Yesterday, top leaders from India's vibrant Christian community in greater Chicago held a press conference to announce that this Sunday they will hold a peace rally in support of the persecuted Christians from India's violence-stricken state of Orissa.

In the November 2008 edition of Christianity Today, we will have both a news report and editorial commentary on the situation for Christians in India.

Here's one graph from the CT editorial:

"The real embarrassment to the world's largest democracy is not this incident. No, it is the fact that this flashpoint is not all that unusual for India. Orissa witnessed similar attacks against Christians just last Christmas. According to the All India Christian Council, which defends the human rights of the nation's long-oppressed Dalits, somewhere in India an attack against Christians occurs on average every three days. Readers of this periodical will likely recall the grisly murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in Orissa nearly a decade ago (CT, March 1, 1999)."

This rare peace rally will occur on Sunday, Sept. 28. Here are details:

St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Diocese of Chicago's Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Mar Jacob Angadiath sent a following appeal to all peace lovers in Chicagoland to join him for a Peace Rally on September 28, 2008 at 1:30 p.m. at St. Thomas Syro Malabar Cathedral Grounds:

"As you are well aware the persecution of our Christian brethren and the destruction of our churches, convents, orphanages and other Christian institutions are continuing unabated in Orissa, Karnataka and in some parts of Kerala. We cannot remain silent spectators of such gruesome cruelties inflicted on innocent people. We have to make our people and local congregations aware of the indescribable cruelty of this hatred and violence against Christians. It was the desire of many people who have contacted me to act together to bring to the attention of the Christian faithful here the atrocities of this cruel rampage.

Hence may I request to join me along with all the peace loving congregations to show our solidarity and support to our brothers and sisters in India. I am calling for a 'Peace Rally' and a 'Prayer Vigil' on Sunday, September 28, 2008 at 1:30 P.M. at the Syro-Malabar Cathedral Grounds, 5000 St. Charles Road, Bellwood, Illinois.

In Friday's Chicago Tribune, the newspaper noted:

I'm always skeptical when people refer to fringe religious groups as "cults." You know, Christianity was a heretical Jewish cult in the first century, and look how that turned out.

The word cult was thrown around in Sunday papers this weekend following the raid of Tony Alamo Ministries, and again, I chose against using the word. The guy certainly seemed odd, and allegations of a child pornography ring at his religious compound didn't help. But those were allegations, and Fouke, Ark., wasn't Jonestown or Rancho Santa Fe.

I'm still not ready to call Alamo a cult leader, but I am willing to say he is absolutely bonkers, at least theologically. Last night he did exactly what no person in trouble should do: He opened his mouth, and to a reporter no less. And, boy, he's got some wild ideas.

An excerpt of the blog post from John C. Williams at the Arkansas Times, who interview Alamo, is after the jump:

Bolivian television stations are repeatedly playing a clip of a pastor being shot on September 12 by the country's military in the capital of Pando.

In the video (warning: very disturbing - it's 3 minutes of people being shot), it's unclear what is going on. A soldier is shouting into a crowd of civilians, women begin screaming, and then the shooting starts. Some soldiers fired into the air, but some shoot into the crowd. Several people fall to the ground. Some don't get up.

Christian World News (a Christian Broadcasting Network affiliate) reports that soldiers were re-taking the airport from a group of civilians in the terminal. EntreChristianios says evangelical pastor Luis Antonio Rivero Shiguekuni was one of those protesting the presence of troops in their city; CWN describes him as "a visiting Christian evangelist."

After most of the shooting ends, the cameraman focuses on Rivero, who seems to have been shot to death. Two men hold him in a sitting position. He is unresponsive. The clip cuts out as a jeep pulls up beside them.

Rivero's brother has appeared on television to explain the incident and demand justice. He praised the local media, saying they were the reason he knows as much as he does about this murder. A partially translated transcript by CT senior writer Deann Alford reads:

It took 20 hours to return the body of our brother. Now we want justice to be done. We are not political, militant people. Politics doesn't interest us. What we went is that the manner be clarified how our brother was murdered.

