JUNE 30 UPDATE:
The Bully! Pulpit, a pop culture news blog, reports that rumors that Michael Jackson accepted Christ may have been false. Jackson, who died of cardiac arrest last week at the age of 50, was rumored by some to have become a Christian just weeks before his death.

Gospel singer Andrae Crouch and his twin sister, singer and minister, Sandra, apparently visited Jackson recently at the pop star's request, and they did pray together. But exactly what they prayed depends on whom you ask.

Last Friday, gospel duo Mary Mary blogged on their Facebook page that Jackson "prayed with Sandra and Andre and accepted Christ into his heart. Now he's singing in the heavenly choir! Our hearts rejoice!"

But the Bully! Pulpit reported that that wasn't the full story, or even fully accurate.

On her Facebook page, Sandra Crouch wrote, "It has been brought to my attention that several media outlets have been erroneously reporting that my brother, Andrae Crouch and me met our dear friend Michael Jackson several weeks prior to his death so he could accept Christ. This is incorrect and absolutely not true.

"We loved and respected Michael enormously and we've been friends with him for many, many years, and are deeply saddened by his sudden and tragic death.We recently met with Michael to discuss recording two songs with our choir for his newest recording project. Michael always had a respect and curiosity for spiritual things. During our meeting, not unlike many other creative/music meetings we've had with him the past, we sang together, prayed together and had a wonderful time. We are praying for Michael's family and desire nothing less than God's best for them."

A spokesman for Andrae Crouch added that at the meeting, Jackson "asked for prayer concerning the anointing of the Holy Spirit . . . So Andrae and Sandra explained to him about the anointing and about Jesus."

But did the legendary singer pray to receive Christ? The Crouch spokesman responded: “He did NOT reject Jesus or the prayer when (we) prayed, and gladly joined in prayer . . . There was NO actual ‘sinners prayer’ however, but they did talk and pray about Jesus and the anointing of the Holy Spirit."

The Bully! Pulpit story also said that Jackson, forbidden as a child from celebrating Christmas because of his Jehovah’s Witness faith, still had Christmas decorations up in his home in June.

Click here to read the whole story.

Posted by Mark Moring at June 29, 2009 6:43PM | Comments (138)

Nearly nine months after it hit the road, Zondervan's hand-written Bible Across America came home Wednesday bearing Scripture verses inscribed by 31,173 people.

Among them: a little girl who guided her blind sister's hand; a father who flew from Baltimore to Los Angeles to write in it with his son; and Antoinette and Jim Barry, a couple from Palos Heights, Ill., where church leaders 44 years ago conceived of the New International Version Bible.

The Barrys' daughter, Maureen "Moe" Girkins, is president of Zondervan, the mega Christian publishing house. Last year, she inscribed the first verse ("In the beginning ...") from Genesis 1:1, and on Wednesday penned the final verse from Revelation 22:21: "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen."

"It was just really impactful to them to know their daughter was involved in something like this, and they got to participate," Girkins said afterward, wiping away tears.

It was one of many powerful moments along the Bible's 22,000-mile journey to mark the 30th anniversary of the NIV, the most popular modern-English Bible translation.

Girkins was one of about a dozen people who wrote the Bible's final verses in a ceremony at Zondervan headquarters. They included nine members of the Committee on Bible Translation, the original translators and continuing caretakers of the NIV.

"It is encouraging to see so many readers and users of the NIV scattered through the whole country," said Ken Barker, a committee member since 1971. "It's also an awesome privilege to be able to write a verse in it myself."

The cross-country trek began on Sept. 30 and traveled 22,000 miles across 124 cities in 40 states.

Writers included authors, NASCAR fans, farmers and soldiers who wrote verses on the Bible's cross-country tour. Volunteers drove a motorhome and set up tents from Manhattan to the Rocky Mountains.

As the RV pulled out on the first night, a homeless man ran up and asked to write a verse, Girkins said. "It became evident to us that all across this great country, people love the Bible," she said.

Two original copies will be produced, one to be offered to the Smithsonian Institution and the second auctioned to benefit the International Bible Society, which holds the copyright to the NIV. A retail version will go on sale in October.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at June 25, 2009 1:47PM | Comments (1)

The New York Times reports today that Rick Warren's quarterly magazine Purpose Driven Connection, published by Reader's Digest Association and Warren's Saddleback Church, is "the project that signals Reader's Digest's future."

