The word scrupulosity and its derivatives don't show up much in today's language. But the mental state it describes - an obsession with one's sins and ridding them at all costs - has caused the suffering of many a Christian both past and present. It's derived from the 14th century Latin word scrupulus, meaning a "sharp stone or pebble," used figuratively by Cicero to describe that which causes unease or anxiety. Think of it as a jagged pebble lodged firmly in the recesses of the mind, causing Martin Luther, for example, to go through confession marathons with annoyed priests to make sure he hadn't left one sin unconfessed.

An article on today's ABC News "Mind & Mood" website, a mental-health forum, shares the story of one modern-day sufferer. Cole M.'s scrupulosity (what psychiatrists have labeled a "religious form of obsessive-compulsive disorder") manifested as a fixation on counting the number of letters in his sentences to make sure they were multipliers of the number 7 (God, holiness) and not 6 (Satan, sin). He would also go through daily bowing rituals before icons before heading to school, and experienced panic attacks when his fellow classmates used profanity.

Even during conversations, Cole silently counted, multiplied and added letters in words to make a sum of seven. For instance, take the sentence: The cat is gray. In less than a second Cole has an answer: "Cat plus gray equals seven letters. 'The' and 'is' equals five," said Cole. "So, in order to get the [second] seven, I'd make the cross of the 't' count and the dot of the 'i' count. . . . Nobody would be able to tell that I'm doing this," Cole said. . . .

Such activities, though seemingly minute, become debilitating due to the excessive amount of mental energy they require. For the believer, an obsession with moral purity can stifle fruitful relationships with other Christians, and perhaps ironically, with the Lord himself. Instead of leading a believer to a deeper trust in God's mercy on account of their sins - a trust that is meant to bring "peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" - scrupulosity focuses the person back on the efforts of him or herself, which usually leads to excessive guilt and despair.

One answer for those who suffer comes from Ian Osborn, a Penn State psychiatrist who has just released Can Christianity Cure Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?: A Psychiatrist Explores the Role of Faith in Treatment (Brazos Press). Though Osborn makes clear that in most cases, no amount of praying and confession will "cure" someone of OCD (or scrupulosity, whichever you prefer), specifically Christian teaching has significantly reduced the symptoms of OCD in the lives of his patients. Osborn argues his case by examining the lives of three Christian giants who were noted for their scrupulosity: Luther, John Bunyan, and Saint Therese of Lisieux. He traces each's journey from obsession with sins to eventual freedom in a reclamation of justification by faith alone - or in psychiatric terms, "responsibility modification therapy." Through the Holy Spirit's illumination of Scripture, Luther, Bunyan, and Therese came to the realization that they could "transfer responsibility" from themselves to Jesus for being clean before the Lord. Whether this is effective psychology or just really good theology, there is hope for Christians who are trapped in this life-squelching obsession.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at March 31, 2008 2:14PM | Comments (17)

Two of the hottest issues in evangelical theology right now are the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament and evangelical textual criticism. Peter Enns’s 2005 book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, aimed to pose difficult questions about the human aspects of Scripture. It received both praise and criticism from noted evangelical scholars.

And it made things difficult for Enns at his school, Philadelphia’s Westminster Theological Seminary. A battle over whether the book undermined or contradicted the Westminster Confession of Faith has been raging for some time now, and apparently came to a head Wednesday at the meeting of the school’s board, which decided to suspend Enns.

This note is now circulating from board chairman Jack White:

Thank you very much for your prayers for the special meeting of the Board of Trustees that was held on March 26 to address the disunity of the faculty regarding the theological issues related to Dr. Peter Enns' book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. After a full day of deliberation, the Board of Trustees took the following action by decisive vote:

"That for the good of the Seminary (Faculty Manual II.4.C.4) Professor Peter Enns be suspended at the close of this school year, that is May 23, 2008 (Constitution Article III, Section 15), and that the Institutional Personnel Committee (IPC) recommend the appropriate process for the Board to consider whether Professor Enns should be terminated from his employment at the Seminary. Further that the IPC present their recommendations to the Board at its meeting in May 2008."

In order to provide the entire Westminster community with a more complete understanding of the Board's decision and to offer an opportunity for questions and dialogue, the Chairman and Secretary of the Board will join the President on campus for a special chapel on Tuesday, April 1 at 10:30 am. Students and staff are encouraged to attend and participate. Following that special chapel, they will hold a separate meeting with the faculty.

Our concern is to honor the Lord Jesus Christ and assure a faithful witness for Westminster for years to come. To that end, please pray for everyone involved during the next two months.

The campus politics are particularly sensitive, since the seminary faculty had voted 12-8 to support Enns. In the meantime, both supporters and opponents of Inspiration and Incarnation had framed the debate as a battle for the future of the school.

We’ll have more on this story and its implications soon.

Posted by Ted Olsen at March 27, 2008 10:47PM | Comments (43)

The favorite C. S. Lewis websites of Louis Markos, author of The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis, Lewis Agonistes, and, most recently, From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics (InterVarsity Press).

The C. S. Lewis Foundation
The foundation exists to promote the works of C. S. Lewis to the larger public and in the halls of academia. In addition to offering information on the many conferences sponsored by the foundation, this website provides a full list of books by and about Lewis, along with links to all the major Lewis websites.

Into the Wardrobe
Perhaps the best one-stop educational site for information on C. S. Lewis. It not only includes an annotated bibliography but also pictures, audio files, forums, and the full text of several dozen scholarly papers.

C. S. Lewis Society of California
There are many C. S. Lewis societies out there, most of which have good websites. This one offers the fullest and most varied resources, including links to interviews and audio/video resources.

Marion E. Wade Center
The best research museum of C. S. Lewis is housed not in England but at Wheaton College, Illinois. The center also features the books and papers of six writers who profoundly influenced Lewis: Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.

Narnia Web
With the film versions of Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader due out in May 2008 and May 2010, respectively, this is the single best news source on present and future Narnia movies.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at March 26, 2008 4:55PM | Comments (2)

We've heard much from atheists about why they don't believe. Here's an interesting item about the spiritual journey of one of the world's best known disbelievers--Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev's visit to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy this month has rekindled those questions about Gorbachev's faith. Was he denouncing atheism and affirming his faith in God? Was he a closet believer even during Soviet times?