We received his body?.He was shot at 6:30 p.m., and the coroner said 8 hours later he was shot with the second bullet. [Rivero] lived 4 more hours after that. What happened to the body of my brother during this time? Why was there a 16-hour delay before the military returned his body?

We don't know why or the reason for the treatment/behavior of the military toward my brother. He was an evangelical pastor, a man of peace.

The only thing we want is justice.

Pando's governor, Leopoldo Fernandez, has been accused of overseeing the shootings, according to the The New York Times, and has been arrested by Pando's army. The Wall Street Journal says he "is being investigated on genocide accusations."

We will continue to update this story as new information comes in.

Fans of the classic "Star Trek" television series will be well aware of the Prime Directive, which prohibited Starfleet personnel from interfering in the alien cultures and societies they met. It was an immoral, unworkable rule, however, and Captain Kirk disobeyed it regularly, rarely losing sleep over his decision to do the right thing. Today anthropologists in South America seemingly have their own prime directive: no interfering in native cultures, even when those societies apparently practice infanticide. Christian missionaries, however, are playing the role of Captain Kirk.

Tonight "Nightline explores one such dispute. It involves Youth With A Mission workers who say "the Brazilian government is turning a blind eye to the killing of babies born with birth defects, many of which are treatable by Western medicine" and the Brazilian Department of Indian Affairs, which "is accusing the evangelicals of enslaving Indians and disguising their intent to evangelize." The story is centered on "a girl named Hakani, a member of the Suruwaha Indian tribe, who has been adopted by evangelical missionaries Marcia and Edson Suzuki."

Of course, missionaries have long stood not just for evangelism, but for defending the powerless from injustice. To cite just one example, William Carey, who has come to be known as the father of modern missions, led the fight against the ungodly practice of sati, or widow-burning, in India two centuries ago.

The program is scheduled for 10:35 Central Time on ABC.

Update: The program is scheduled for Wednesday night at 10:35 Central.

UPDATE:

Friday, 19 September 2008

The Anglican Province of the Southern Cone has accepted Pittsburgh's deposed Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan into episcopal ministry. This is a widely anticipated move and represents further evidence that Anglicanism, as a global religious entity, is now amid its greatest historical crisis.

The following statement was released today by Archbishop Gregory Venables, of the Province of the Southern Cone, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, of the Province of the West Indies, and Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, of the Province of Kenya:

"In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen. We the undersigned are grieved at the violation of catholic order in the declaration of deposition of The Right Rev. Robert Duncan by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church and consider it to be invalid. Legitimate actions of catholic order must rise from Biblical catholic faith. Actions such as this continue to alienate countless Christian people not only within, but beyond the limits of the Communion. We continue to recognize the fidelity and validity of Bishop Duncan's orders, role, and ministry. Without reservation, we continue in full sacramental communion with him as an Anglican bishop. We thank God that by the vote of the Provincial Synod he has been given membership in the House of Bishops of the Southern Cone. Our fellowship and shared ministry with him is not disrupted."

The next steps may be the Episcopal Church moving to take control of diocesan assets. This could end up in court as early as next week, but not be fully resolved for some years to come.

This afternoon, Episcopal Presiding Bishop K. Jefferts Schori will hold a press conference. Stand by for further updates late today.

* * *
UPDATE:

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008, 6:40 p.m

This evening, an influential evangelical leader in New York City issued by email to me a personal call for Christians to pray for the crisis hitting the investment community. Allow me to share his (edited) email as follows:

It is crucial to take forceful leadership in praying for our business leaders, Christians in the financial industry and those whose investments and mortgages are tanking. We may find it hard to pray for these bankers because they are insanely wealthy, true.

A few of them can be terribly arrogant; and some can have little heart for the less wealthy. Yet, Jesus prayed for the rotten because he loved the rotten. In this situation prayer could accompany a revival of the heart on Wall Street. Christian leaders need to lead during this financial crisis, which is threatening to become one of the greatest in our nation's history.

We can hope that these are only "rough spots along the road." Or "You have to throw out the history books because there's really nothing to compare this to," said one chief investment officer.

