Reuters: "The research, published by the National Catholic Reporter, came as the Vatican was embarking on an inspection of more than 200 U.S. seminaries in-tended to find out if aspiring priests are being properly schooled in celibacy and to uncover any evidence of homosexuality. There have also been reports that Pope Benedict may soon bar gay men from entering the priesthood. The church has also been unswerving in its opposition to the ordination of women. The survey pub-lished by the liberal-leaning Reporter is the fourth in a series dating back to 1987 tracking attitudes of U.S. Catholics to their church and their faith. It...had an error margin of plus or minus 3.5 points. Overall the survey found, 'We're changing and not changing ... the trends toward diminished attachment to the institution but deep links to core beliefs continue,' the publication" said.

David Van Biema in Time: "It is the book's explana-tion for this key sequence that makes it exclusively Christian. After Edmund Pevensie betrays Aslan and his brother and sisters, the Witch claims his blood in accor-dance to the laws of 'Deep Magic.' Aslan concedes this and offers himself up in proxy, announcing glumly, 'I have settled the claim on your brother's blood.' Miracu-lously revived, he explains, 'the Witch knew the Deep Magic. But if she could have looked a little further back. .. she would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.' This is Christianity in a kid-lit veil. Like any good sermon, its key points can be traced to Biblical citations—here mostly from the Letters of the apostle Paul...."

In Human Events: "Heart: In so many ways, this ap-pointment is classic Bush. Nearly six years ago, when asked in an early debate among Republican presidential candidates to name his favorite philosopher, W. fa-mously said, 'Christ, because he changed my heart.' The pooh-poohing of his answer then (favorite philoso-pher—the question was about mind, not heart) anticipa-ted the current debate among conservatives: suffering servant? Why not intellectual leader? It's George W. Bush's analysis that 'heart' is crucial, since a good mind by itself also does not a great justice make. We may end up having been bamboozled by this nominee, in which case the Republican Party will pay a heavy price. But give Bush credit...[h]e has not only nomina-ted a justice, but implicitly called for a paradigm shift in conservative thinking."

Catholic Online: "A Russian Orthodox bishop has ap-pealed for the formation of a Catholic-Orthodox alliance to negotiate with European institutions and members of other faiths on behalf of 'traditional Christianity.' 'Europe has so rapidly de-Christianized that urgent action is needed to save it from losing its centuries-old Christian identity,' said Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Vienna and Austria, the Russian church's representative to the Eur-opean Union. 'I strongly believe the time has come for Catholics and Orthodox to unite their efforts....We need a strategic alliance, and we need it here and now. In 20, 30 or 40 years, it may simply be too late.' He said the alliance would bring together representatives of Eur-opean Catholic bishops' conferences and Orthodox churches and noted that the group would seek a 'com-mon position on all major social and ethical issues.'"

Ottawa Sun: “Accepting that my random survey of 62 teens is small and unscientific, here is what teens said: 55% believe intercourse is fine at 16 years or younger (compared to 22% of adults surveyed) and one-third of teens said 15 or under was okay....When I asked teens if oral sex was sex, 76% insisted it was not (92% of adults said that, without a doubt, oral sex is sex). 'It's just fore-play,' said a 16-year-old girl. 'It doesn't count the same,' said a 14-year-old Muslim girl. The 'Clinton defence" (a term that came up frequently during my research, refer-ring to the former U.S. president's take on oral sex) is clearly gaining wide acceptance. Repeatedly, when I asked teens if they were sexually active and got a 'no,' what I was being told was that they had not had inter-course. When I asked about oral sex, half who said they were not...active admitted they've had oral sex.”

"'Civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, etc., is not a liberal or conservative value,' said Falwell. 'It's an Ameri-can value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on.' It was half a loaf, but gay-rights leaders grabbed it. The Rev. Mel White of Soulforce—a group based near Falwell's evangelical empire in Lynchburg, Va.—immedi-ately set out to verify if his former employer had meant to say what he had said. Before coming out as a gay acti-vist in the early 1990s, White was a seminary professor and superstar ghostwriter who worked with the Rev. Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Oliver North, Jim Bakker and, yes, Falwell....'I have known Jerry a long time and I think this was a serious change...' said White. 'Never before has he said that he recognized us as a class—as a pro-tected class—like other Americans.'"  

Brownfield: "A recent report released by the Center for Consumer Freedom documents the systematic attacks PETA has been making on religion....The report states that, to spread the gospel of vegetarianism, PETA’s full-time 'faith-based campaigners' work under the direction of a campaign coordinator who has publicly advocated 'blowing stuff up and smashing windows' as 'a great way to bring about animal liberation.' PETA has recently begun holding protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its congregation from Sunday-morning har-assment. PETA’s billboards and other advertisements taunt Christians with the message that livestock 'died for your sins,' misrepresent the teachings of the Mormon faith, and even make the false claim that Jesus was a vegetar-ian. PETA even paraded a statue of a cow dressed as the Pope in front of [a] Catholic church...."