Several European media outlets were quick to size up Gorbachev's half hour of silence at St. Francis' tomb as proof that the 77-year-old former leader of an atheistic superpower was, in fact, a Christian.

The Italian newspaper La Stampa called his visit a "spiritual perestroika." A story in the London Daily Telegraph's March 19 edition concluded Gorbachev "has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time."

The paper quoted the former Soviet leader as saying that the saint's "story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life." But Gorbachev subsequently told the Russian news agency Interfax, "Let me say that I have been and remain an atheist."

Wherever the truth lies, the discussion reminds me of a passage in Paul Kengor's book, God and Ronald Reagan, describing the beginning of Reagan's May-June 1988 mission to Moscow:

[Reagan] finished his remarks by pausing, looking up, and delivering this direct, closing salutation to the general secretary and his comrades: "Thank you and God bless you." As the words left his lips and were translated into Russian, the hardened Kremlin atheists visibly blanched. Gorbachev's translator said that Reagan's words rang like blasphemy to the Soviet officials present, and they reacted with wry expressions. "The heretofore impregnable edifice of Communist atheism was being assaulted before their very eyes by [Reagan]." the translator recorded in his notes.

Much has happened in the two decades that separate us from that simple, yet defiant statement asking for God's blessing on the Soviet leaders. Mr. Gorbachev was friendlier than his predecessors to the role of religion in society. Perhaps that's all this flap over his visit to the tomb of Saint Francis signifies. I'm an optimist, however, and will be looking for more.

God, bless Mikhail Gorbachev.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at March 25, 2008 12:17PM | Comments (10)

Will Higgins's report on attendance levels at Holy Week services at a military base in northern Iraq is intriguing on several levels. First, although there are some 4,000 soldiers stationed at the base, the chaplains deemed 150 chairs and 3 Easter services more than sufficient to accommodate the number of soldiers inclined to attend. A Good Friday screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ drew only four soldiers, two of whom snoozed their way through it.

While such anecdotal evidence from a solitary military base is by no means enough to establish statistical significance, it does at the very least challenge conventional wisdom that there are no atheists in foxholes. Looking around for other media coverage of Easter services among American military in Iraq, I found little of interest save a small collection of photos that revealed services most notable for their sparse attendance (Be sure to click on the third photo to see if you can identify the gun at the foot of the praying soldier's feet). Sergeant Christopher McFadden of Indiana National Guard’s 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team finds the low attendance "dumbfounding." "If you saw the possibility of dying in front of you," he continues, "now would be the time to open the door and at least look inside."

Although I tend to share McFaddens' surprise, low attendance levels at Easter services is not the only aspect of the article I find intriguing. For one, the article points out that McFadden, an ardent Christian, carries around a metal-bound Bible printed during World War II for distribution to American soldiers, a Bible whose carrier in three previous tours of duty--in WWII, Vietnam, and Iraq--has returned home safely. McFadden had hoped this Bible and its 3-0 record would provide an entry point for evangelizing his comrades. Instead, he sincerely laments that for them this Bible is "more of an artifact, a good-luck charm, than a symbol of God's power." McFadden's comments raise interesting questions about the locus of God's power, and how we associate that power with particular material objects. Where does the power of Bibles--metal-bound or otherwise--reside? Is it in the "thing" itself and indifferent to the disposition of its carrier, or do its readers, hearers, and heed-ers know the power of God to save from death via receiving the Living Word that is not limited to any one particular copy of the Bible?

Second, the article contains a sidebar indicating that Franklin Delano Roosevelt included a foreword to the special-issue Bible "commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States." Operating in a cultural climate sensitive to questions of church and state, such words at first sounded odd to me--from another time with different sensibilities. But when I read the words of McFadden's pastor just a few lines down, I was reminded that these sensibilities are still with us. Apparently, just before McFadden departed on his tour of duty, his pastor told the congregation to think of McFadden as any other missionary, "except this one's paid for by the government."

Most intriguing of all, however, is the cryptic quote from "missionary" McFadden that closes the article. In an attempt to make sense of the war and his place in it, McFadden employs an oft-used interpretive lens in reflecting on the mysteries of divine providence: "We're in the desert for a reason. God has put us here to find ourselves." McFadden's quote shows us that for at least one soldier, making sense of the war is a "bottom-up" affair that begins with personal experience and plays out in the terrain of the heart rather than the combat zone of northern Iraq or the landscape of contemporary geopolitics.

Sgt. McFadden leaves me wondering which is more notable--the apparent lack of faith among the military, or the theological ruminations of one of the faithful.

Posted by Derek Keefe at March 24, 2008 2:43PM | Comments (14)

As the economy turns sour, there's no need to worry that food for the poor will too. That's because the country's food banks can't keep any on their shelves. A combination of factors have led to fewer food donations while a growing number of people are need of assistance, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Food services for the poor "are scrambling to make up for a loss of government provided surplus items as commodity prices have soared. Surpluses have dropped as some commodities, like corn, are being turned into alternative fuels and others are going overseas as the weak dollar makes U.S. exports more palatable to other countries."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture buys surplus food in order to help farmers by maintaining demand for their crops. But high prices have decreased the need for the government to step in. That's good for farmers, but government money given to food banks is now buying less food than in past years.

"Demand for food-bank assistance is climbing rapidly," says Chris Barrett, a Cornell University professor, "when the resources are falling in dramatic terms because the dollars just don't go as far." Demand is up 20 percent said a spokesman for one network of 250 food banks.

The Journal says:

The East End Cooperative Ministry in Pittsburgh is relying more on daily deliveries from a nearby Whole Foods store, as weekly deliveries from an area food bank have gotten smaller. The ministry group prepares meals in a church basement.

David Hereth, head cook at the soup kitchen, might get kumquats, pomegranates and artichokes, along with more common produce. One day, he received a yellow fruit he had never seen before. After researching the fruit, called a Buddha's Hand, he passed it out to soup-kitchen patrons, along with staples like peanut butter and pasta.

More and more services for the poor are being frequented by middle class families as food and energy prices rise while home values sink.

Posted by Rob Moll at March 23, 2008 8:55PM | Comments (5)

Expelled, a new documentary that argues the case for Intelligent Design from a Judeo-Christian perspective, has been in the headlines lately, prior to its April 18 theatrical release.