A chief market strategist said the magnitude of the financial industry fallout is unprecedented, and could only be compared to the Great Depression of the 1930s or the railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s.

NYC financial industry may lose 150,000 jobs this year. Ministries and churches that rely on donations from the financial industry should expect a 25 percent drop in giving.

Yet, we shouldn't be too alarmist because it could create a sense of panic.

We should recognize the intense pressure on our brothers and sisters in the financial industry. In discussions with financial leaders earlier this year I found that their spiritual and emotional condition was already sending an //SOS// for help.

Now, they may be shouting for the life buoy.

Pray for more of Jesus on Wall Street.

This quarter is likely to be the first since 1991 in which American consumers cut back on their purchases. A Wall Street Journal survey of more than 50 economists found that they "expect a 0.1% contraction in consumer spending during the third quarter." Other forecasts expect a greater than 1 percent decline.

The last recession earlier this decade surprised economists when consumers continued to spend, even as the stock market declined, unemployment worsened, and wages were stagnant. Of course Americans were encouraged by politicians following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to do their patriotic duty and hop on planes, visit shopping malls, and go to the movies. Though finanicial markets and wage growth slackened, consumers were able to tap into their homes to maintain the type of consumption the go-go '90s had provided.

It's over now--even for teens. Often viewed as recession-proof spenders, American teenagers are getting frugal. Adrienne Tennant, a senior analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, told Portfolio magazine, "Usually teens are a resilient portion of the economy because all spending is discretionary, but this time around, gas prices are clearly eating up budgets." Despite a $100 billion stimulus injection, retail sales fell in August after falling in July.

On top of that, declining gas prices seem to have done nothing to make consumers more willing to spend. "The fact that purchases at gasoline stations declined 2.5% for the month and consumers did not utilize those savings for consumption elsewhere is more than a bit troubling," says Joseph Brusuelas of Merk Investments."

Over the long term a consumer retrenchment is probably a good thing, but the process may last years, which would be economically painful. It would mean high unemployment, slow economic growth, stagnant house values, and more.

While this is no immediate consolation--especially to those looking for jobs, seeing their homes foreclosed, struggling to make payments--it illustrates, in a fascinating way, human behavior. First, you get what you pay for. Pay too much (because you were too greedy) for a high-priced stock or home, and it will come back to bite you. Next, go too much into debt, as as the Bible warns, you'll become servant to the lender. Third, follow the crowd that exuberantly says, "This time it's different," and you'll find that broad are the paths that lead to destruction.

Finally, there is nothing new under the sun. Centuries ago, John Bunyan instructed readers of The Pilgrim's Progress on the dangers of Vanity Fair. Christians, he admonished were to follow the example of "that Blessed One," who was tempted by the devil when he passed through the town "to cheapen and buy" some of the delights at the fair. "But he had no mind to the merchandize, and therefore left the Town, without laying out so much as one farthing upon these Vanities."

Though the Puritan's words seem oh so applicable now, he knew the temptations would return. "This Fair, therefore, is an ancient thing, of long standing, and a very great Fair."

Here's the latest report from the Salvation Army about the preparations for post-landfall and Hurricane Ike:
Salvation Army Supporting Shelter and Evacuation for Hurricane Ike With Meals for Thousands of Evacuees and Emergency Workers

The key quote:

"A storm of this size and intensity threatening a metropolitan area presents an enormous danger," said Major James Taylor, Texas Divisional Secretary for The Salvation Army. "Hurricane-force winds and wide-spread flooding could not only cause loss of life and property, but could displace thousands of people for an indefinite period of time. We'll need public support to ensure a viable long-term response effort for the many people we expect will be in need."

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has this news:

As Deadly Hurricane Looms, Rapid Response Team Springs into Action

Ray Boltz, who sold about 4.5 million records before retiring from Christian music a few years ago, came out of the closet Friday to announce that he's gay.

In an interview with the gay magazine The Washington Blade, Boltz said he came out to his family and some close friends in December 2004, but only now decided to go public with the news.