"That is the model going forward," RDA president and CEO Mary Berner tells the paper. Reader's Digest itself will likely have more "spiritual content," and the company may spin off other titles focused on religious leaders.

"As far as I'm concerned, I don't care what the religion is, what the spirituality is, as long as it's legitimate, there's a built-in community and it's global," Berner told the paper. "We don't choose our partners to change the world, we choose them because we're running a business. I guess it sounds cynical if you believe that to run a business to make money is cynical. But that's what I'm paid to do."

Times reporter Stephanie Clifford seems skeptical, especially in this paragraph:

"[RDA's titles] are brands that may not be considered cool by the often elitist and self-absorbed standards of New York media," [Berner] said. She had taken a car from Manhattan that morning, and wore a pink wool shirt-dress, patent leather Manolo Blahnik heels, and diamond hoop earrings.

Update: Never mind?

Posted by Ted Olsen at June 19, 2009 2:22PM | Comments (2)

In a groundbreaking case, a Paris court will decide for the first time whether to dissolve the Church of Scientology in France, which is facing charges of organized fraud.

The demand was made by French prosecutors on Monday (June 15) as they wrapped up their case against the church's Paris headquarters and bookshop. If found guilty, the institutions may also face a nearly $6 million fine.

Six members of the church are also on trial, and may also face heavy fines along with prison sentences if convicted.

The plaintiffs, two former Scientologists, claim the church conned them into spending tens of thousands of dollars in bogus products in the 1990s, including an "electrometer" that the church says can measure energy levels.

But the church, which claims a membership of 45,000 in France, rejects the accusations and claims it is being persecuted.

The plaintiffs, are "apostates who ... want to criticize their ex-religion," Fabio Amicarelli, a European Scientology representative, told French media recently.

While the charges pose the most serious challenge to the French church to date, they are only the latest clash in a nearly two-decade long battle against Scientology. Several fraud cases have already been judged and several members convicted of embezzlement in France, where Scientology is viewed with deep suspicion.

In one case, the head of the church's Lyons chapter was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1996 for his role in a member's suicide.

Founded in 1954 by late American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the church is considered a religion in the United States with adherents that include Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

The French government, however, lists Scientology as a sect, reflecting an official intolerance of unorthodox religions. Indeed, the government even has an official sect watchdog body -- known as MIVILUDES, the Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combatting Cultic Deviances.

A government report published in May said the number of religious sects had tripled in France over the past 15 years to at least 600 different movements.

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Christianity Today's coverage of Scientology, including a brief explainer of why Christians object to it, dates back to 1969.

Posted by Ted Olsen at June 19, 2009 2:01PM | Comments (5)

PBS officials voted June 16 to not allow new religious programming at member stations, but allowed select PBS stations to continue broadcasting their current faith-based line-ups.

The PBS Board of Directors took the action Tuesday after concerns were raised that religious programming could violate the organization's nonsectarian status.

The board unanimously elected to grandfather in the handful of existing shows that are directly religious in nature; the ruling does not affect news shows or documentaries.

"The board has basically voted to insure that the religious programming that stations currently provide and that communities have come to rely on are able to stay on air," said PBS spokesperson Jan McNamara.

Only six of over 350 member stations broadcast religious programming, according to McNamara. At stake for at least three of the stations were long-running Sunday Masses, broadcast mostly to the elderly.

For the last decade, the televised "Mass for Shut-Ins" has aired on Denver's KBDI every Sunday at 6:30 a.m. The Archdiocese of Denver produces the program, which has been on-air continuously for 53 years.

"I have to say that any time, whether it's weather or a malfunction, if Mass doesn't air, we have voice mailboxes full of the elderly calling us," said Jeannette DeMelo, spokeswoman for the archdiocese.

The 30-minute program serves as the only way some homebound seniors and nursing-home residents can connect with their community of faith, said DeMelo.

"Aside from it being the church's role to provide for the vulnerable and the weak, I think society in general seeks to do that," said DeMelo. "That's why we're grateful that PBS has allowed this to continue to happen because I really do think it's a service for the broader public."

