Tara Pepper, Newsweek International: "Existing British blasphemy laws cover Christianity. Sikhs and Jews are shielded because they are regarded as distinct races falling under laws prohibiting incitement to racial hatred. Muslim groups have lobbied for similar protection since 1988, with the publication of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, and they stepped up their efforts after 9/11 out of fear of an anti-Islam backlash. For cri-tics, however, the question is whether any religion should be so protected. 'Any system of ideas that re-quires you to ring-fence it is a mistake,' Rushdie said recently. Many artists in Edinburgh questioned whether his work would even be published under the proposed law. Supporters say such concerns are overwrought.'"

Michael Horowitz in Christianity Today: Besides the crusade against international sex trafficking, "...evangel-icals were prime supporters of the Prison Rape Elim-ination Act of 2003—legislation now putting to an end a form of widespread brutality that has destroyed 10 to 15 percent of all American prisoners.... [They] also played the central role in ending the genocidal war in Sudan that had claimed more than 2 million lives... Evangeli-cals are [now] playing a key role in protecting the tragic victims of mass starvation, concentration camps, gas chambers, and persecutions of North Korea's Kim Jong Il—an effort that will require...the very best of your pray-ers and labors. They—you—are now working on legis-lation to protect runaway girls caught at American bus stations, and the hundreds of thousands of girls and women trapped ... into lives of prostitution...."

USAToday: "Q: Many CEOs have given us advice, but advice on getting to heaven seems rather ulti-mate. A: I'm just a pizza maker. Q: What role has your faith played in your financial success? A: I wanted my faith to be the center of my life. I haven't al-ways done that, but I knew it was the right thing to do and what I should do. Hopefully, I've gotten a little better at it. The nuns taught us that honesty is the best poli-cy. Many people think that the rich marry into money or steal it. I thought I could show that you can live by Christ's teachings and be successful. Q: Would you not have been as successful had you been Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish or atheist? A: There's no question in my mind it would have turned out differently. I would not have been nearly as successful. I don't be-lieve that in 38 years that I treated anyone unfairly."

Dennis Prager: "Judeo-Christian values do not conflate equality with sameness. But the Left rejects any sug-gestion of innate sexual differences. That is why the president of Harvard nearly lost his job for suggesting one reason fewer women are in engineering & science is that the female and male brains differ in their capaci-ties in these areas. A secular liberal who advocates af-firmative action based on sex, Harvard's president nev-ertheless also has—or had, until his humiliation [by] his faculty—a belief in seeking truth. And the truth is, men and women are profoundly different. One of these differ-ences is that women generally have more difficulty tran-scending their emotions than men. ...of course, millions of individual women—such as Margaret Thatcher—are far more rational than many men; but that only makes [their] achievements the more admirable."

Catholic News: “Pope Benedict XVI told biblical experts that the ancient tradition of 'lectio divina,' or sacred read-ing of Scripture, should be promoted as a way to enrich the spiritual life of the church. 'The church must always renew and rejuvenate herself' through 'the Word of God, which never gets old or expires,' he said. ...The Holy Father [reportedly] urged a renewal of this ancient tradi-tion, saying he was convinced it would 'bring a new spirit-ual springtime to the church if promoted effectively.' The pope's message came in an address on Friday...to some 500 biblical experts, scholars and pastoral leaders atten-ding an international conference in Rome. The Catholic Biblical Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promo-ting Christian Unity sponsored the congress commem-orating the 40th anniversary of 'Dei Verbum,' the Second Vatican Council's document on Scripture & revelation.”

AP's Richard Ostling: "Biblically inspired moral oppo-sition has been portrayed in books by Lamin Sanneh of Yale University (Abolitionists Abroad, Harvard, 2000) and Rodney Stark of Baylor University (For the Glory of God, Princeton, 2003). Sanneh says Arabs operated as slave-traders in Africa seven centuries before Europeans did. Before that, Christianization had largely eliminated the ancient practice in Europe. Black evangelicals from America and Britain moved into Africa and abolished the internal slave trade, as Sanneh recounts, during the years when white evangelical activists in the West were ending trans-Atlantic trading. The evangelical leadership raises two questions: Why did 19th-century evangelicals press 'liberal' causes while today’s evangelicals often promote 'conservative' politics? And what about Roman Catholics?"  

USAToday: "American Jewish Congress attorney Marc Stern, an adviser on the effort, said despite concern over growing tensions among U.S. religious groups, 'this book is proof that the despair is premature, that it is possible to acknowledge and respect deep religious differences and yet still find common ground.' Another adviser, evangelical literature scholar Leland Ryken of Wheaton College, called the textbook 'a triumph of scholarship and a major publish-ing event.' The $50 book and teacher's guide, covering both Old and New Testaments, are planned for semester-long or full-year courses starting next year. The editors are Cullen Schippe, a retired vice president at textbook publisher Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, and Chuck Stetson, a venture cap-italist who chairs Bible Literacy. The 41 contributors in-clude evangelical, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and secular experts."