"I'd denied it ever since I was a kid," Boltz, 55, told the magazine. "I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, 'I'm still gay. I know I am.' And I just got to the place where I couldn't take it anymore — when I was going through all this darkness, I thought, 'Just end this.' "

One reason Boltz decided to come out now might be because he's performing Sunday at Jesus Metropolitan Community Church in Indianapolis, and then next Sunday, Sept. 21, at the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C. Both congregations are a part of a denomination that embraces the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community.
Boltz is perhaps best known for his song "Thank You," about a dream in which a Christian thanks the Sunday school teacher who led him to Jesus. It was the GMA song of the year in 1990. Other Boltz hits include "Watch the Lamb," "The Anchor Holds," and "I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb."

Boltz also told The Blade that he doesn't want to get into debates about Scripture and has no plans to "go into First Baptist or an Assembly of God church and run in there and say, 'I'm gay and you need to love me anyway.' "

For him, the decision to come out is much more personal.

"This is what it really comes down to," he says. "If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I'm going to live. It's not like God made me this way and he'll send me to hell if I am who he created me to be — I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself."

Earlier, Boltz had alluded to the issue on his official website, saying that if people "knew who I really was, I would never be accepted."

A few days ago, I received a press release for GodblogCon, the annual gathering of Christian bloggers. The September 20-21 meeting in Las Vegas (it is scheduled to coincide with the mainstream BlogWorld and the New Media Expo) will feature several prominent Christian bloggers, like Tall Skinny Kiwi's Andrew Jones, La Shawn Barber, and ScrappleFace satirist Scott Ott.

But at the top of the list, the press release mentioned that a key speaker would be "Joe Carter, the Christian blogosphere's very own Bono." Carter, formerly of Family Research Council, World Magazine, The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, the Mike Huckabee campaign, The East Texas Tribune, and the U.S. Marine Corps, is perhaps best known as the creator of EvangelicalOutpost.com.

The five-year-old site became one of the most prominent evangelical blogs and was in many ways as influential on its own as several of the organizations on Carter's resume. (Not too many Christian bloggers' views on bioethics have been profiled by The Washington Post.)

But there's a new wrinkle. Carter is no longer speaking at GodBlogCon, and is no longer blogging at EvangelicalOutpost.com.

And according to a farewell post on Evangelical Outpost, Carter wonders about the future of independent sites like his.

"The future of the new media, in my opinion, is moving away from personal sites toward online collectives that are focused on particular interests," he wrote. "The political left has been doing this for years (see: DailyKos) but the other areas of the blogging community have been slow to follow this approach. ? [T]he future of online activity will move to ?planned communities' rather than, for example, the ?ghettos' that Christian bloggers have been trying to break out of for years."

I wonder how that will go over at GodBlogCon, where the emphasis in recent years has been on personal sites rather than corporate blogs. (Carter has some more thoughts in an interview at Justin Taylor's hugely popular independent Christian blog, Between Two Worlds.)

Carter isn't giving up on blogging, though. His new outpost is one of those "planned communities" and "online collectives." Carter is managing editor of Culture11.com, launched by former White House staffers Bill Bennett and David Kuo with David Gelernter. And he's blogging with Kuo. (Though the title of the new blog, "Kuo & Joe, may be a massive misnomer: Carter's posts significantly outnumber those from Kuo, who says he's keeping his Beliefnet blog alive.)

Evangelical Outpost will stick around, too. Carter handed the keys off to Biola University's Torrey Honors Institute, which is the main sponsor of GodBlogCon.

A judge ruled that a church property in Oklahoma belongs to the Presbyterian Church USA after a two-year fight with the congregation, Tulsa World reports.

Kirk of the Hills left the Presbyterian Church USA two years ago, expressing concerns that the denomination was drifting from its biblical foundation, reporter Bill Sherman writes. It has continued to meet in the building and plans to appeal the decision.

The latest from Jeff Shinabarger, co-founder of the Fermi Project and former Catalyst guy: a bench monster.

