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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."