governments’ trilevel budget season and wincing at all the politicians’ economizing vows (Francis X. Clines, The New York Times)
• Pastor believes Bo Bice ‘anointed’ as an entertainer | Bike Fest might not strike you as the most reverent event, but the Rev. Donny Acton may beg to differ (The Birmingham News, Ala.)
• Religion Today: No man is an island, but some congregants live on them | Nurturing those year-round island communities that have survived harsh weather, isolation and economic change has been the focus of Northeast Harbor on the Maine Sea Coast Mission, a nondenominational Christian ministry that turns 100 years old this July (Associated Press)
• Christian ties may bind US troops to South Korea | With the Cold War over, South Korea may again be on the front lines of another war – a new front line in Christendom’s regional struggle – this time on the Korean Peninsula (Asia Times)
• Quake forges friendships that transcend religion | Christians take in Muslims (The Washington Post)
• Religious leaders to gather against violence | Friends recall slaying victim (The Boston Globe)
• DA may open home to sex offenders | He isn’t eager to do it, but no one else is stepping up, he says (Statesman Journal, Salem, Ore.)
• Promise Keepers planning stadium event after years of declining attendance | “We’re at a crossroads,” says co-founder Dave Wardell (Associated Press)
• Christian body decides on change of name | The Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland is the new name and face of the organisation formerly known as ECONI (Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland) (The Belfast Telegraph)

Marriage & family:

• May divorce be with you – but don’t be surprised when it sends you broke | “Til death do us part” are increasingly optimistic words for a bride and groom to utter and, in the event of a divorce, it is the bride who will suffer most financially (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Marriage is greater than the sum of its parts | Maybe it isn’t their wonderful qualities that make us cling to those we’ve chosen to marry; perhaps it’s the marriage that makes us see those wonderful qualities (William Raspberry, The Washington Post)

Religion vs. secularism:

• Future of the past | Orthodox faiths are not accustomed to interreligious cooperation — there is no God but their own, after all — but in the threat of secularism, they find themselves with a common enemy and a range of common hatreds (Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post)
• Royal wedding bells toll death of Protestantism: Anglican Archbishop of Sydney | Sydney Anglicans have been the worst offenders in distancing themselves from other Protestants and that needs to change if ‘our common enemy’—secular humanism—is to be defeated, says the Archbishop of Sydney Dr Peter Jensen (Anglican Media Sydney)
• A wave of hot air | After the deluge, the God talk (Cathy Young, Reason)

Science:

• Stealing science | Aliens of the Deep, the Imax Attack, and the Aliens of the Christian Right (Revolutionary Worker)
• The real conflict between religion and science | Science needs moral guidance that religious values can help shape (The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)
• Evolution debate has new player | Group treads delicate territory, promotes ‘intelligent design’ (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Quality control | The case against peer review (Daniel Engber, Slate.com)

The environment:

• Earthy evangelist | Richard Cizik, the leader of the country’s largest evangelical group, wants to get his fellow believers and the president interested in going green — but don’t call him an environmentalist (The New York Times Magazine)
• Coastline protection effort hitting the pews | Churches team up in Ezekiel 34 plan (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
• Soon, crossing Jordan will be a dry run | Environmentalists say the River Jordan is dying, and will soon cease to flow (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)

Education:

• Christian student group sues SIUC | A Christian student group ordered to cut its ties with Southern Illinois University Carbondale is suing university leaders (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Law would put ‘In God We Trust’ in schools | The national statement of faith, “In God We Trust,” has been appearing on coins since 1864, and has been the country’s motto since 1956. But should it be appearing in each of Pennsylvania’s tens of thousands of public classrooms? (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
• Pregame prayer prompts court filing | Parent wants board held in contempt (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
• Also: Contempt motion filed over prayers (The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.)
• Christian group’s suit against Hastings moves ahead | Federal judge appears ready to toss most of case (San Francisco Examiner)
• School district, family resolve lawsuit over Bible club invitations | Colorado school officials agree to allow fifth-grader to hand out materials promoting religious club and to pay $1 in damages, $10,500 in attorneys’ fees (Associated Press)
• Christian law students sue Ill. university | A law school student group that requires members to pledge to adhere to Christian beliefs — including a prohibition against homosexuality — has sued Southern Illinois University for refusing to recognize the organization (Associated Press)
• Intelligent Design, unintelligent me | For me and many other students, biology as it is usually taught, one complicated fact or term after another, is deadly dull. Introducing a little debate would excite teenagers, just as the attacks on conventional wisdom launched by my favorite high school history teacher, Al Ladendorff, always got me walking fast to that class so I wouldn’t miss anything (Jay Mathews, The Washington Post)
• The dinosaurs fear of evolution | Now we have learned that evolution in text books is not to be feared as much as evolution in the movie industry (Christopher Brauchli, CommonDreams.org)
• Plano school district to alter religious message rule | Students could swap religious messages in suit settlement offer (The Dallas Morning News)
• Davidson’s rule change rooted in faith | Trustees endorse importance of respecting other believers (Robert C. Spach, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.)