In his words, it's "a celebration of mass transportation." But it's also a way of ministering to his community in East Atlanta Village. On his blog, Shinabarger noted, "I couldn’t just buy a bench and fix the problem, instead we are turning it into a viral idea with a custom artistic bench, recycling bins, trash cans, a flower bed and a full film crew to share the transformation with the world."

Benched from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

When Random House dropped the The Jewel of Medina, a romance novel about Muhammad and his child bride, they said it was because it "could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment." Were they talking about literary critics?

A Wall Street Journal op-ed quotes the professor who, according to the article, sparked fears of violent retribution, saying the novel was "a very ugly, stupid piece of work. . . . You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography."

NPR posted an excerpt of the prologue of the book, now to be published by Beaufort Books: "Scandal blew in on the errant wind when I rode into Medina clutching Safwan's waist. My neighbors rushed into the street like storm waters flooding a wadi." Ugh.

Further down in the passage, Muhammad is reverently and sympathetically portrayed. But kind intentions and literary mediocrity didn't render the book passable in Serbia, where a publisher pulled the book and apologized to an Islamic society that was getting ready to protest. It remains to be seen how "small, radical segments" will react this year when the book is published in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Macedonia, Brazil and Germany.

Beaufort Books also published HarperCollins/Regan Books castoff If I Did It by O.J. Simpson.

30 Minutes, a news feature program produced by IBN Live/India, has posted its digital video reports on the situation in Orissa. Amazingly, they have actual footage of the burning of Christian villages. The losses are sickening.

Click here.

Local Hindu fundamentalists are using extreme rhetoric about Dalit Christians, who are at the bottom of India's social hierarchy. On segment 2 of the broadcast, one of them says, "Now we have rise and we will destroy them all." The 'them' is us Christians.

How will the global church respond?

So far, both the pope, the archbishop of Canterbury, and a few others have issued statements condemning the violence. Surely, statements alone are an insufficient response.

Here's the list of 47 incidents of violence against Christians in Orissa as well as a listing of top leaders in India, where Christians can directly lodge protests:

Courtesy of Barb Gauthier, I learned this morning that the India Missions Association has set aside today, Sept. 7, 2008, as a day of prayer and fasting. The religious tensions inside India are extremely high. Fundamentalist Hindus are singling out Christians for extreme harassment. Note the treatment of nuns in a report also included below.

Dear All, The India Missions Association and a number of Protestant and Catholic churches have asked that this Sunday be set aside to pray for the Christians in northern India, who are being persecuted by Hindu extremists. Churches, homes and schools have been torched. Several Christians and one Hindu have been killed and many are now living in the jungle or make-shift refugee camps. Pray for God's protection and for the faithful witness of all those who "have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 15:26). and are in this moment "suffering disgrace for the Name" (Acts 5:41). May they, like Paul and John, rejoice "because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name" (Acts 5:41). Barbara

India Missions Association Announces

NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER & FASTING

On Sunday, the 7th September 2008 for ?The Suffering Christians in Orissa'

PRAYER REQUESTS

+ Pray for the rebuilding of houses, churches and mission centers burnt in the violence
+ Pray for the bereaved families who have lost their near & dear ones
+ Pray for the thousands of Christians who live either in the jungle or relief camps
+ Pray that God would minister, console and encourage all and remove their fears
+ Pray for a movement of God in withdrawing the ?Hate Campaigns' against Christians
+ Pray for the peace to be restored immediately in all places and levels
+ Pray for the 51 different IMA member missions that are working in Orissa. Some of the most affected missions are HVM, IEA, IEHC, IGOSA, ICCC, AGSM, RHS, OFU, C&SM, AJI, FMPB, NMS, IMS, IEM, NPMI, NLFI, NF and many oth?ers. The churches of all denominations and levels have been affected greatly by this violence.

Hindus accuse nuns of 'forced conversions':

Yesterday, September 5 - the anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa of Calcutta - four sisters of Mother Teresa were attacked by about 20 Bajrang Dal activists at the Durgh train station in Chhattisgarh, a state in central India. The Hindu radicals forced them off the train, and then handed them over to police officers while chanting anti-Christian slogans.