The film, hosted and narrated by Ben Stein, has been screened to invitation-only audiences at churches and for various Christian groups. But several critics have worked their way in to some of the screenings, most notably Roger Moore of The Orlando Sentinel, who recently trashed the movie in his blog.

A critic of another kind "crashed" a screening in Minnesota on Thursday night--Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and arguably the most outspoken critic of Intelligent Design and Creationism. Dawkins himself appears in the documentary--but claims he was duped into believing it was going to be an objective account of Darwinism vs. ID.

Jeffrey Overstreet, a film critic for CT Movies, broke the news on his own blog Thursday night after receiving an e-mail from a college student who was at the screening.

Stuart Blessman, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities student, told Overstreet in the e-mail that Dawkins' appearance "was quite a surprise" to both the audience and associate producer Mark Mathis, who fielded questions afterward.

Blessman reported that Dawkins asked several questions, and complained that "any statement he made in the film was in fact under the assumption that he was being interviewed . . . for a film that was to take an even-handed look at the Intelligent Design/Evolution controversy."

It's not the first time Dawkins and other Darwinian experts say they were duped by the filmmakers. The Guardian reported last fall that Dawkins said, "At no time was I given the slightest clue that these people were a creationist front," he said. And The New York Times quotes Dawkins and other atheists who appeared in the film under a "deceptive invitation."

Blessman also wrote that "the Q&A then proceeded pretty uneventfully, with several of the questions addressed to Dawkins himself. Mathis and Dawkins also clearly had spoken on numerous occasions and appeared to continue an argument that they had started previously."

Blessman also reported that Dawkins complained that a colleague of his was turned away even though he (Dawkins) was admitted to the screening. That colleague, PZ Myers, a biologist and prof at the University of Minnesota-Morris, is actually featured in the film. Myers later blogged his own account of what happened here and here.

Myers wrote that he caught up with Dawkins and friends after the film, "which I hear is not only boring and poorly made, but is ludicrous in its dishonesty. Apparently, a standard tactic is to do lots of fast cuts between biologists like me or Dawkins or Eugenie Scott and shots of Nazi atrocities. It's all very ham-handed. The audience apparently ate it up, though. Figures. Christians have a growing reputation for their appreciation of dishonesty."

Read more about Expelled in earlier editions of Reel News at CT Movies.

3/26 UPDATE: There has been much discussion about the use of the word "crash" to describe how Dawkins got into the screening. Since this story posted, CT has learned that the screening was not an "invitation-only" event, but that attendees had simply signed up on a website--that it was open to anyone who signed up in advance. Tickets were not needed. CT regrets the choice of the word "crash" in the title and in the story, because neither Dawkins nor Myers were trying to "crash" the event, but had legitimately signed up for the screening as did everyone else who attended.

Posted by Mark Moring at March 20, 2008 11:42PM | Comments (71)

Easter lilies, marshmallow peeps, and sin will be upon us this Sunday.

To be more precise, a "notion of sin" might be a common theme in the pews this Sunday, as USA Today describes in a piece today. "Without an idea of sin, Easter is meaningless," Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll tells Cathy Lynn Grossman.

Grossman writes about the Pope's recent "Seven Deadlies" (which David Neff writes about just below). A new survey by Ellison Research showed that 87 percent of U.S. adults believe that sin exists, defined as "something that is almost always considered wrong, particularly from a religious or moral perspective."

She contrasts pastors like Texas pastor Joel Osteen, who doesn't mention sin in his TV sermons or Your Best Life Now, with New York pastor Tim Keller, who says he provides an explanation for what sin actually is.

"They do get the idea of branding, of taking a word or term and filling it with your own content, so I have to rebrand the word 'sin,' " Keller tells Grossman. "Around here it means self-centeredness, the acorn from which it all grows. Individually, that means 'I live for myself, for my own glory and happiness, and I'll work for your happiness if it helps me.' Communally, self-centeredness is destroying peace and justice in the world, tearing the net of interwovenness, the fabric of humanity."

While non-religious fluff novalties like peeps remain quite popular, Rev. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville wonders whether pastors will make a sin connection this Sunday.

"All the Easter eggs and the Easter bunny are even more extraneous to the purpose of Easter than Santa is to Christmas," Mohler says. "At least Santa Claus was based on a saint. I wonder whether even some Christian churches are making the connection between Christ's death and resurrection and victory over sin - the linchpin doctrine of Christianity."

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at March 20, 2008 2:36PM | Comments (14)

Too much press coverage misunderstood what the Vatican was doing in issuing its recent list of serious sins. (See the excellent media criticism piece by Mollie Hemingway at Get Religion.)

But as you engage in serious self-examination this Holy Week, you might want to read a light-hearted op/ed posted today at the Indianapolis Star website (the piece originated with sister newspaper Noblesville Ledger).

Ledger columnist Jane Younce reflects on the new list of sins and finds them, well, not as personally challenging as the old Seven Deadlies: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Those were sins that everyone had to avoid. Whereas the new list seems to be dominated by sins of the rich and powerful: embryo-destroying stem cell research, environmental pollution, poverty, excessive wealth, etc.

It's not that we can do nothing about embryonic stem-cell research or environmental pollution. I recycle and use compact fluorescents, but I don't really think the Vatican is counting the occasional unrecycled paper cup among the mortal sins. That warning about environmental pollution is surely for the captains of industry.

The danger that Jane Younce's delightful column hints at is this: It is easy to feel righteous about recycling that urethane foam milkshake cup and to forget about the gluttony that I abetted by buying that milkshake.

But don't let me blather on. Just read Younce's op/ed.

Posted by David Neff at March 20, 2008 12:55PM | Comments (4)

Today's Wall Street Journal comments on China's inability to control religion. The recent protests in Tibet underscore that the Communist Party's attempts to subdue spiritual structures have little effect.

Bret Stephens writes:

The regime banned religion -- one of the so-called Four Olds -- during the Cultural Revolution. Once it figured out that that didn't work, it sought instead to turn clergy into bureaucrats, and replace the idea of the divine with the mechanics of political control. The results have been, at best, a partial success.

The Party created state sponsored religious groups that do, indeed, have a following. But the official religious groups pale in comparison to the underground ones.

