Wethersfield, CT Post: "The June vote wasn't the Wethersfield church's first on leaving the UCC. In 2003, 60 percent of the members voted to leave, 40 percent to stay. (Two-thirds of the membership must vote to with-draw.) Then [the pastor] voted to stay with the UCC, believing there was still hope. Several incidents changed his mind, one the July 2003 National Synod in Minne-apolis. In a Sept. 18, 2003 letter to General Minister and President of the UCC...and Connecticut Conference Minister... [he] listed concerns about 'cross-dressing clergy on the platform, the transgender choir, and an androgynous liturgical dancer' at the opening service of the Synod. [That service included] the 'first transgender gospel in the world'...."

Guardian, UK: "The Rev Ian Bradley from the [St. Andrews University] school of divinity believes musi-cals like Les Miserables and The Lion King provide their audiences a distinct philosophy of life, as well as entertainment. Churches have a great deal to learn from modern musicals and could usefully incor-porate their spiritual and theological values, and the pastoral care they offer, into their services, he argues in a book published next week. In You've Got to Have a Dream: the Message of the Musical Dr Bradley reveals that musicals have focused on serious and social issues as far back as Showboat in the 1920s, which dealt with racial prejudice and family breakdown."

Fox23: "Roosevelt's remark that 'the true Christian is the true citizen' was part of [an] address the president gave at a YMCA convention more than a century ago. The words are engraved in gold letters on a mahogany wall in a Riverside County courtroom. The quote is one of several by Roosevelt that have graced the court-house for 70 years. The Anti-Defamation League sent a letter to the court in July asking that the quote be covered because it could be interpreted as a direct 'endorsement of Christian faith.' Alison Mayersohn...of the group's Pacific Southwest region, said, without the original context, the quote could easily be perceived as 'equating Christianity and good citizenship.'"

CNSNews: “A federal judge [has] ordered the Ann Ar-bor Public School system to pay $102,738 in attorney fees and costs to the Thomas More Law Center, which defended a student who expressed her religious views against homosexuality. During her high school's annual 'Diversity Week' program, Betsy Hansen...was not all-owed to express her belief against homosexuality. Han-sen also complained about a school-sponsored 'Homo-sexuality and Religion' panel, which, she said, was stacked with religious leaders who endorsed her school's pro-homosexual agenda. School officials [call-ed] Hansen's religious objection toward homosexuality a "negative" message [that] would 'water-down' the 'positive'...message they wanted to convey...."

Newsday: "In one segment, two religious scholars clash over whether Hell exists. In a different segment, Madonna's kabbalah teacher squares off against an-other rabbi, with [Lee] Strobel as referee. Strobel also discusses issues of faith with unlikely celebrities like [Hugh] Hefner and singer Moby. Strobel said he came up with the idea two years ago 'for [a]... "Hardball"-style format devoted to questions of morality and spirituality. He found few TV executives willing to take the chance on...religious debates. 'We spent last year trying to sell it.... We tried the networks, cable television, syndica-tion, Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC. One executive told me it sounded interesting, but "We can't do God."' Finally, Pax TV...decided to take the show."

Mark Stricherz: "Recently American Catholic bishops
...have publicly crossed swords with pro-choice Cath-olic [politicians like] Kerry, the first Catholic presiden-tial nominee since John F. Kennedy.... And Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Catholic Church's Con-gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith...this summer advised American bishops to refuse Communion to all pro-choice Catholic office-holders. But Kerry continues to receive Communion at Boston's Paulist Center, which is quasi-independent of the local hierarchy.... Father John Ardis, the center's director, prayed at the opening and closing of the Democratic National Con-vention in Boston, signaling Kerry's shaky ties to the Catholic hierarchy."  

New York Times: "St. James and two other churches in the Diocese of Los Angeles announced in mid-August that they were leaving the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and aligning themselves with the Anglican Church of Uganda. The rupture occurred over the Epis-copal Church's decision last year to permit the blessing of same-sex unions and to consecrate an openly gay man as bishop. Conservatives here and abroad have warned that the Americans' decisions set the stage for possible schism in the worldwide communion. The American church and the Ugandan church are part of the larger Anglican communion, whose 38 provinces trace a common lineage to the Church of England."

