New York Daily News: "Magnificat!, a nationally touring Christian ballet company, has a thriving teenage training program with 400 students. Christian pop music is 7% of the pop-music market, and Christian video games are in the works. ...[A]spiring Christian catwalkers can at-tend monthly meetings of Models for Christ, a New York -based organization created to protect fashion industry Christians from the wages of sin city. And fashionistas —religious or not—can sport the newly introduced Wait Wear undies, with slogans like 'I'm Saving It,' 'No Over Nite Parking,' 'Virginity Lane: Exit When Mar-ried'....And next month you will be able to head to a swimsuit fash-ion show at Macy's Herald Square sponsored by year-old Justine magazine, a girls' bimonthly that encourages 12-to-14-year-olds to walk the straight-and-narrow...."

AP via NC Times: “A woman barred from reading the Bible in her son's kindergarten class is suing a subur-ban Philadelphia district, claiming it is infringing on her right to express her religious beliefs—and discriminating against Christians. 'What Wesley has learned in all of this is that the Bible is bad in school, and they don't like it,' Donna Busch said of her 6-year-old son. With the help of the Rutherford Institute, a Christian-oriented civil liberties group based in Charlottesville, Va., Busch, who attends a Baptist church, filed a federal lawsuit May 3 against the Marple Newtown School District. Wesley's teacher had invited Busch to her classroom at Culbert-son Elementary School on Oct. 18 as part of 'Me Week,' in which the class would learn more about a featured student, according to the complaint.”

AP via theeagle.com: "Harold Camping says his Bible studies have revealed that what he calls 'the church age' has ended. He has told his worldwide radio audience that Satan has taken over all churches. For the past two years, Camping has been teaching that God wants people to worship privately in their homes instead—with no leaders, no baptism and no commun-ion. 'The Bible says God is not saving people any long-er in the churches,' Camping said.... 'They’re being sav-ed outside the churches.' Critics call the idea heretical, and say the self-described Bible expert doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Some evangelical Christian leaders complain that his call is hurting their churches. ...Camping, 81, parted ways...with the conservative, evangelical Christian Reformed Church...."

AP via San Diego Union-Tribune: U.S. District Judge Alexander "Williams agreed with two groups that filed a lawsuit claiming the curriculum's discussion of homo-sexuality amounted to preferential treatment for relig-ions that preach tolerance of homosexuality over those that reject it. For example, the curriculum juxtaposes faiths such as Quakers and Unitarians that support full rights for homosexuals with groups such as Baptists, who are painted as 'intolerant and biblically misguided,' the judge wrote in his opinion. 'The court is extremely troubled by the willingness of the defendants to venture, or perhaps more correctly, bound, into the crossroads of controversy where religion, morality and homosex-uality converge," Williams wrote.'"

Town Hall: "In fact, the only large body of Jews with a mission are the Jews with the least Jewish religiosity. Such Jews have been disproportionately involved in secu-lar ideologies such as Marxism, socialism, feminism, en-vironmentalism, gay rights, animal rights and every other ideology of the Left. Why?...1. The original religious im-pulse that started the Jewish people and sustained them for thousands of years has not died among Jews; it has simply been transformed into secular causes. 2. Jews of-ten had terrible experiences under European Christianity and (though less murderous) under Islam, and therefore came to equate secularism with their liberation from op-pression. 3. European nationalism excluded Jewish parti-cipation.... Jews came to fear and loathe nationalism and developed a religious fervor for everything international."

Mark Hall: "If you believe the critics, evangelicals like me are against liberty, equality and the pursuit of fun. Gar-rison Keillor, of 'A Prairie Home Companion' fame, says religious Republicans, mostly evangelicals, are interested in 'dividing and conquering the sweet land I grew up in.'... Evangelicals are not a monolith, nor are the American people. We differ on many things, yet there is broad con-sensus on basic values including: a commitment to religi-ous liberty, helping the poor, the importance of families and the value of life. Moving America's public discourse away from the politics of destruction to a serious conver-sation about the common good won't be easy. It's critical that leaders of both the right and the left resist labels and find areas of common ground. That might not satisfy ex-tremists...but it could lead to public dialogue."  

The State.com: "Dobson, who insists his organization backs only issues—not parties or candidates...says the strong rhetoric and emotions are no surprise at a time when there is fierce debate about the actions of the na-tion’s federal courts, which he describes as a 'liberal stronghold.' 'The federal judiciary more and more is mak-ing the great moral decisions of our time,' Dobson said during a 75-minute interview with The Associated Press. He ticked off rulings involving abortion, the Pledge of Al-legiance and the definition of marriage. 'This Supreme Court has co-opted for itself many of the issues that the American people ought to be making through their elec-ted representatives,' he said. 'The decisions that are coming down from the Supreme Court have profound implications for the family and...morality.”