Unofficial Protestants, who attend unsanctioned "house churches," are said to number anywhere between 70 million and 130 million; one prominent Chinese pastor puts the count closer to 300 million. That latter figure is probably exaggerated, but there's no question that Christianity of the unofficial kind is winning Chinese converts in huge numbers. Not only that, it's winning them among every class of Chinese: farmers, urban migrant workers, professionals and intellectuals.

Stephens argues that in "smashing" religion, the country also smashed traditional social structures. That was, of course, the point, as the state was to take over that role. But of course, it couldn't then, and in today's China can do even less.

The Party destroyed the traditional relationships between neighbors, young and old, farmer and villager. But it also destroyed morality. "To a degree that alarms even Chinese rulers, morality and ideology have been replaced by corruption, opportunism and widespread indifference to life's ordinary decencies. Religion offers a corrective to this, too, as it does to the quandaries of 21st century existence."

Ironically, it was this destruction of religion that allowed for the massive growth in Christianity that will be the subject of CT's next cover story. If people's traditional views of religion and society had not been so utterly smashed, Christianity would never have been able to get its foot in the door.

Posted by Rob Moll at March 18, 2008 7:49PM | Comments (3)

Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for President, was in Philadelphia today for a major speech on race.

Here's a link to the original speech transcript as given to the news media prior to the speech. Be sure to read (or better yet listen to) this speech. I think it's a rhetorical high water mark for the Democratic primary season that I am convinced will resolve itself well before the Democratic National Convention this summer.

Why a speech on race now?

Less than a week ago, video clips of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery sermons (including lines such as, "G-Damn America") began to show up on You Tube and other places on the net. Wright, the recently retired pastor of Chicago's Trinity UCC, a megachurch, Afrocentric congregation, has been a spiritual father to Obama in more ways than one. (Here's one link to one of the many You Tube video clips.)

After the clips surfaced, conservative media, such as Fox News, pushed this story into the national conversation, creating a domino effect of media attention. In recent days, Obama has given major interviews to Chicago news media, explaining why he rejects Wright's comments, but stops short of condemning Wright himself.

This is a tricky line to draw. In Philadelphia, Obama commented about Rev. Wright, saying:

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America, to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

A high-five to Sen. Obama for addressing the racial divisions in America at a time when politicians use slippery language to get off the hook on race. The part of the Obama speech that is less likely to gain careful examination comes in this phrase:

....opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.

So, take a short detour with me into Game Theory, in particular zero-sum and non-zero-sum situations. That's what Obama is getting at. When winners and losers in any society are determined by the color of their skin or ethnicity, then a fundamentally unjust, zero-sum situation results.

Defining this problem is just one element of game theory here. The other, harder thing to understand is the non-zero-sum situation, otherwise known as a "win-win" outcome. (In competitive sports, we are looking for one winner and one loser at the end of the game. Chess is the classic, zero-sum game.)

But in America, we believe everyone should have "a piece of the American dream"-- a good job, owning a home, public safety, good education, and a secure retirement. So the vision that Obama is casting here is really not about "pie in the sky in the sweet bye and bye," but "pie now," a bigger pie, and fair play in which each person gets a fair shot at achieving the American dream.

And, when politicians emotively talk about non-zero-sum, win-win situations, they deliver lines that invariably draw on biblical themes.

In Obama's speech, he does this by saying:

"In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand--that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."

Isn't the non-zero-sum culture (as addressed in the Psalm 133, Amos 5:24, or Acts 2:42+) one of the most persistent ideas in the entire narrative of Scripture?

Posted by Tim Morgan at March 18, 2008 10:57AM | Comments (27)

An Alabama prosecutor is taking advantage of a new law to arrest mothers found to be using drugs while pregnant. "In my jurisdiction, a baby being born dead because of drug abuse is a huge deal," district attorney, Greg L. Gambril told The New York Times.

Mr. Gambril makes little distinction between fetus and child. He said his duty was to protect both - though the Alabama law he uses makes no reference to unborn children, and was primarily intended to protect youngsters from exposure to methamphetamine laboratories.

In the last 18 months, Gambril has charged eight women in the 37,000-person county with endangering their unborn babies through drug use, "a tally," The Times says, "without any recent parallel that women's advocates have been able to find."

The article emphasizes the county's rural, Southern culture. It says Maryland threw out two similar cases, while New Mexico's Supreme Court ruled a woman couldn't be charged with child abuse for using drugs while pregnant because the fetus was not a child.

While one local attorney called the charges "an overreaching," The Times says, "others bring up the powerful, unspoken community sanction against the combination of drugs and pregnant women." Hopefully southern Alabama isn't the only place in America where people find drug abuse by pregnant women an especially troublesome problem.

But, The Times seems to say, what else is there to do in southern Alabama?

Covington County is an isolated rural terrain where drugs are a recreational outlet in the absence of others, where the police found nearly 200 methamphetamine laboratories in the first years of the decade, and where they made more arrests for abusing the drug than anywhere else in the state.

All of the women quoted by The Times had several other charges.

It's unfortunate that a public discussion over something as serious as drug abuse by pregnant women has to be laced with the abortion debate. On this issue, at least, isn't there enough common ground on which pro-life and pro-choice advocates can agree?

Posted by Rob Moll at March 15, 2008 8:19PM | Comments (9)

The Wall Street Journal reported that the families of five missionaries are suing Chiquita. The missionaries were killed by Colombian guerrilla fighters. The suit comes after the company paid a $25 million fine when it admitted to paying money to the FARC, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the state department.

The protection money was "motivated to protect the lives of our employees and their families," company spokesman Ed Loyd said. "We are contesting the suits vigorously and believe we have a strong defense."

The missionaries were members of the New Tribes Mission, which has had its own controversy over whether or not to pay money to terrorist groups.

Posted by Rob Moll at March 13, 2008 10:47PM | Comments (1)

Earlier this month, Compass Direct reported on the "huge ransom" that kidnappers were demanding in exchange for the release of Iraqi Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho. Yesterday, Rahho's body was found outside Mosul.

The archbishop was kidnapped on February 29 by armed gunmen who killed his driver and two security guards. According to Nineveh deputy governor Khasro Goran, Rahho's church and family members had been in contact with the kidnappers, whose demands they apparently did not meet. Talks broke off several days ago, and the kidnappers contacted Rahho's relatives on Thursday to let them know where to find his body.