Centers for Disease Control: "Three percent of males 15-44 years of age have had oral or anal sex with an-other male in the last 12 months (1.8 million). Four per-cent of females had a sexual experience with another female in the last 12 months. The proportion who had same-sex contact in their lifetimes was 6 percent for males and (using a different question) 11 percent for females (figure 5). About 1 percent of men and 3 percent of women 15-44 years of age have had both male and female sexual partners in the last 12 months. ... In response to a question that asked, 'Do you think of yourself as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or something else?' 90 percent of men 18-44 years of age responded that they think of themselves as hetero-sexual, 2.3 percent of men answered homosexual, 1.8 percent bisexual, 3.9 percent 'something else'....”

Kate Spence in Herald, Glasgow: "The Burrell Col-lection, Glasgow, has changed the BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini) labels on its exhibits to BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era), although the numerical dates remain the same. Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, des-cribed the move as "outrageous double standards" and "yet another attack on Christianity by unrepresentative people". After a visitor wrote to complain about the change, Simon Eccles, the museum's senior curator, replied: "The reason for our current use of these terms is that we prefer not to impose a Christian dating term-inology on pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures, out of respect for their beliefs and values. The terms before the common era and common era are simple to under-stand...." 

The Reality Check: "Attorneys with the Alliance De-fense Fund filed a lawsuit against officials with Ulster [NY] County Community College for violating the free speech rights of a man who wanted to speak about his faith and hand out religious literature on campus in a nondisruptive manner. 'This is simply another example of overzealous school officials attempting to marginalize people of faith,' said ADF's Nate Kellum. School officials told Greg Davis...he needed to file a...permit application in order to speak...in a public grassy area on campus... When he did so, the application was denied because the school claimed that his desired religious expression does not constitute a 'cultural,' 'educational,' 'social,' or 'recreational' activity. 'The Constitution does not say that speech is only free if it meets certain arbitrary categor-ies developed by public officials,' said Kellum."

Jerusalem Post: "'Is Christian life liable to be reduced to empty church buildings and a congregation-less hierarchy with no flock in the birthplace of Christianity?' asks Daphne Tsimhoni in the Middle East Quarterly. It is hard to see what will prevent that ghost-like future.... One factor that could help prevent this... would be for mainline Protestant churches to speak out against Pal-estinian Muslims for tormenting and expelling Palestin-ian Christians....The Episcopalian, Evangelical Luth-eran, Methodist and Presbyterian churches, as well as the United Church of Christ, have ignored the problem. Instead, they pursue...venting moral outrage against the Israeli bystander and even withdrawing their investment funds from it. As they obsess over Israel but stay silent about Christianity dying in its birthplace, one wonders what it will take to awaken them."

WORLD TRIBUNE.COM: "Jordan leads the Islamic world in its antipathy for Jews according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center. The poll, which surveyed 17,000 people in 17 countries, said 100 percent of Jor-danians viewed Jews unfavorably. The majority of Jor-danians are Palestinians, but the late King Hussein and his son and successor, King Abdullah, have been known for their pro-American stances. Russia led all other countries with favorable views of Christians (92 percent) while Turkey (63 percent) had the most unfavorable view of Christians. The Netherlands led all nations surveyed both in positive views of Jews (85 percent) and negative views of Muslims (51 percent). Significant numbers of respondents in only Jordan (38 percent) and Lebanon (40 percent) blamed U.S. policies for Islamic extrem-ism."

BBC News: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the monastic community of Mount Athos in Greece, one of Orthodox Christianity's holiest sites. He was the first Russian leader to visit the male-only community, on a narrow, rocky peninsula east of Thessaloniki, Russian TV reported. The trip was part of Mr Putin's two-day visit to Greece. He has openly em-braced the Orthodox faith, despite having served the atheist Soviet regime as a KGB officer.... 'This is a very special place for Orthodox Christians and the whole Christian world. In Russia, we always held the monks who lived here in great admiration and respect,' he was quoted as saying. Some 1,500 monks live in the semi-autonomous monastic community, which is also known as Holy Mountain."

Barna Research: "About half of all adults (54%) claim they make moral choices on the basis of specific princi-ples or standards they believe in. Other common means of making moral choices include doing what feels right or comfortable (24%), doing whatever makes the most people happy or causes the least conflict (9%), and pur-suing whatever produces the most positive outcomes for the person (7%). Among those who claim to make mor-al decisions based on specific principles, a wide variety of sources were listed....Three of every 10 people nam-ed the Bible as the sources of those princi-ples. Overall, then, just one out of every six adults (16%) claim they make their moral choices based on the content of the Bible....six out of ten evangelicals (60%) rely on the principles contained in the Bible [20% of] nonevangelical born again adults do the same...."

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