King’s College:

• Church and state | King’s College isn’t your typical New York City institution. It’s a Christian evangelical college far from the Bible belt. But its campus — office space in the Empire State Building — is about as New York as you can get. And the college is in a fight over its accreditation that is so intense it has made the tabloids (Inside Higher Ed)
• Long live King’s | Blue-state bias against a red-state kind of school (Stanley Kurtz, National Review Online)

Baylor women win NCAA tourney:

• Lady Bears’ win sparks joy across Baylor, Waco | Baylor officials have been elated at the positive publicity the university has garnered after a couple of years of all-too-public turmoil, including men’s basketball scandals and Sloan’s own embattled tenure (Waco Tribune-Herald, Tex.)
• Earlier: Baylor prez search committee unites some | But while many share hopeful words like “balanced” and “moderate” to describe the presidential search committee, hints remain of the months of disputes that appeared to calm after Sloan announced last month he would step aside (Waco Tribune-Herald, Tex.)
• Chance at greatness, or failure, at BU | Every BU president has encountered crisis. They always will. The new one will find even a worse polarization (Thomas E. Turner Jr., Waco Tribune-Herald, Tex.)

Sports:

• Sportsview: Comment changed Masters winner | Bernhard Langer went from “Jesus Christ” to Jesus Christ (Associated Press)
• Powell’s halftime prayer works | Licensed minister scores 18 of his 20 points after break (Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.)
• Ball prayers | For as long as sluggers have been hitting homers, it seems baseball and Christianity — from the Little Leagues on up to the majors — have been a pairing as traditional as a bat and ball (The Daily Camera, Boulder, Co.)

Money & business:

• Frond supplier fights to keep company alive | Zoning issue may spell end for frond supplier (Florida Today, Melbourne)
• For advocates of workplace religious liberty, hope springs eternal | In a nation founded on freedom of conscience, should people be forced to choose between career and Creator? (Charles C. Haynes, First Amendment Center)
• Salt Lake City makeover stirs some controversy | The mayor of Salt Lake City is complaining about the Mormon Church’s plan to reshape two shopping malls, because he thinks it will limit pedestrian traffic (The New York Times)
• A little bit of corporate soul | The sense of loss that has marked Pope John Paul II’s death reflects a heightened focus on religion — a trend evident in U.S. workplaces (Business Week)

Taxes:

• Pastor’s IRS woes prompt new sermon | With April 15 looming, the Rev. Larry Miles of Richmond is advising colleagues that failure to file federal income tax returns could land you in jail (The Washington Post, second item)
• Tax abuse rampant in nonprofits, IRS says | Charities and other nonprofits exempted from taxes because they serve a public purpose have become a hotbed of tax evasion and abuse, according to the head of the Internal Revenue Service (The Washington Post)
• Ex-aide says faith-based giving ignored | In testimony prepared for a hearing on charities, David Kuo, former deputy director at the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, says “widespread congressional apathy and a desire for political gamesmanship” doomed the president’s tax incentives for charitable giving (Associated Press)

Pastoral misconduct:

• Pastor, 2 other men accused of real estate fraud | A Baptist church pastor and two other men face federal charges of running an alleged real estate fraud ring that duped lenders and homebuyers out of $1.5 million (Associated Press)
• Pastor denies role in real estate fraud scheme | A Baptist pastor pleaded innocent Thursday in federal court to swindling $1.5 million from lenders and home buyers in a real estate scam (Associated Press)
• Misconduct has shamed pastor again | Mike Fehlauer resigned his position as senior pastor of this city’s largest church in the face of pressure from church leaders and the threat of a lawsuit from a woman who accused him of sexual misconduct (San Antonio Express-News, Tex.)
• Tree of Life senior pastor resigns | The senior pastor of Tree of Life Church has resigned his position amid allegations of inappropriate behavior with a woman (The Herald-Zeitung, New Braunfels, Tex.)