The BBC posted a good explainer piece about Chaldean Christians today. As Eastern-rite Catholics, Chaldean Christians use a Syriac liturgy - Syriac being related to Aramaic, the language most likely spoken by Jesus. About 550,000 live in Iraq, with a sizable community of about 50,000 in Mosul, a hotspot for insurgent activity.

Posted by Madison Trammel at March 13, 2008 10:54AM | Comments (7)

For people who frequent YouTube, Facebook, and Google, net neutrality is a hot topic. For Christian and conservative groups, it became a divisive topic today.

While the Christian Coalition supports net neutrality, 12 politically conservative and Christian conservative groups today began lobbying against net neutrality, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Net neutrality means that Internet service providers, such as Comcast, would not be able to discriminate in the service they provide. All traffic would transfer at the same speed over the network, regardless of the nature of the content or who provides it.

The issue primarily is on whether the providers can charge Web sites like YouTube or Google more money to deliver their content faster. The Christian Coalition argues that this fee would hurt grassroots organizations.

However, the 12 groups want the Internet providers to be allowed to block content such as pornography from some sites, a block that could be otherwise be prohibited under net neutrality proposals. Signers included David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and Gary Bauer, president of American Values.

Part of their letter states: "We write to you to warn of the dangers of net neutrality. Now is not an appropriate time for the FCC to act. Network management is not some insidious method of stifling voices on the Internet; network management is critical to stop pornographers and pedophiles from having unfettered access to consumers' Internet connections."

The Christian Coalition has long supported net neutrality, listing it at second for its legislative agenda for 2008.

The coalition writes: If "Net Neutrality" legislation does not pass, consumers will have to pay an additional fee to have a website. The cable/telephone monopoly will be dividing the Internet into a "fast track" and "slow track." Our grassroots, who cannot afford the additional fees, will have to be on the slow track, which will mean that many of our websites will be passed by because the general public will not have the patience to go on the "slow track".

The Federal Communications Commission became interested in the issue because of a recent case involving Comcast's filtering of sites. Chairman Kevin Martin is arguing for greater fairness and transparency by Internet providers.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at March 11, 2008 2:48PM | Comments (10)

You've heard about international adoption, no doubt. But what about international surrogacy? Here's the news from The New York Times:

An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe, as word spreads of India’s mix of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.

Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some states and some European countries, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost comes to about $25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the United States. That includes the medical procedures; payment to the surrogate mother, which is often, but not always, done through the clinic; plus air tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization and a second to collect the baby).

Posted by Stan Guthrie at March 10, 2008 12:10PM | Comments (1)

On Friday, the trustees of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary elected a new president, ending a two year interim since the departure of Chuck Moore for Hillside Chapel in Dayton, Ohio.

The new president is a Scot - Alistair Brown, general director of the Baptist Missionary Society in Didcot, Oxfordshire, UK. Brown has a Ph.D. in New Testament from the University of Edinburgh and an MBA from the Open University. Before his 12 year stint at the BMS, he was for 10 years senior pastor of a church in Aberdeen.

That MBA may come in handy as Northern Seminary seeks to sell its extremely valuable property in Lombard, Illinois, and relocates to less expensive digs. See Madison Trammel's 2007 news story, "Retooling Seminary" for more background.

Posted by David Neff at March 10, 2008 9:59AM | Comments (3)

I don't pick up The Chronicle Review--an insert in The Chronicle of Higher Education--expecting to be spurred to reflection on the emerging movement. And I'm quite sure that was not what author and UCLA history professor Russell Jacoby intended. Nevertheless, his intriguing article, "Not to Complicate Matters, But...," collided with other reading from my week to produce that rare but welcome guest--a helpful insight. In short, Jacoby is frustrated with scholars' growing penchant to "complicate," "problematize," or "complexify" issues and think in so doing that their work is complete. To make his point, Jacoby cites mock and actual examples that will sound familiar to anyone who's laid their hands on a peer-reviewed academic journal in the last decade:

"I hope today to complicate our notion of cahiers - grievances - and the role they played in the States-General of 1789." The professors and graduate students at the symposium nod appreciatively. They have heard or read similar justifications untold times before. The author explains that he or she will "complicate" our understanding of some event or phenomenon. "In this article," writes an ethnic-studies professor, "I seek to complicate scholars' understanding of the 'modular' state by examining four forms of indigenous political space." Everyone seems pleased by this approach. Why? The world is complicated, but how did "complication" turn from an undeniable reality to a desirable goal? Shouldn't scholarship seek to clarify, illuminate, or - egad! - simplify, not complicate? How did the act of complicating become a virtue?

Towards the end of the article, Jacoby approaches territory that sounds more like an apologetics classroom at a Christianity liberal arts college than what one would expect from a professor at a large state university with works such as The Repression of Psychoanalysis: Otto Fenichel and the Political Freudians to his credit (although, to be fair, Jacoby is also Honorary Vice President for Life in the American Pessimist Society, so maybe he's just cranky as a rule):

The new devotion to complexity gives carte blanche to even the most trivial scholarly enterprise. Any factoid can "complicate" our interpretation. The fashion elevates confusion from a transitional stage into an end goal. We celebrate the fact that everything can be "problematized."...We revel in complexity. To be sure, few claim that the truth is simple or singular, but we have moved far from believing that truth can be set out at all with any caution and clarity.

It's Jacoby's claim that current academic devotion to complexity "elevates confusion from a transitional stage into an end goal" that provides the link to the emerging movement. The very fact that this amorphous movement moves under the designation "emerging"--coming into view or existence--suggests a critique parallel to Jacoby's.

In late 2003, Peter Rollins, whose book How (Not) to Speak of God, has been described by Tony Jones as "the best bloody book on the emerging church yet," responded this way to an interviewer's question, "What would your 'emerging church survival kit' contain?"

An empty space? really. I think that if you want to survive Christianity, and I am not sure if its possible yet, you need one of those cartoon tunnels, something that can create a womb-like space in the being of your beliefs and religious services, a virgin space where the word of God can impregnate you...