Inside Higher Ed: "I can talk more knowledgeably about Christians in higher education since I am one. Christians in higher education, at secular schools, can be placed in two different bins or categories....I’ll call one group the 'privatizers' and the other, the 'evangelicals.' Privatizers in higher education view their faith as discon-nected from their work as professors. They are involved in a local church (often heavily involved); if they are married, they are probably faithful to their spouse; if they have children, they love their kids; and their names do not show up in the newspapers having done something that embarrasses their school. But these... privatizers, are not identified at their schools as Christians; this as-pect of their identity may never be known by students or colleagues. Not that their faith is a deep or dark secret; they probably consider the information irrelevant....”

...Europe is dying. William Murchison in Touch-stone: "...only 41 percent of Europeans claim belief in a personal God. In Britain the percentage of believers has fallen from 77% in 1968 to 44% today. That’s 'believers,'
[not] believer-practitioners who on Sundays put their posteriors where their minds are. The number of Mus-lims at Friday prayers in Britain reportedly exceeds the number of Anglicans at Sunday worship. A recent Wall Street Journal article referred to Tony Blair as 'the Chris-tian leader of a pagan country.' In Ireland—Ireland!— just half the population reportedly goes to Mass now, compared with 84% in the early 1990s. To quote one bored boyo...'It’s the repetition. After you’ve heard it enough, you feel like you already know what they’re going to say, so why do you have to go there?' Yes, why, Brendan, Brigid, Patrick?..." 

Cybercast News Service: "The bill passed through
the lower House of Commons last July. In the upper chamber, opposition to the measure comes primarily from Conservatives and Liberal Democrat parties, but some lawmakers from the ruling Labor Party could join them. Outside parliament, the law has drawn opposition from a broad range of groups, from evangelical Chris-tians who worry about its impact on their freedom to share their faith or question the claims of other religions, to actors and comedians who fear it will make mocking religious beliefs a crime. The bill outlaws any written material or public verbal comments 'that are threatening, abusive or insulting [and] likely to stir up racial or religious hatred.' The offense carries a jail term of up to seven years."

Dr. Paul J. Dean in Crosswalk: "A few glaring issues emerge from this horrific notion of what some are say-ing should be considered as normal and healthy. First, did we not see this move coming? Beginning with Kin-sey in the academic world and the sexual revolution in the counter culture of the sixties, could we not predict this assertion? If not, certainly the feminist movement and the more recent homosexual agenda have removed the blinders. Combine sexual freedom with postmodern philosophy and the inevitable result is a society with no moral values or judgments whatsoever. With homosex-uality increasingly propagated as normal, combined with the philosophical rationale behind such, there is nothing to prevent intergenerational sex from being viewed in a positive way....[when] child molestation will be viewed as good, healthy, and acceptable."

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. in Christian Post: "Noah Riner [said]: 'Jesus is a good example of character, but He's also much more. He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me.' As he later explained, 'Jesus' message of redemption is simple. People are imperfect, and there are consequences for our actions. He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn't have to bear the penalty of the law; so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God's love: Jesus on the cross, for us.' The response was immed-iate, vitriolic, and revealing. The...campus newspaper [ran] a comic strip depicting Riner as a crusading theo-crat and Jesus as a marijuana smoker. Kaelin Goulet... condemned Riner for his speech. 'Your first opportunity to represent Student Assembly to the incoming freshmen was appalling,' she wrote."

The Scotsman: "CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were the closest of friends, one struggling to make his fantasy world of Middle Earth a literary reality, the other trying to convince friends his first book about Narnia deserved to be published. But new research has revealed that their friendship was riven by...bitter and personal of rows on everything from literature to religion and even their choice of spouse. The fascinating revelations... have been made by film-maker Norman Stone while re-searching a drama-documentary on the life of Lewis. Stone, who made the award-winning movie about Lewis, Shadowlands, talked to mutual friends of the lit-erary pair as well as examining documents.... His por-trayal of their frequent and occasionally destructive bic-kering comes on the eve of...the £129m The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe...."

ABCNews: "Publisher Len Budd says that he is struck by how little the average Briton knows about the Chris-tian culture that has underpinned society for centuries. Barely 10 percent of the 40-odd million Britons who cite their faith as Christian regularly attend church. Of those who do, he says, many will have but a hazy sense of biblical chronology. He devised the project two years ago, and enlisted the help of a retired Anglican priest and headmaster, the Rev. Michael Hinton. The idea was to reproduce the 66 books into 50 400-word chunks, each taking about two minutes to read. The thin tome... should take less than two hours to skip through. 'It's for the man in the street,' says Budd. 'If he's able to answer a pub quiz question about the Bible afterwards, then good. If he goes on to read the whole thing, even better....'"

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!
(This endorsement was not paid or solicited.) — webmaster

http://toolbar.google.com/