Abuse:

• Lawyers detail molestation of 4 by priest in San Jose | Archdiocese of San Francisco admits abuse but urges “reasonable compensation” (Los Angeles Times)
• Pastor held for molesting one of flock | A 61-year-old minister of a Protestant church in Yawata, Kyoto Prefecture, was arrested Wednesday for allegedly sexually molesting a 12-year-old girl in his congregation, police said (The Japan Times)
• Bishop says he was unaware of molest allegations against priest | John Cummins, bishop emeritus of Oakland, told jurors he did not review the personnel file of Father Robert Ponciroli before assigning him to head a church in Antioch in 1979 (Los Angeles Times)
• Defrocked priest arraigned on new sex abuse charges | Moments after former priest Robert Burns was arraigned yesterday on charges of raping or sexually abusing five boys from two Boston parishes beginning in the 1980s, a red-haired man strode over and taunted him (The Boston Globe)

Books:

• ‘Gilead’ captures Pulitzer Prize for fiction | The novel Gilead and the Broadway drama Doubt, a parable, which both deal with religious beliefs and doubts, won Pulitzer Prizes on Monday (USA Today)
• The crusades as history, not metaphor | The real story of the Crusades is often misrepresented for polemical reasons. But three new books try to set the record straight, or at least make the results of recent scholarship more accessible (The New York Times Book Review)
• Do you approve of gender-neutral translations of the Bible? | Readers respond (The Washington Post)
• Sold on working for joy and profit | Book outlines Bakke’s principles (The Washington Post)
• Saints and winners | Two new books attack the Republican monopoly on God. But are there more than two sides to the issue? (Tim Appelo, Seattle Weekly)

Theater & film:

• Arab actors hope crusade film improves Muslim image | Arabs starring in a new Hollywood blockbuster set during the Crusades say it will enhance Western understanding of the Muslim world rather than reinforce old stereotypes, as some had feared (Reuters)
• A benefit of ‘Doubt’ | Cherry Jones may be agnostic, but she fills the stage with her spirit (The Washington Post)
• Michael Apted has “Grace” | Walden Media has tapped acclaimed director and DGA President Michael Apted to helm the political thriller “Amazing Grace,” based on the life of British anti-slavery crusader William Wilberforce, reports Variety (Dark Horizons)

Television & radio:

• ‘Revelations’ looks ahead to world’s end | If the end of the world really is near, you might consider spending your limited time on something better than this creepy, gloomy show. (Associated Press)
• Networks working religion into television | Traditionally soft-focused spirituality, exemplified by “Touched by an Angel” and “Joan of Arcadia,” is giving way to programs rooted in specific religions and their elements (Associated Press)
• Right-wing radio | Religious broadcasters are squeezing community radio right off the FM dial (Sarah Posner, AlterNet)
• Evangelicals adopt animated calling | Evangelical animators are rushing to release new, technically sophisticated cartoon versions of Jesus’ life and death, aimed at children (The Orlando Sentinel)

Music:

• Offering a new rock of ages, born-again musicians keep the faith | Hitting bottom prior to a religious conversion is a common enough scenario, but the transformation is especially dramatic through a rock ‘n’ roll lens (The Boston Globe)
• Pillar of faith | Band ‘tones down’ Christianity to reach more fans (The Birmingham News, Ala.)
• Music and his mission are one | U2’s Bono, a longtime activist, eloquently combines his passions on a tour that targets suffering in Africa (Los Angeles Times)
• Maynard and Jesus split: The conclusion | Just a joke, after all (MTV.com)
• Earlier: Tool’s Maynard James Keenan says he’s found Jesus | Status of Tool, A Perfect Circle unclear (MTV.com)
• Event takes pop approach to teaching teen values | Conference created by Christian rock band mixes makeovers and straight talk to influence young women (The Indianapolis Star)
• ‘Jars of Clay’ revives old hymns | Released last week, “Redemption Songs” is a collection of 13 hymns and spirituals the Christian group set to modern music (Associated Press)
• Lawsuit: Sony BMG blacklisted agent | Record executives at Sony BMG Music Entertainment allegedly tricked some of gospel music’s biggest stars into firing their agent in an effort to keep company costs down and retain control over one of the industry’s fastest growing markets, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court Friday (Associated Press)