The problem with using a metaphor of gestation--or even the designation emerging for that matter--to describe a movement is that it necessarily entails a coming birth, a definitive coming into existence. In order for the complicating, complexifying, and problematizing work of the emerging movement to prove fruitful to the Church, it will have to move beyond this transitional stage at some point, and deliver the greater goods of illumination and clarity. Here's hoping for a healthy baby.

Posted by Derek Keefe at March 7, 2008 2:03PM | Comments (9)

Yesterday afternoon, news of the slaughter at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem yesterday shocked me, shocked the world. It was the first major terrorist incident inside the city of Jerusalem in four years. Eight died. Nine were seriously wounded. Perhaps we had thought that the security barrier was able to protect the city completely. Evil is more clever than that.

This morning I was shocked again and wept at my desk when a close friend e-mailed me links to two Picasa photo galleries of the aftermath of the massacre (click here and here for the aftermath and here for pictures of the mourners). The aftermath photos are bloody. But we who are often isolated from such violence need to see such things in order to name the horror for what it is.

The irony is that we are approaching the feast of Purim (to be celebrated this year March 20-23). The traditional festival celebrates the courage of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai that helped deliver the Jews from the genocidal Haman.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Posted by David Neff at March 7, 2008 10:47AM | Comments (8)

Tensions are re-emerging between Jewish organizations and some mainline Protestant churches in the wake of a renewed drive for churches to divest from companies doing business with Israel.

The United Methodist Church opened discussions last Friday on a resolution calling for divestment from Caterpillar, the tractor manufacturer, because the company supplies Israel with bulldozers used in building the separation barrier and in demolishing Palestinian homes. The divestment resolution comes only months after the publication of a church-sponsored report referring to the creation of the State of Israel as the "original sin."

Relations with the Presbyterian Church (USA) are also strained, following remarks by church officials criticizing Israel because of the Gaza closure. A recent study by an affiliate of the Presbyterian Church called on American Jews to "get a life" instead of focusing on defending Israeli policies.

"This reflects a very disturbing trend in these churches," said Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "These developments are a result of work of several very wicked forces that play in the church."

This report is from The Forward. I don't know what these "wicked forces" are, but if Christians are going to use insincere metaphors like comparing Zionism to the Fall of Man, I guess Jews are afforded similarly inflammatory language. Though I'm not sure what good dissolving this disagreement into a diatribe would do.

Most Jews have assumed the drive by mainline denominations to divest from Israel was over. But from what I understand, it's just picking up again and a divestment resolution will be discussed at the United Methodist Church's general conference next month. Such a move might encourage the PCUSA to reconsider the resolution it passed two years ago but then set aside.

For years, the chasm between mainline Protestants and their evangelical and Pentecostal counterparts has been growing in terms of their relationship to Israel. Not every evangelical is the gentile Maccabi John Hagee, who coincidentally gives much of the Jewish community the creeps, but during the past year I've encountered a number of Christian groups that have a more profound love for, and unconditional defense of, the Holy Land than many American Jews.

Last summer, the same week that Walt and Mearsheimer's "The Israel Lobby" was published, Christianity Today explained why Christians should love not only God's promised land but his chosen people too.

The key complaint offered against dispensationalists is that they talk as though God had separate plans for saving Israel and the church. And contemporary Reformed Christians are accused of having a "replacement theology" in which the church takes the place of Israel, inheriting all of God's promises with no remainder for the Jewish people. The one view tends to find no fault with Israeli government decisions as long as they do not compromise dispensational theology. The other view tends to consider the continued existence of the Jewish people a historical anomaly with little theological significance.

But we cannot read the New Testament without seeing that the Jews continue to have a place in God's economy. Gentile Christians do not replace the Jews, but are joint heirs and wild branches grafted onto the Jewish olive tree. God's ultimate purpose in saving Gentile Christians is to save the Jews (Rom. 11).

The evangelical mainstream needs to do some rigorous theological work on its relationship to Judaism, to the Jewish people, and to the state of Israel. The concerns we must address include:

The need to learn how Judaism and the Jewish people understand themselves. ...

The fundamentally Jewish character of God's revelation in Jesus. ...

What justice means for a Jewish state and its neighbors. ...

What kind of theological and ethical significance evangelicals can give the state of Israel before the return of Messiah Jesus. ...

Optimism for a negotiated solution to Israeli-Palestinian tensions fluctuates with the news. But Christians must hope in God's covenant faithfulness. Meanwhile, we should keep reminding those involved in direct negotiations that we long for a solution that provides a secure Jewish homeland and self-determination and prosperity for Palestinians. In God's eyes, the peace of Jerusalem is to bless all peoples.

This article was cross-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at March 7, 2008 1:39AM | Comments (28)

After two terms heading the U.K.'s equivalent to the National Association of Evangelicals, Joel Edwards is almost ready to step away. In a letter to members of the Evangelical Alliance (EA), Edwards said he will spend his final six months on the job touring the country and helping to "start a conversation about the role of evangelicals in society today and the future."

Previously the general secretary of the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance, Edwards did much to raise the profile of evangelicals in the U.K. He was appointed to the country's Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last year amid protests from gay-rights groups, and his book, An Agenda for Change, is due out in the U.K. this month.

Edwards has said he will continue to serve on the equality commission after stepping down from the EA.

Posted by Madison Trammel at March 6, 2008 12:28PM | Comments (0)

This week's New York Times Magazine featured an excellent article on single-sex education, a topic that has shifted to the limelight in public debate after a Georgia school board unanimously decided last week to convert its public classrooms to single-sex next fall. While it's debatable whether their plan will go through (most of the county's parents and teachers decry their absence in the decision-making process), the idea has nonetheless raised new discussions about gender and justice in U.S. public education.

At the center of these discussions stands Leonard Sax, a family physician who began espousing the benefits of single-sex schools after studying the neurological differences between males and females. While Sax does not support the Georgia school board's decision (he believes parents should be given a choice to enroll their children in sex-segregated classrooms), he nonetheless continues to campaign for more single-sex classrooms across the country. Sax founded the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education in 2002, and claims that there are now 366 U.S. public schools that are sex-segregated. Many of these schools have significantly benefited from the set-up, seeing higher test scores, less misbehavior in the classroom, and more parental support and investment.