David Gates, Newsweek: "Critics may complain that the book doesn't include the back pages they want most: his famous 1966 motorcycle accident gets a single sentence, and there's nothing about his 1977 divorce, his 1978 conversion to evangelical Christianity or the origin and the making of such masterworks as 'Blood on the Tracks' (1975), 'Slow Train Coming'
(1979), 'Infidels' (1983) or 'Time Out of Mind.'... [Ob-session with Dylan] went past ordinary adulation. At its worst, in the late 1960s and early '70s, Dylan experienced a disorienting, terrifying and downright infuriating combination of stalking and deification. As he writes...'It would have driven anybody mad.'" 

Reading, Pa., Eagle: "A major challenge for Presi-dent George W. Bush this fall, Newsweek has sug-gested, is to 'bring evangelical Christians to a tent-revival pitch without horrifying suburban seculars.'... David Aikman, author of A Man of Faith, the Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush (Nelson), took care to rebut that idea while participating in a recent panel before religion writers in Washington, D.C. 'The words evan-gelical and born again are a no-no around the White House,' Aikman said. 'Bush is really very ecumenical. He doesn't wear his denominational badge on his sleeve.” (In his acceptance speech, John Kerry, in an obvious dig, proclaimed he doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve.)"

Turks.US: "Perhaps the concept of a 'clash of civil-izations' is an exaggeration, but Muslims do not regard themselves as part of a civilized world consisting of a world of Christians and Jews. It is also a sad fact today's global terrorists are nearly all Muslims. This creates a general assumption that Islam and modernity can never unite because Muslims reject modernity and do not wish to live peacefully alongside people from other religions. Some people believe Islam is far away from modernity because Islam disregards modern science that has provided the soul of modernity. How-ever, if one studies the history of Islam, one can read writings from some thinkers who contradict this."

AP's Gina Holland via Newsday: "The Supreme Court refused Monday to disturb a ruling that forces some California religious organizations to pay for workers' contraceptive health insurance benefits. Jus-tices had been asked to review California's law, which exempts churches but not church-backed institutions like hospitals and charity organizations. Catholic Charities had challenged the law, on grounds that it could not be required to pay for something it viewed as sinful. The state Supreme Court ruled against the group last spring. 'If the state of California can coerce Catholic agencies to pay for contraceptives, it can force them to pay for abortions,' attorney Kevin Baine told justices in an appeal for Catholic Charities.'"  

AP via Fort Wayne.com: "Pope John Paul II exhorted Christians on Friday to display signs of their faith more forcefully, contending the practice neither infringes on separation of church and state nor breeds intolerance. His comments appeared to be a clear reference to raging debates over laws such as France's recent ban on wearing Islamic headscarves, Jewish skull caps or large Christian crosses in schools. ...In a 31-page letter ...the pope kept up his campaign to invigorate the faith of followers. 'May there be more commitment, on the part of Christians, to give witness with more force to the presence of God in the world,' John Paul wrote. 'Let's not be afraid to speak of God and to carry on high the signs of faith.'"

Indiana, Pa., Gazette: "A Center Township couple has filed a lawsuit charging that Pennsylvania's homeschool-ing law infringes on their God-given authority to decide how to educate their children....'the Religious Freedom Protection Act...has given folks who have religious ob-jections to general laws...an avenue to seek exemptions from laws that impose a substantial burden on their reli-gious beliefs,' attorney James Mason said....Mason said the RFPA defines a 'substantial burden' as a regulation that compels conduct or expression that violates a spec-ific tenet of a person's religious faith. 'It is a specific ten-et of Mr. and Mrs. Combs' religious faith...that it would be sinful for them to...seek approval from the secular civil government for...education [of] their children.'"

Expatica: "over two thirds of Belgians happily describe themselves as Roman Catholics [but] only one in ten attends church regularly.... According to a report in Le Soir newspaper, church atendance in Bel-gium has fallen off massively since the 1950s when one out of every two Belgians went to mass every Sunday....The study revealed that 65 percent of Belgians describe themselves as Catholics, four percent as Muslims and one percent as Protestants.
The remaining people questioned either said they had no religious faith or looked for spiritual fulfilment either in other religions such as Buddhism or through so called 'new age' activities like yoga, alternative medicine or meditation."

Jay P. Greene, National Review: "Only half of Amer-ica's black and Hispanic students graduate from high school. Gigantic increases in per-pupil spending over many decades haven't raised the rate. Schools have pursued fad after fad—ability tracking, ability detrack-ing, less vocational ed, more vocational ed, multiple-intelligence curricula, etc.—without noticeable suc-cess. On the other hand, some types of structural re-form raise student outcomes. And when it comes to getting more kids all the way through school, one re-form shows real promise: choice. There's already a consensus among high-quality studies that school choice boosts test scores. Now, in a new study...I find that it also keeps kids in school."

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