The Hindu fundamentalists accused the sisters - Sr Mamta, the mother superior, Sr Ignacio, Sr Josephina, and Sr Laborius - of the "kidnapping and forced conversion" of four children between one and two years old, whom the religious were taking from their home in Raipur to the Shishu Bhava charity center in Bhopal. The activists followed the women to the police station, "insulting them and chanting slogans against the Christians".

The sisters presented all of the identification documents for the children and their travel permit, in addition to other documentation brought later by the religious from the house in Bilaspur. In spite of this documentation, the children were taken to be housed temporarily at the government hospital in Durg, while the documents and identity papers presented by the sisters are verified by the judicial authorities.

"The mob threatened to beat us up, but I was not afraid", Sr Mamta tells AsiaNews. Her only concern is for the children, who require care and assistance, "but most of all our love. We love these darlings like our own, that is our pain".... She emphasizes that this new episode of "persecution" is an integral part of the missionary task of "witnessing to Christ" entrusted to them by the founder of the order.

The Indian Catholic Church has taken a tough stance, through the head of the bishops' conference, who denounces the climate of hostility and terror toward Christians. "I am absolutely shocked", says Cardinal Osvaldo Gracias, "at the baseless and fabricated allegations of conversion levied against the Missionary of Charity". The prelate stresses that he knew "Mother Teresa personally, and I was also involved with her mission, and I can vouch for the fact that never has any baby or anyone been converted by the Missionaries of Charity, either in the remotest rural area or in any part of the world".

In condemning this new attack against the Christians, Cardinal Gracias accuses those who "are instrumental in poisoning minds" and foster interconfessional confrontation: "This is a climate of intolerance [against Christians] that is growing in the country, and it will have serious drastic long-term effects on Indian society".

This new episode of violence against the sisters confirms the growing climate of hostility toward Christians, in the crosshairs of the Hindu fundamentalists who are seeking by every means to eliminate their mission and their charitable works in the country. The tribals, the Dalits - untouchables - and the many orphaned children find in Christianity and in the activity of the religious a way to improve their condition and bring dignity to their lives. By attacking the Christians, the Hindu fundamentalists are above all harming India and its people, anchoring it in a feudal and backward past, based on the hierarchy determined by caste and by slavery.

A brief history and background of the religious violence in northern India:

Most of the more than 1 billion residents of India are Hindu, with Christians accounting for only 2.3% of the population. But since the early 1980s there's been a rise of Hindu fundamentalists - many of whom are members of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political party that rules Orissa - and violence has broken out, the priests said. "They work in the name of Hindutwa, which is an ideology that means there should be one culture and one ideology in India, and that should be the BJP," said Tigga.

Hard-line Hindus accuse Christian missionaries of using education, health care and other services to convert low-caste Hindus. "It's not an issue of becoming Christians, it's an issue of insecurity by the BJP because as missionaries we work with the poor to give them dignity and human rights," said Ezhakunnel. "They become closer to us and may eventually accept religion, but that takes time. It's not the first step. They get education and health care and social and political development and start demanding their rights, and that makes them a threat," said Tigga.

While all Hindus are not alike, so too, some Christian groups may try more aggressive conversion tactics, and that makes the issue more complex, said Santos. The latest violence erupted in late August after a Hindu leader was murdered in a tribal area where he was leading a local campaign to reconvert Hindus from Christianity, according to news reports the priests received. The killing sparked more violent clashes, and about 26 people have died in the unrest that followed, said Tigga, quoting from information he's received from the archbishop of Bhubaneswar.

Tigga said 50 places of worship have been destroyed, 15 churches and convents destroyed and more than 4,000 homes of Christians in the villages in the Kandhamal district burned.... "It's getting worse," said Tigga, who had brushes with violence while he was working near Orissa. "It's dangerous to work there," he said.

At the Republican National Convention this week, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin mocked to great applause Barack Obama's role as a "community organizer" in Chicago more than two decades ago. According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, Obama worked "alongside low-income residents in the Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development." The work itself involved "pushing for asbestos removal at Altgeld, pressing for a local job-training office, even agitating to fill potholes and erect stop signs."