The primary benefit of sex-segregated classrooms, argues Sax, is that the classroom can be tailored to fit each gender's biologically based learning method. Sax has concluded that the environment of most public classrooms is not conducive to boys' intellectual growth; he points to the "feminization" of curriculum and teaching methods as one reason why so many young men drop out of the learning experience (a concern he popularized in his 2007 book, Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men).

Another group of educators espouse the benefits of single-sex education, but do not root their arguments in what some have called Sax's "gender essentialism." Instead, people like the staff at the Young Women's Leadership School in Harlem say sex-segregated classrooms offer spaces where children are more easily able to develop their selfhood (and self-esteem) without the distraction, teasing, and competition of the other sex, especially while on the brink of adolescence. Young girls may be special benefactors of this set-up, as they can be encouraged to pursue stereotypically male areas of studies, such as math and science, without being ridiculed. The "social view" seems to have some credence: Since its beginning in 1996, every girl at TYWLS has graduated and been accepted at a four-year college, a feat rarely heard of in crime- and poverty-stricken Harlem.

Elizabeth Weil, author of the NYT piece, says single-sex education has divided feminists down the middle. Some, like the Huffington Post's Lenora Lapidus and Emily Martin, see in Leonard Sax's equation a "biological determinism" founded in shoddy scientific research that has young women getting the short end of the stick, neurologically speaking. They write,

The overgeneralizations that brain difference theorists promote have pernicious real-world effects. While boys' classrooms are being designed to engage students physically, to allow for hands-on learning, and to make education a game as often as possible, girls' classrooms are places where students are encouraged to sit quietly at their desks and to talk about their feelings. Girls lose when their education is based on the notion that their brains leave them unqualified for abstract thought or risk-taking, just as boys lose when teachers assume that their brains leave them unable to empathize or to nurture.

But there are other feminists who can't help but applaud the work being done at places like TYWLS, which offer a place where young girls grow academically and personally while more likely avoiding the "self-esteem plummet" that has been popularized in books like Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. They may have more opportunities to contribute to the learning process without fearing being "drowned out" by or "looking stupid" in front of boys. Only time will tell if feminists contributing to the conversation on public education will find a way to acknowledge differences between boys and girls' learning styles without compromising girls' opportunities to flourish intellectually and to enter the post-graduate world with the self-assuredness to want to change it.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at March 6, 2008 10:46AM | Comments (8)

Mike Huckabee withdrew from the race tonight after Sen. John McCain clinched key victories today.

"It's now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been but what now must be, and that is a united party," Huckabee said in his concession speech.

The former Baptist pastor drew attention after his win in Iowa and surprised some with his success on Super Tuesday. He said tonight that he only had a staff of about 30 people. "No one has ever gotten this far with such limited resources," he told a Texas rally. However, Huckabee never drew the same kind of evangelical support as President Bush, who took 78 percent of the evangelical vote in 2004.

Huckabee appealed some evangelicals who were dissatisfied with McCain. However, Brett O'Donnell, a spokesman for McCain's campaign, told CT earlier that evangelicals will likely support the senator once he wins the nomination.

The most recent Christianity Today online poll that opened yesterday show 31 percent of CT readers supporting Huckabee, with McCain and Sen. Barack Obama tied at 26 percent.

Huckabee's future is uncertain, but he is sometimes mentioned in lists of McCain's possible vice presidents. The Washington Times writes that that Huckabee's inner circle feels he could be the emerging leader who could re-establish the religious right, but his economic policies could also be too divisive.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at March 4, 2008 8:18PM | Comments (14)

Robert A. Walker, a legendary figure among Christians in journalism, died on Saturday, March 1 in Carol Stream, Illinois. His staggering list of professional achievements easily places him among the giants of his generation in Christian media.

UPDATE: According to the current schedule, there will be a memorial service for Bob Walker, Friday, March 14, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, to be held at Wheaton Bible Church

Assist News Service notes:

Robert Alander Walker, who received the first prestigious Magazine Publishers Award from the Evangelical Christian Publisher Association in 1994, is considered by many to be the pioneer of Christian Journalism.

"That's because he has been involved with so much over so many years," says Mark Sweeny, President of ECPA.

Those "involvements" include the founding/editing of His magazine for students on secular college campuses, and of Sunday magazine (precursor of Christian Life) - the first pocket-size Christian publication. Time and Newsweek took note by featuring the event.

Walker also established the Christian Writers' institute, a correspondence school which has graduated upwards of 25,000 students, and Creation House, a book publishing entity with such titles as A New Song, by Pat Boone, and Finger Lickin' Good, by Colonel Sanders.

Christian Bookseller magazine (later to become Christian Retailing) also was a brainchild of Walker, along with Christian Life Missions, a world-wide outreach.

Look here for the ANS obituary.

News of his passing is working its way out into the greater religious community. Walker served on the board of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. The IFCJ released a statement, saying:

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), its staff and supporters mourn the passing of a true friend - Robert A. Walker - on Saturday, March 1, 2008. An active part of The Fellowship since its inception in 1983, Mr. Walker, 95, was a founding member of the organization's board of directors and was dedicated to the cause of building bridges of understanding and cooperation between Christians and Jews. "Bob was a man of deep Christian belief whose faith spilled over into all aspects of life. His commitment to his faith was absolute and, yet, he was warm and tolerant toward those who did not necessarily share his views," said Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, IFCJ President. "His devotion and guidance played a major role in our organization's development over the years. Israel and the Jewish people - and I, on a deep and personal level - have lost a dear friend."

There is a Pat Boone connection ("A New Song"), as well as a Pat Robertson/CBN connection.

According to IFCJ:

"Bob Walker was one of the five founding board members of CBN and has been a close friend for almost 50 years. As publisher of Christian Life magazine, Bob was a very influential leader of evangelical Christianity and a highly-regarded member of our community. He lived a strong and full life, and we will sorely miss him," added Dr. Pat Robertson, Founder & Chairman of CBN.

On Pat Roberston's website, there is a fascinating account of Pat's first encounter with Bob Walker and Pat's introduction to being "baptized in the Holy Spirit."

Pat writes that during the late 1950s:

I was invited to the Presidential Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., to speak to the Senate prayer group of which my father was a member. At the end of a meeting, Bob Walker, the ruggedly handsome editor of Christian Life, came over to me, chatted a bit, and then asked, "Have you ever heard of the baptism in the Holy Spirit?"