Charles, Camilla wedding:

• Royal couple to acknowledge ‘sin’ | Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles will acknowledge “sins and wickedness” at their wedding blessing (BBC)
• Charles to repent ‘manifold sins’ | Royals have roles in updated Botticelli (The Guardian, London)
• Prince will repent in language of the past | The prayer of penitence chosen for the Service of Prayer and Dedication for the Prince and Princess of Wales, as in law they will be by then, is taken from the Communion service of the Book of Common Prayer, 1662 (The Telegraph, London)

People:

• Bonhoeffer: a martyr for our collective soul | Bonhoeffer protested against attempts to evade the reality of the state of western culture in his day, and to treat God as a supplement to reality or an escape from it (Richard Chartres, The Guardian, London)
• Evangelist showed Navigators the way | Lorne Charles Sanny led the ministry’s dramatic international growth but also used his counseling skills to comfort staffers (The Denver Post)
• Meeting ‘Kenya’s Terri Schiavo’ | Wanjiru Kihoro has been bed-ridden and barely conscious in a Nairobi hospital for more than two years (BBC)
• Evangelist sues critic over charge | Hank Hanegraaff of O.C. says a report that he was being investigated on suspicion of fraud is false. Bill Alnor says the suit seeks to silence him (Los Angeles Times)

She’s Fonda Jesus:

• Jane Fonda revisits past in new memoir | She’s a “feminist Christian” now (Associated Press)
• And now for her third act: Jane Fonda looks over the first two | She has been, for the better part of the last decade, a committed if continually questioning Christian (The New York Times)
• The ultimate workout | Jane Fonda Has exorcised her demons in her new autobiography (The Washington Post)

Jerry Falwell:

• Son: Falwell does not have heart failure | Doctors have concluded the Rev. Jerry Falwell does not suffer from congestive heart failure or coronary artery disease, Falwell’s son said Sunday (Associated Press)
• Falwell leaves hospital after nine days | The Rev. Jerry Falwell was released from the hospital Wednesday after a nine-day stay for respiratory problems that his son said still have doctors stumped (Associated Press)

Other religions:

• Church head opens 175th Mormon conference | The president of the Mormon Church opened the church’s 175th conference Saturday, calling on members to “stand a little taller, lift our eyes and stretch our minds to a greater millennial mission” (Associated Press)
• Jews, Mormons to meet over baptisms | Jewish leaders claim Mormons continue to posthumously baptize Jews and Holocaust victims, and will confront church leaders with a decade of frustration over what they call broken promises (Associated Press)

More articles of interest:

• Wrong way on religion | Religious people may say they want more coverage, but do they really? Have they forgotten what news is? Do they want stories about disgruntled parishioners and intrigue within the archdiocese, or reviews of the new pastor’s lame homilies? (Edward Wasserman, The Miami Herald)
• Christianitees: Designing women subtly minister through clothing messages | There’s nothing in the Bible that says you can’t spread the good word and look cute at the same time (The Modesto Bee, Ca.)
• Expert questions artifacts’ credentials | Educator discusses how forgers feed on faith (Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.)
• Teens: Intercourse riskier than oral sex | About one in five ninth-graders report having had oral sex and almost one-third say they intend to try it during the next six months, a small study of teens at two California schools reports (Associated Press)
• Public health vs. personal | Many of today’s health-care problems can be traced to a blurring of the important distinction between public health and personal health (Robert F. Sanchez, UPI)
• Charities going beyond required controls to regain their donors’ confidence | While corporations have been fighting to regain investor confidence in the wake of accounting scandals, charities and other nonprofits are moving to convince donors that their money will be well spent (The Washington Post)
• God has a purpose for all of us | We may feel like we are on the run from our problems with no purpose, as Brian Nichols was, but we don’t have to keep running because God has a purpose for our life. The secret is to slow down and take the attention off ourselves and focus on God and other people (Cathy Genthner, Portland Press Herald, Me.)

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