The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland announced it will champion a state referendum adding sexual orientation as protected category under Maine's Human Rights Act. The report, from gay and lesbian Web site PlanetOut, notes that it's the strongest support an official Catholic body has ever given to supporting gay rights.
The pastor of the Port Sulphur, Louisiania, Greater Macedonia Baptist Church has cleaned the windows and even got the street lights turned off. But the cross remains. And now there's another. Meanwhile, accounts of healings are circulating.
A strangled nun found on a roadside has led to canceled schools and "jittery" Christians as fears escalate of repeating the 1975-90 civil war between Christians and Muslims, reports the Associated Press.
Reuters could have concluded that this indicates a wider diversity among conservative Christians than the media has reported over the years. Instead reporter Alan Elsner deduces, "much of their fervor and clout seems to have dissipated."
Though the Islamic law is not supposed to be instituted in the state of Zamfara until later this month, The Australian reports shari'a "is already affecting everyone regardless of religious conviction. Women have been banned from playing football, separate buses for men and women have been introduced and motorcycle taxi firms face prosecution for carrying female passengers." (See also a
related story in Tuesday's Times of London.)
Because Cliff Richard's hit song (a cross of "Auld Lang Syne" and the Lord's Prayer) was banned at radio stations across the UK, a British multimillionaire is trying to start up a large Christian station. It would be only the second big Christian station in the country. The multimillionaire owns 17 copies of "Millennium Prayer," reports Financial Times.
The number of children in Sunday School has halved over the last two decades, reports the BBC. "Many people who are now parents had a very bad experience and remember them as being boring and terrible and they don't want it for their children," says the Church of England's National Children's Office.
"This is Christmas for many people in Japan: a holiday laden with Western imagery but with almost none of the content," reports the Christian Science Monitor. "Some Japanese are stunned that Christmas has anything at all to do with Jesus Christ." Yes, Christmas was two-and-a-half weeks ago, but didn't you once say you wished you could keep the spirit of Christmas with you all year?
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
We’ve got little information on Jesus’ appearance and personality. But that’s the way God designed it.españolFrançais
We must always be people of the Word, but we’ll have to reimagine deep engagement with Scripture.
