Christian Post: "A Christian youth group in Northern California can now meet freely on school grounds, thanks to a lawsuit filed against the Chico Unified School District in April. Last month, the school district repealed a procedure that had forced the Good News Club—a branch of the national Child Evangelism Fel-lowship—to pay for using school facilities. The District charges higher facilities usage fees to religious groups than to secular groups. When CEF requested to use rooms after school hours for youth gatherings, the District advised the elementary school to charge fees that other youth groups—such as the boys and girl’s scouts—are exempted from. Although the CEF briefly paid the fees, the higher costs eventually forced the Good News Club to stop meeting."

Breakpoint: "The contrast between the [Baptist and Islamic] schools left [author Irshad] Manji convinced that the problem with Islam is not that the religion has been 'hijacked' by extremists, as many said following Sept-ember 11. Rather, it’s that the extremists, the Koranic literalists, comprise what she calls 'the intellectually atrophied and morally impaired mainstream' of Islam. Which brings me back to Saudi Arabia. In her book, Manji asks a question that infuriates mainstream Mus-lim groups: 'Who is the real colonizer of Muslims— America or Arabia?' According to Manji, many of main-stream Islam’s worst features, like its treatment of wo-men and its 'deep-seated anti-Semitism,' are the pro-duct of 'Arab Imperialism. Within the Islamic world, be-ing a 'real' or 'good' Muslim means being more Arab.'”

AP via ABC News: "The state's $51 billion budget...in-cludes funding for 14,000 children. The state will pay $4,250 for students in kindergarten through eighth grade and $5,000 for high schoolers. Husted's staff was unable to provide a total figure for the funding. Support-ers of school choice have worked to set up and expand programs since 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Cleveland's program which includes religious schools did not violate the separation of church and state. Voucher measures in seven states failed this year.... In Ohio, however, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House and Senate expanded [Gov.] Taft's or-iginal proposal that would have provided vouchers to 2,600 students....Only Florida and Wisconsin offer voucher programs similar to Ohio's."

Jay Tolson in USNews: Austrian Cardinal Christoph "Schönborn concludes that 'scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as a result of 'chance and necessity' are not scientific at all, but as John Paul II put it, an abdication of human intelligence.' That may be too harsh a view of the work of scientists who do not share Schönborn's faith and convictions. But it is true that positing the nonexistence of order and design to the universe is no less a matter of faith–a very different faith–than positing such an order and design to the universe. Science, whether it will ever confirm either faith, proceeds by established methods to explain, among other things, the causes of phenomena. And as long as scientists do not ignore the method or fudge the findings, they will continue to do the science that may, or may not, confirm their ultimate beliefs."

Richard A. Oppel Jr.: "One major turning point... came when a person embittered by [Al Queda]...murders of family members disclosed the identities of several dozen insurgents....After that, and the bust-up of a cell of Syr-ian fighters, the villagers became convinced the Ameri-cans were gaining the upper hand.... Villagers, fed up with constant raids, began providing information. 'They began to divorce themselves from [insurgents]'....An-other crucial event came...when a man showed up say-ing he was the town police chief and could organize dozens of officers. The Americans were skeptical, but that afternoon they went to the police station...and were shocked to find themselves heavily outnumbered by policemen, some of them in uniform. 'I thought I had walked into an ambush,' Captain Burke recalled."

SiliconValley.com: "Both sides of [the stem cell] quar-rel have something vital to defend, for not only themselves but all of us. No decent society can afford to be callous to human suffering or indifferent to the need to seek cures. No decent society can afford to treat human life, at whatever stage of development, as a mere natural re-source to be mined for the benefit of others. Neither side is going to go away, nor should it....Yet it would be a pity if our only options were either a political victory for one side that would seriously alienate the losers, or a contin-uing political stalemate. Fortunately, there is a third way. A growing number of reports...suggest that science may find a way around the impasse: a method of producing the same kind of cells, but without destroying embryos."  

Gene Edward Veith in World: "After interviewing over 3,000 teenagers, the social scientists summed up their beliefs: (1) 'A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.' (2) 'God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.' (3) 'The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good....' (4) 'God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when needed to resolve a problem.' (5) 'Good people go to heaven when they die.' Even these secular researchers recognized that this creed is a far cry from Christianity, with no place for sin, judgment, salvation, or Christ. Instead, most teenagers believe in a combination of works righteousness...psychological well-being, and a non-interfering god....'Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.'”