Public broadcasting stations in New Orleans and Washington recently have shown similar Sunday Masses. KBYU out of Provo, Utah, which is affiliated with Mormon-owned Brigham Young University, shows daily Mormon programming alongside PBS favorites like "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" and "Sesame Street."

The vote may come too little, too late for one program. Washington's WHUT already released its "Sunday TV Mass" from the line-up, according to Archdiocese of Washington spokeswoman Susan Gibbs.

Gibbs said the archdiocese, which funds the long-running televised service, has been shopping around for a new home for the show since March, after word came from WHUT that PBS would be reconsidering its religious broadcasts.

Gibbs said the archdiocese recently signed a contract with The CW-Channel 50, at a price that will cost $60,000 more per year than it did on public broadcasting.

Since 1985, PBS has committed its programming to be noncommercial, nonpolitical and nonsectarian in order to guarantee fair and balanced coverage. For the last 18 months, PBS has been conducting an overall policy review to update the organization for the new media age.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at June 18, 2009 12:03PM | Comments (5)

The Rev. John Stek considered Bible translation a never-ending work, once noting, "Even the most durable words take on different nuances as culture changes."

Stek attended diligently to those nuances, serving for nearly 45 years on the translation committee for the New International Version -- the most popular modern English-language Bible.

Stek died June 6 following a lengthy illness. He was 84.

His work on the NIV and a related study Bible was widely respected, said the Rev. James De Jong, retired president of Calvin Theological Seminary.

"John was an acknowledged leader among evangelical Bible translators," De Jong said. "He stood head and shoulders above just about everyone else in that crowd."

Stek also was an "unusually careful and precise theologian" as a professor of Old Testament at Calvin Seminary, where he taught for 30 years, said De Jong, a former student.

Whether teaching or translating, the Rev. Stek always was focused on worship, said his daughter, Ruth Paauwe. "Everything that he did was ultimately dedicated to the furtherance of God's church and God's people," Paauwe said.

An Iowa native, Stek pastored a Minnesota church before teaching at Calvin. In 1965, he was appointed to a translation committee charged with producing a contemporary language Bible. The NIV New Testament was published in 1973, and the complete Bible in 1978.

Stek later chaired the committee that in 2002 produced Today's New International Version -- which was criticized by some conservatives for gender-inclusive language -- and edited a best-selling study version of the NIV.

"He just knew things inside and out, and was able to translate those into real solid learning for the man on the street," said Mike Vander Klipp, associate publisher on the Bible team for Zondervan, the NIV's publisher. "It changed people's lives."

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at June 12, 2009 10:06AM | Comments (2)

A few weeks ago, I received a screener copy of Defamation, a documentary about anti-Semitism that was planned for theatrical release in the U.S. in the fall. The film, by Israeli director Yoav Shamir, looked at Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League in the states, and at educational trips for Israeli high-school students to the death camp at Auschwitz in Poland.

Using the confrontational techniques associated with Michael Moore (Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, etc.), Shamir leads the viewer to conclude that while there may be occasional expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment at the street level, anti-Semitism is no longer a serious threat to Jewish well-being in the U.S. or Poland. It seems that Shamir also wants viewers to believe that the educational system in Israel and the ADL in America has a vested interest in maintaining a kind of anti-Semitism industry. These organizations need to work hard to keep the specter of anti-Semitism alive in order to justify their existence.

Yesterday's fatal shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum seriously undermines the basic thrust of the film.

It doesn't prove that virulent and potentially violent anti-Semitism is pervasive in American society. But it does show that there are still people among us who are willing not merely to harbor prejudices in their hearts or promote crackpot theories of history, but also to take a gun and shoot a stranger simply because they symbolize a perceived cultural threat.

I cannot address Defamation's claim that ADL national director Abe Foxman exaggerates the extent of the threat in order to maintain his place as schmoozer-in-chief with Israeli dignitaries and wealth Jewish patrons. Foxman can slug that out with Yoav Shamir.

