Ekklesia: "The director the Evangelical Alliance has urged that clear blue water be put between 'legitimate Republican ideology' and an 'evangelical fundamental-ism which behaves as a new imperialism and distances people from the living God.' His call came in a statement following the election of George Bush in which religion played a key role. Most notably issues of private morality were ranked more important by US voters than Iraq, the war on terrorism, or the economy. Warning about the dangers of defining morality in purely private terms, Joel Edwards said that evangelical Christians in the UK would do well 'to stress a biblical range of Christian values it puts forward into the public arena aimed at furthering the common good.'"

Human Events: "Despite Carville's inability to speak a simple, non-garbled declarative sentence, he ultimately asserted with a liberal spin that Jesus 1) 'never said a word' about homosexuals and 2) He 'was very sympa-thetic' to them. Carville's statement is not correct, of course—an error unchallenged by razor-sharp 'Meet the Press' host Tim Russert or Carville's180-degree-posi-tioned, pro-Republican wife, presidential adviser Mary Matalan, who usually and mercilessly shoots down her hubby's most outlandish guff on their joint TV appear-ances. Russert and Matalan both should have chided unsaintly James for ignoring Gospel messages that never seem to faze people who avoid or mischaracter-ize the Bible's facts..."

In These Times: "Sides already are being drawn between those who believe a more thorough religious appeal is needed and those who argue the party should maintain its historic secular approach. The potential candidates [for DNC chair] include: Simon Rosenberg, the founder of Joe Lieberman’s New Democratic Network (http://www.newdem.org), which pushes a values-based message; Harold Ickes, a leader of America Coming Together and the Media Fund, which created many of the opposition ads in this election (a longtime Clinton operative and chair of Hillary Clinton’s PAC, his candidacy raises the ques-tion of whether Hillary is positioning herself for a 2008 run)...."

San Diego Union-Tribune: "Local atheists interview-ed, many of them scientists and engineers, expressed the fear that a born-again president believing he has a mandate will strongly assert religious beliefs, like push-ing for the teaching of creationism along with evolution in schools. 'The administration we have now has no respect whatsoever for science, and because of that, they have no respect for the truth, and that can be fatal,' said Hall, who was raised a Methodist. 'I think unless the country gets a belly-full of this over the next four years and this turns around, the future of civilization will shift to Europe or elsewhere and not be led by the U.S. administration.'"

Washington Times: "Europe's largest mosque is in Rotterdam, which is also Europe's busiest port. Half the people there are of foreign origin. Unemployment among the Muslims is high. And the Dutch live-and-let-live permissiveness made this nation, a quarter of it below sea level and protected by 1,500 dikes, ideal breeding grounds for Muslim fundamentalism and the kind of extremism that spawned one of Osama bin Laden's European fan clubs. But for years the govern-ment was in denial about Islamist extremism in what is otherwise a well-managed society. Dutch Muslims, repelled by the freewheeling lifestyle, sought solace with radical imams in the mosques."

Maranatha Chistian Journal: "The Faith and Values Coalition, Falwell said, will organize in 50 states and pursue three goals: passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment banning gay marriage; confirmation of 'pro-life, strict constructionist' judges to the U.S. Su-preme Court and the federal bench; and 'the election of another socially, fiscally and politically conservative president in 2008....The thought of a Hillary Clinton or John Edwards presidency is simply unacceptable...' he said. Falwell, 71...committed to lead the new coal-ition for the first four years. 'On election night, I act-ually shed tears of joy as I saw the fruit of a quarter century of hard work,' Falwell said."  

NY Post: "the film leaves little doubt that the true love of the conqueror's life is his boyhood friend turned fellow warrior, Hephaistion...."It was said ... that Alexander was never defeated, except by Hephaistion's thighs," the aged Ptolemy (Anthony Hop-kins) says in narrating the saga. While Alexander and Hephaistion are never seen in bed or even kissing, there are several deep hugs and lots of meaningful glances. ..."Alexander lived in a more honest time," Stone told Playboy magazine. "We go into his bisexuality. It may offend some people, but sexual-ity in those days was a different thing. Pre-Christian morality. Young boys were with boys when they wanted to be." ...there were wide-spread reports—since denied —that Warner Bros. post-poned the release because of flak about the gay content at early screenings."