USAToday: "In a letter sent two years before becoming pope, Benedict XVI expressed concern that the Harry Potter books 'erode Christianity in the soul' of young people, a German writer says. The comments came in an exchange of letters between then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Gabriele Kuby, a Bavarian-based Roman Catholic sociologist who penned a book criticizing J.K. Rowling's blockbusters. In a letter dated March 7, 2003, the text of which could be seen Thursday on Kuby's Web site, Ratzinger thanked her for sending him a copy of 'your informative book. It is good that you are throwing light on Harry Potter, because these are subtle seductions that work imperceptibly, and because of that deeply, and erode Christianity in the soul before it can even grow properly,' the letter added."

RNS via Lakeland Ledger: "when UCC delegates in Atlanta voted on Independence Day to become the first mainline Protestant church to support civil marriage for gay couples, some might have wondered...Are other mainline churches likely to follow the UCC's indepen-dent example? The answer, for a number of reasons, is probably not. Demographics: For one, the UCC rank-and-file tend to be more liberal than U.S. Christianity in general. The 'marriage equality' resolution at the UCC's General Synod meeting passed overwhelmingly, while most other churches are sharply divided, if not more conservative, on gay issues.... Decentralization: The beauty—and frustration—of the UCC is that any state-ment made by the national church is simply advisory."  

Christianity Today: "Normally, the G8 summit elicits about as much evangelical interest as moss growing on trees. But this year evangelicals are joining the ranks of activists at the annual gathering.... Their shared goal is to change government policies to save lives in Africa. A broad coalition of religious and political leaders has en-dorsed: - Doubling financial aid to the world's poorest countries. - Debt cancellation for the poorest nations. - Reform of trade laws so poor nations are not shut out of global markets. Activists hope these steps will result in new growth in African economies and that in turn will translate into fewer deaths from malaria, HIV/AIDS, and starvation. ONE, the campaign 'to make poverty history' ...includes leading evangelical groups like World Vision, Bread for the World, and World Concern."

David Yount via Scripps Howard: "The problem (if it is a problem) is confined to the Protestant denomina-tions that have been part of American history and cul-ture since colonial times - Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians notable among them. Social commentators whom I respect suggest that their steady decline in membership signals the demise of denominational Christianity. I disagree. There are ex-planations for the shrinkage....The sharp growth in churchgoing following World War II may simply have been a blip in religious enthusiasm, with current num-bers being more sustainable....The mainline denomin-ations' attempts to accommodate the social upheaval of the 1960s undoubtedly cost them some members..."

USAToday: "The potential for permanent fan alienation has made religion, like politics, long a taboo topic for most celebrities to publicly schmooze about. Yet with early success—War of the Worlds has taken in $113.3 million in North America since its debut Wednesday—it looks as if...moviegoers are shrugging off his rants on religion, psychiatry, and postpartum depression as well as his couch-hopping for his new fiancée, Katie Holmes. Given Hollywood's 19-week box-office losing streak, observers note that as long as stars' films are hits, they might now feel emboldened to speak out about anything that smacks of controversy.... 'What counts is box-office success. The religion of Hollywood is money,' says Mar-tin Kaplan, associate dean at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication."

Reuters via ABC News: "The Vatican on Thursday said too many Roman Catholics were not taking their religion seriously and that those faithful who receive communion and still support abortion rights were be-having scandalously. In an 88-page working document for a synod of bishops to be held in October, the Vati-can also decried dwindling attendance at Sunday Mass and reaffirmed a rule that Catholics who divorce and re-marry outside the Church cannot take communion.... 'Some receive communion while denying the teachings of the Church or publicly supporting immoral choices in life, such as abortion, without thinking that they are committing an act of grave personal dishonesty and causing scandal,' it said."

AP via MSNBC: "A media watchdog group on Friday denounced the maker of the hugely popular video game 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' over graphic sexual content that allegedly exists in the game and can be unlocked with an Internet download. The game's plot is already objectionable to many people: Its main charac-ter carjacks for fun and profit and picks up women along the way. But some say its content becomes sexually explicit if players download and install a modification to the game—one of many so-called 'mods' available on Web sites maintained by video game enthusiasts....The mod's author...told The Associated Press on Friday that his code merely unlocks content already included in the code of each off-the-shelf game. 'If Rockstar Games denies that, then they're lying'" he wrote via email.

A Christmas gift from Xnmp—The "gift" is a tip. Add the Google toolbar to your computer's Internet Explorer browser. It zaps popup ads on news websites, which is great, but even better, its search option to "search this site" is awesome. It's virtually an index of any site, including this one. Try it—go to the web address below, click "download," and it automatically installs itself if your computer is WIndows XP. And Merry Christmas!
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