"That's the experience I have been searching for," I replied, but before I could finish my sentence, we were interrupted, leaving me wondering why he would ask me such a question.

I returned to New York, and arriving at Penn Station went directly to the annual banquet of Christian Soldiers, Inc., on whose board I was a member. Seated at the head table with me was an ebullient young minister, Harald Bredesen, who, it turned out, was public-relations director for the Gospel Association for the Blind. I was drawn to him by his warmth of spirit and was delighted when we discovered at the conclusion of the banquet that we were taking the same subway home. We were no sooner seated than with an engaging smile he asked, "Do you know anything about the baptism in the Holy Spirit?"

"Funny you should ask," I replied. "Just today in Washington I met a fellow named Bob Walker, and he asked me the same question."

"Bob Walker!" he exclaimed. "He's one of my best friends. He's just received the baptism. That's why he wanted to share it with you." Harald was exuberant-I was awed by the providence of God.

Posted by Tim Morgan at March 4, 2008 6:10PM | Comments (3)

Many evangelicals seem taken with Barack Obama. Tired of the Religious Right and seeking a new tone in Washington, they see in this untested, enigmatic senator a chance for real change. And indeed he is congenial and a breath of fresh air when compared with the grasping Clinton dynasty. Many Bible-believers seem ready to look the other way with Obama, despite his extremely liberal voting record (including unfettered backing of abortion), because he appears to be a genuine person they can work with.

I wonder how his latest, religiously based comments might change this. The other day Obama reiterated his support for civil unions for homosexuals. No surprise there. Some Christians (but not me) do indeed allow for the conferring of some legal rights, short of marital status, on gays as a simple matter of fairness. But I suspect his rationale raised some hackles.

If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.

Since when did Romans 1 become obscure? I thought pitting the words of Jesus against those of Paul was a tactic of Red Letter Christians, not something a serious candidate for the Oval Office would engage in.

But be that as it may, it's a good thing that Obama is not running for theologian in chief. There is no refererence to gay civil unions in the Sermon on the Mount (unless you stretch the Golden Rule beyond all recognition). Perhaps Obama mixed up his Bible references, like Howard Dean calling Job his favorite New Testament book?

When Jesus spoke of marriage, of course, he assumed it is a heterosexual institution. There may be a legal case to be made for marriage-like civil unions. But, please, let's not drag Jesus into it.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at March 4, 2008 2:39PM | Comments (49)

In Washington today (March 4, 2008), the King of Jordan Abdullah II was scheduled to meet with President Bush at the White House. Jordan has been a strong ally of the US for years and has been generally given OK marks for religious freedom. (In other words, Jordan isn't a Saudia Arabia or Iran in repressing religious minorities.)

But in recent weeks, there are credible reports that the government has kicked out evangelicals or refused to renew their visas. On Monday, the Washington Times reported:

Evangelical Christians are under fire in Jordan, and more than two dozen missionaries and seminary students have been deported or refused visas in the past year. Some of the 27 families or individuals are American citizens, a source of some embarrassment to Jordan's King Abdullah II, who will be in Washington tomorrow to visit the White House and conduct interfaith discussions with Muslim and Jewish leaders.

No surprise, leaders of the historic Christian churches in Jordan have found the presence of evangelicals a problem. Some evangelicals are willing to answer the faith questions of seekers from an Islamic background and other evangelicals who, for example, might be doing development work are also happy to talk about their Christian faith.

The government alleges covert missionary activity. Compass Direct reports on this aspect, noting in a late February dispatch:

Jordan last week [week of Feb. 17] admitted to expelling foreigners for "illegal" missionary activities. Acting Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh told the Jordanian parliament on Wednesday (February 20) that authorities had expelled missionaries operating "under the cover of doing charitable work," suggesting that evangelistic activity is illegal in Jordan. If such evangelistic work were illegal, Jordan could be opening itself to accusations of violating of Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the country published in its official Gazette in July 2006, giving it the force of law.

On January 29 Compass reported that Jordan had deported and denied residence permits to at least 27 foreign Christian individuals and families in 2007. On February 20 the acting foreign minister, Judeh, read a statement by the Council of the Church Leaders of Jordan condemning the Compass report. The Jordanian parliament on Thursday (February 21) then passed a resolution condemning the Compass article. While it was unclear what the government considered false in the report, the fact of deportations of Christians was further verified as authorities on February 10 expelled an Egyptian pastor with the Assemblies of God church in Madaba and, the previous week, an Egyptian pastor from a Baptist church in Zarqa.

See the full report here

The big question for President Bush and Jordan's King Abdullah is this: How can they expect evangelicals, American or otherwise, to support a Middle East peace strategy that puts a very low priority on securing religious freedom for all peoples of the Middle East?

If religious freedom is in jeopardy in a Western-friendly nation like Jordan, then Islamic leaders in Gaza, Syria, Iran, or Afghanistan have little or no motivation provide religious freedom to their populations.

Posted by Tim Morgan at March 4, 2008 10:46AM | Comments (9)

Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama invoked the Sermon on the Mount as a reason for why he supports civil unions during an appearance in Nelsonville, Ohio, on Sunday.

The response came after Pastor Leon Forte, who heads up Grace Christian Center in Athens, Ohio, asked about Obama's faith. The video is available here and the full transcript is available here.

"Your campaign sets a quandary for most evangelical Christians," Forte said. "They believe in the social agenda that you have. They have a problem with what the conservatives have laid out as the moral litmus test about who is worthy and who is not."

Obama responded by saying he is a devout Christian, he prays to Jesus every night and tries to go to church as much as he can.

"I think what you may be referring to, though, when you say controversies, probably has more to do with two issues, which is abortion and gay marriage, which has become, I think, how people measure faith in the evangelical community."

Obama said that while he does not believe in gay marriage, he does think the state should allow civil unions that allow a same-sex couples to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each other.

"If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans," Obama said.

He called abortion a tragic and painful issue.

"But I think that ... in the end I think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat in Washington."

Obama ended: "That's my view. Again, I respect people who may disagree, but I certainly don't think it makes me less Christian. Okay."

Obama also cited the Sermon on the Mount in his June 28, 2006, 'Call to Renewal' address.

"Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles."

Obama also spoke with CT about abortion in a January interview.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at March 3, 2008 9:06AM | Comments (74)