Brent Morrison: "'The...leaders and...members of the Jesus Seminar create the impression the scholarship is seriously divided. But I've been at annual meetings of the Institute for Biblical Research, with hundreds of scholars, and no one can take their outrageous claims seriously any more.' [Professor Dr. Craig] Evans cites many sources....The thrust of Evans' comments is that most credible academic research supports the biblical description of Jesus' life. Whether he was the son of God is a matter of faith, as Jesus himself acknowledged in John 20:29. ...I can appreciate the importance and challenge of that choice. What I don't understand is the need of some to deny the facts of Jesus' life for no other reason than to blur who he is."

Gulf Daily News: "Freedom of religion is being threat-ened in Europe by an aggressive secularism which has made the mention of God 'almost indecent,' a top ad-viser to Pope John Paul said in an interview.... 'We have gone from a Christian culture to an aggressive secular-ism with intolerant traits,' Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told la Repubblica daily. 'It has started to become an ideology which imposes itself through politics and does not cede public space to the Catholic and Christian vision,' said the powerful head of the Vatican depart-ment in charge of safeguarding and interpreting doc-trine. 'A struggle exists and we must defend the freedom of religion against the imposition of an ideology that presents itself as the only voice of reason....'"

AP via Fla. HeraldTribune.com: "A movement among Southern Baptists to remove their children from public schools is resurfacing at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. The state convention meets Tuesday and Wednesday at the First Baptist Church of Sevierville. A proposal calling on Southern Baptists to pull their children out of 'godless' public schools was never formally considered in June at the national convention in Indianapolis. But 10 state Baptist conventions—including Tennessee's—are reconsidering the idea, according to Exodus Mandate, a Columbia, S.C.-based organization that advocates private, Chris-tian and homeschool education over public schools."

LifeSiteNews.com: "'We're so afraid to talk about sex in our society that we really give carte blanche to the people who are producing this kind of material,' pornography researcher from Virginia Tech, professor James B. Weaver said, as reported by the Associated Press. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan) organized the meeting, which revealed that internet pornography is destroying families and harming children. Unsolicited e-mails and inadvertent links to sexually explicit materials on the internet are the norm. University of Pennsylvania sexual trauma program co-director Mary Anne Layden said pornography addiction has similar effects on the brain as heroin or crack cocaine addiction."

Variety via Yahoonews: "Hollywood actually does a pretty good job of [bridging the gaps between red and blue states], assuming one bothers to look—which, of course, political opportunists seldom do. While auteurs yearn to impress friends by testing boundaries with edgy R-rated fare, studios know Christmas is merrier with a 'Harry Potter'-like franchise under the tree, and Robert Zemeckis used his A-list muscle to direct a lavish G-rated children's movie, 'The Polar Express.' Granted, media power brokers nestled in blue states have much to learn about their brethren in the heart-land. Yet despite the venom cultural warriors spew ... there is enough shared experience, enough overlap, to find a happy medium. Let's call it 'The Color Purple.'"

Mirror: Codswallop: "The Da Vinci Code is one of the biggest-selling novels of all time. It has sold an estima-ted 17 million copies, been translated into 42 languages and reportedly made author Dan Brown £140million. Now it's set to be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Tom Hanks as a Harvard professor seeking the Holy Grail....It is the latest conspiracy theory concerning the Holy Grail, which Brown says is not a goblet, as most people think, but Mary [Magdalene] herself and Jesus's bloodline. The book has launched an entire tourist industry as people from around the world flock to the places where the action takes place. But although Brown says it is grounded in fact, critics claim it's littered with errors. Here we look at some of them."

AP via ABC News: "'Protection of marriage' is now the watchword for many activists fighting to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying. Some conservatives, however, say marriage in America began unraveling long before the latest gay-rights push and are pleading for a fresh, soul-searching look at the institution.... Bryce Christensen, a Southern Utah University pro-fessor who writes frequently about family issues.... doesn't oppose the campaign to enact state and fed-eral bans on gay marriage, [but] worries it's distracting from immediate threats to marriage's place in society. 'If...we don't address cohabitation and casual divorce and deliberate childlessness then I think [such campaigns are] futile and will be brushed aside.'"

Crosswalk: "A spokesman for the world's largest vet-erans organization is calling on the Secretary of De-fense to not cave in to what he calls the 'legal terrorists' of the ACLU in its desire to punish the Boy Scouts of America. In a negotiated settlement earlier this month, the Department of Defense agreed to cease direct spon-sorship of Boy Scout units on military installations. The settlement is the result of a lawsuit filed by the Ameri-can Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which claimed that the government has improperly supported a group that requires members to believe in God....The settle-ment does not prevent service members from leading Scout troops unofficially on their own time. And Scouts will still be able to meet on military bases where civilian groups are permitted to hold events."

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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