But I can say with confidence that the American ideal (based on biblical ideals) is to welcome the stranger into our midst - especially the stranger who is fleeing violence and persecution. My mother's mother was one such, fleeing the threat of Czarist Russian violence against Jews in her native Lithuania. In 1905, she and her parents were welcomed into the United States and given safe haven from the threat of pogroms. (It was not the Russians, but the Nazis who in 1941 eventually wiped out my grandmother's village.)

We should not let our American free-speech ideals lead us to shrug off the kind of anti-Semitic propaganda that was propounded by yesterday's shooter in his self-published book and on his website. We should clearly denounce such incitements for the poison they are and never leave the impression that "It's a free country" means we can ignore racism.

Posted by David Neff at June 11, 2009 11:43AM | Comments (6)

Religious stereotyping was at play at a recent video-game trade show where a game company hired 13 people to protest the upcoming game "Dante's Inferno."

A group of protesters claiming to come from a church held signs such as "Hell is not a Video Game" and "Trade in Your PlayStation for a PrayStation" in front of the nation's biggest video-game trade show last week. They pretended to fight Electronic Arts' new game "Dante's Inferno," loosely based on the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Ben Fritz from the Los Angeles Times originally offered this report:

The protesters, who came from a church in Ventura County, held signs with slogans such as "trade in your playstation for a praystation" and "EA = anti-Christ" as they marched and handed out a homemade brochure that warns, "a video game hero does not have the authority to save and damn... ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE. and he will not judge the sinners who play this game kindly."

Matthew Francis, one of the protesters, said he and his fellow church members were particularly upset that Dante's Inferno features a character who fights his way out of Hell and uses a cross as a weapon against demons.

The Associated Press clears it up by talking to a spokeswoman, who said the stunt was arranged by a viral marketing agency hired by EA.

Granted, it doesn't look like a kid's game. But lest you think Christians shun Dante, check out this Christian History issue.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at June 8, 2009 4:13PM | Comments (1)

Some headlines are just made for comments threads, even if you feel a little bad about poking fun at a guy's name.

From Catholic News Agency: Bishop George Lucas appointed to Archdiocese of Omaha

"He'd better not take the Yub Yub song out of Revelation."

"I don't care what the archbishop says. Goliath did not shoot first!"

"All excommunications over the creation of Howard the Duck are hereby withdrawn."

"The good news: The archdiocese will no longer collect offerings. The bad news: It's retaining all merchandising rights."

Sorry, archbishop.

Posted by Ted Olsen at June 3, 2009 3:23PM | Comments (3)

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed the Option of Adoption Act on May 5, making Georgia the first state with an embryo adoption law.

As the new law recognizes the potential of embryos, it is a celebration for pro-life supporters.

Embryo adoptions have existed at least since the 1980s.

When couples undergo in vitro fertilization, multiple embryos are typically created. People who decide not to use all the embryos are given choices:

Keep the embryos frozen until a future time.
Destroy them.
Donate them for medical purposes – such as stem cell research.
Release them for adoption.

In embryo adoptions, embryos are implanted in women so they are allowed to physically give birth to their own adopted child. The problem? This terminology is rather sensitive.

As Reginald Finger explains in Embryo Adoption – A Life-Affirming Parenthood Choice">his article:

"Some medical infertility specialists are uncomfortable saying 'adoption' in this context because children are adopted, and if the embryo comes to be viewed as a child in the eyes of the law, couples might lose the choice of discarding the embryos or donating them to research.

Infertility practices might also come under stricter regulation. Pro-choice activists dislike the term for similar reasons. Legal scholars point out that at least in the U.S., statutes define adoption as the placement of a child after birth. Thus, they reason, use of the term might mislead couples as to what has actually occurred in the eyes of the law when an embryo is transferred."

Or, as University of Pennsylvania bioethics professor Arthur Caplan explains that use of the term adoption itself is "a deliberately political point."

Embryos have yet to be given human status, something that even Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption Program acknowledges.

As one of the oldest and most prominent embryo adoption agencies, Snowflakes through Nightlight Christian Adoptions in California started in 1997 and has overseen 200 plus embryo adoptions. Although embryo transfer to another party is handled as an adoption case through Snowflakes and other agencies, it is only considered property transfer by law.

The Option of Adoption Act changes that, and will most likely affect other state laws as well.

Posted by Tim Morgan at June 1, 2009 5:10PM | Comments (5)