"Spanish Roman Catholic Bishops on Saturday urged Spaniards to disobey a new law legalizing same-sex marriage and to be conscientious objectors. Benedict said on Saturday that the pope 'must not proclaim his own ideas, but ever link himself and the Church to obedience to the word of God, when faced with all at-tempts of adaptation or of watering down.....' Jesuit officials in Rome and the United States...said some American bishops had contacted the Vatican's Congre-gation for the Doctrine of the Faith about articles in America over the years that had presented both sides of controversies over sensitive church issues. The Vatican has had a sometimes tense relationship with the Jesuits, some of whose members in the past have questioned papal pronouncements....”

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., in Crosswalk: "Secularism rests on three myths. The first is the myth of the secu-lar state. Secularism is not a positive construct. By its very nature, something is secular only when it denies the existence of God. Here is where Professor Audi's definition begins to break down. One cannot be genu-inely secular and be indifferent to the existence of God, because if God did exist, that would bring immediate demands upon society—obligations and prohibitions which society would not be able simply to ignore with-out admitting that it is only tacitly or operationally secu-lar. A truly secular state must altogether deny the exis-tence of God. In other words, this is a call for an abso-lutely secular state—the existence of which is a myth."  

Seattle Times: "These noble principles have broad appeal in America—after all, who doesn't support the ideas of freedom and liberty?—while at the same time occupying a sacrosanct position in the worldview of many Christian conservatives. In the eyes of evangel-icals and fundamentalists, the desire to live out the 'Great Commission' of Christ, in the book of Matthew, to 'go therefore and make disciples of all the nations' has become intertwined with support for the principles of political freedom and liberty. In particular, the indiv-idualized religious liberty present in the United States (particularly available historically for European-Amer-ican Protestants) is something that religious conserva-tives long to extend to other cultures and nations."

AP via YahooNews: "The 25 students in jeans and T-shirts could have been in any career that requires hus-tle. The classes, covering topics such as effective mar-keting, stress reduction and legal issues, could have been part of any professional development seminar. But this was 'Whore College,' and any illusion it was just another corporate how-to for young go-getters abruptly ended at the sex toy display and was stripped away for good during a graphic demonstration that put a whole new twist on the concept of hands-on training. 'We are still illegal,' instructor Kimberlee Cline said before her 20-minute demonstration. 'If we want to be treated as business professionals, we need to act ethically within the industry.' [It was] Presented in conjunction with the San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival..."

WorldNetDaily: "Fonda explained to New York Post columnist Liz Smith that she's a 'feminist Christian,' dis-tinguished from fundamentalists. "I don't want to offend anyone,' Fonda said. 'But I believe people have different ways of approaching The Word. For me, it's metaphor, written by people a long time after Christ died. And inter-preted by specific groups. I read the gospels that aren't included in the Bible. These make me feel good about calling myself a Christian. What we are seeing today are policymakers who say they're Christians.' Fonda said she sees a 'separation between professed faith and the practice' among politicians in Washington, arguing that budgets, war, poverty and health care are religious issues."

phillyBurbs.com: "why, in the eye-blink of 44 years, did the left become so hostile to religion and people of faith? How did it arc from championing the first Catholic president...to tearing out displays of the Ten Com-mandments, declaring unconstitutional the Pledge of Allegiance because it mentions God and making war on the Boy Scouts of America because the Scout oath states that members are honor-bound 'to do my duty to God and my country?' Tony Campolo, ex-Penn profes-sor, answers: 'Liberals all went to the universities and they became pseudo-sophisticates. 'Somewhere in the university, they heard professors who made fun of the Bible, made fun of religious faith and they thought that was cool and thought they would come across as erudite and intelligent members of academia."

WorldNetDaily: "Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, or PFOX, complain the pilot program for 8th through 10th grade in six Montgomery County Public Schools, sche-duled to begin Thursday, presents sexual variations and behaviors, including homosexuality, as morally equiva-lent to traditionally accepted norms. The curriculum never refers to husband and wife, but, instead, redefines family as 'two or more people who are joined together by emotional feelings or who are related to one another.' Mathew D. Staver [who] represents PFOX and Citizens, said the school board 'has been captured by radical homosexual advocacy groups whose only agenda is to promote their political goals without respect to the consequences.'"

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