Obama was incensed by the mockery, asking, "Why would that kind of work be ridiculous? Who are they (Republicans) fighting for... They think that the lives of those folks who are struggling each and every day, that working with them to try to improve their lives is somehow not relevant to the presidency?"

These are valid questions for a party still trying to shake off the stereotype that Republicans are out of touch concerning the plight of the poor and care only for the rich. Certainly pro-lifers and others who help the poor do their own brands of community organizing in dysfunctuional pockets of society. Whether community organizing is the best way to help the poor is one thing, but to dismiss out of hand the work of someone willing at least to try to help is another entirely.

Update: Here's a dissenting view.

All Music Guide
Just as the movie industry has IMDb.com, so the music biz has an Internet encyclopedia of its own. Spanning nearly every genre, AMG offers bios, discographies, and even reviews searchable by artist, album, song, or classical work. The site's design doesn't allow easy cross-referencing, but AMG nonetheless offers seemingly limitless information at your fingertips.

Billboard
The standard for insider news, exclusive interviews, and the hallowed charts by which industry success is gauged. It costs $300 a year for a magazine subscription or for full access to the site, but free limited access still gets you most news stories, and I, for one, can settle for the week's Top 100 albums over the full list of 200.

Entertainment Weekly
Want to know what's hot and buzz-worthy in music without having to keep up on everything? EW does a great job of reviewing only what you need to know with writing that is concise, astute, and sometimes humorous. Plus, its writers provide plenty of news tidbits, download suggestions, and the occasional interview.

Paste Magazine
For those who prefer to immerse themselves in the new, Paste is the magazine for music lovers. The magazine excels at keeping up with all manner of artists, including independent, underground, and classical. Every issue comes with a sampler CD, and the website has plenty to complement the publication. While Paste has a number of Christians among its staff and contributors, the magazine is not a "Christian magazine" as such.

CCM Magazine, CM Central, Christian Music Planet
Most of the Christian music sites and publications are now owned and operated by Salem Communications. Their acquisitions have been positioned to specialize in rock (CCM), pop (CM Central), and adult contemporary (CMP), offering a variety of articles, blogs, and boards, depending on the site

Two stories today reveal the continuing intractability of the common man and woman--and the continuing mysterious ways of our Creator.

In the first, another story about the surprising success of The Shack, we read that various evangelical leaders consider the book "heretical." All the same, the book is being devoured by millions, many of whom say it has helped them deal with deep hurts and evils in their life.

In the second, we read about the archbishop of Mumbai (India) declaring that a painting of Jesus that looks like it's bleeding is not the miracle that pilgrims to the church have believed it to. Instead the painting has "blushed" probably because of the humidity. And yet, as one churchgoer put it, "It's a miracle.... What else can it be?"

While church leaders are called to teach and guide people in lasting truth, I also detect in their reactions to such religious phenomenon a touch of embarrassment--that people on the street are moved and changed by kitsch! God, it seems, is not only not a respecter of persons, but neither is he a respecter of fine taste.

David Scholer lived for six and a half years after doctors diagnosed him with colorectal cancer. A popular professor at Fuller Seminary, his course "Women, the Bible, and the Church" was always well-attended. In it and other classes, Scholer taught his students how to live well as Christians throughout life.

"Not all theologians benefit from their scholarship. There is a divorce between what they do as scholars and how they live as mere mortals," William Pannell, a senior professor of preaching at Fuller who knew Scholer for 30 years, told the Los Angeles Times. "I thought David did a wonderful job of integrating his understanding of life in God and God in life."

Last year, in an interview with CT, Scholer said he had taken to heart James's admonition not to "say that we're going to go to a city and do this and do that. We should say 'If the Lord wills, I'll go to this city.' Of course I've read that text hundreds of times, but it came to have new meaning for me. I am very, very conscious of the daily limits. I never accept anything in the future now without explicitly saying, 'If God wills,' 'if I'm still healthy,' and in some cases I say 'You should have a backup plan in case I can't follow through.'

Other excerpts from my July 2007 interview:

I began to be suspicious by January of 2002 that I had cancer. In February, I had the official evaluation with the man who would be my surgeon and learned I had cancer. He said, "You will live six months unless you let me do surgery. It's one of the most difficult surgeries possible." And he said, "I don't know if I can do it." And I said, "Well, let's go ahead and do surgery."

When you learn that you're going to die is really not the best time to formulate a theology of dying. It really rests on things you have clung to and believed for many years. And it sounds pretentious to say this, but in my little journey I've never felt angry at Got. I solved for myself those issues a long time ago. My father died eleven years ago, and my mother two years ago his month. And so I did a lot of reflecting about their deaths. My mother was a person who faced death very well. And so I've given a lot of thought to that. And when I learned my situation I thought I really need to think about how to live well while I'm dying.

I believe God is the giver of life and that we have eternal life starting now. But God is an affirmer of life, and therefore it's entirely appropriate to appreciate life even in this world and to enjoy it and want it, yet still be confident of the life to come. I've never been the kind of person who would say, I can just hardly wait till I die and go to heaven. And so I've tried to develop a theology of enjoying life without being presumptuous about life.

There were times, especially early in my cancer journey, that I would wake up and think I don't want to die. I don't think that anymore. [Yet] I want to live as long as possible.

I try to think of all the wonderful things I can still do as well as a lot of things I can never do again. I've come to the point where I don't feel too regretful about those things. I traveled an enormous amount up until a couple of months before my diagnosis. Travel is now extremely difficult, and I avoid travel as much as possible. But I miss that. But on the other hand, as I've said, I try to remember all the things that I did do in those first six decades of my life. And I did a lot of wonderful things, had a lot of wonderful experiences. You don't live in the past but you want to mine the past for its significance for your life.

One of Scholer's sermons, titled "Prisoners of Hope" is available from Perspectives magazine.

The Salvation Army plans on deploying its prepositioned forces tomorrow morning in a pincer movement from the east from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and from the northwest from Tyler, Texas, against the ravages of Hurricane Gustav.

From Mississippi a command team with 25 canteens, a satellite communications trailer, and a mobile kitchen on an 18-wheeler will rumble down the highway. The team will pick up prepositioned supplies to take to the Louisiana tri-city area of Lake Charles, Lafayette, and Alexandria, where heavy flooding is anticipated. A similar unit will sweep from Texas, picking up more units in Shreveport, Louisiana, and elsewhere. There are also Salvation Army units waiting in a northern band right outside of the city of New Orleans.

The Salvation Army learned from Katrina that they needed to preposition more units and supplies.

"Our response is different from Katrina," said Major Gene Hogg, the Unified Incident Commander from the Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi division. "First, there is a lot more preparedness. Second, we are taking this threat more seriously." At a planning meeting last Thursday, Hogg says the Salvation Army knew that they had to avoid thinking "we have gone through many hurricanes before. In Katrina we had 11 canteens prestaged." This time, the Army has 25 canteens in Hattiesburg alone. A similar number is in Texas, with additional canteens others scattered around the region. And more canteens are on the way, with the prepositioning supplies in Florida and the Carolinas for the next storms rumbling on the horizon.

The Army has already served more than 100,000 meals to refugees scattered from Kentucky to Texas.

"Anytime you send people into the unknown we worry," Hogg said. "But Christ is sufficient for us. We know that we are held in the palm of Christ, who puts a hedge of protection around us." The Salvation Army has additional hedges as well, particularly in preparing staff through the strains and potential dangers of disaster relief. As a rule, the Army will not send married couples together but rotate each spouse every week or ten days, allowing some time for couples to be together outside the emergency zone.

Related:
The Salvation Army is taking donations at salvationarmyusa.org, which notes that a $100 donation will feed a family of four for two days and provide two cases of drinking water and a household cleaning kit.
Christianity Today's past coverage of Hurricane Katrina is archived on our site. For now, the CT Liveblog is where we're covering Hurricane Gustav.