According to news wires and sources, a judge in California has ruled immediately that Mosab Hassan Yousef, the author of Son of Hamas, can be granted political asylum in the US after he clears several of the normal steps, such as a background check. The US government has dropped its opposition without explanation.

Here's what the news wires are reporting:

The son of a Hamas founder who became a Christian and an Israeli spy will be granted U.S. asylum after he passes a routine background check, an immigration judge ruled Wednesday.
Mosab Hassan Yousef got the good news during a 15-minute deportation hearing after a U.S. Department of Homeland Security attorney said the government was dropping its objections.
The agency denied Yousef's asylum request in February 2009, arguing that he had been involved in terrorism and was a threat to the United States. Attorney Kerri Calcador gave no explanation for the government's change of heart. The immigration judge, Rico Bartolomei, ruled that Yousef will be allowed to remain in the United States after he is fingerprinted and passes a routine background check. Yousef, who has been living in San Diego, was cheered by supporters as he left the hearing and said he would like to become a U.S. citizen.
Supporters called him a hero, not a terrorist. "For 10 years, he fought terrorism in secret, hiding what he was doing and who he was," his attorney, Steven Seick, wrote in a court filing. "He deserves a safe place away from violence and fear." Yousef, 32, had argued that he would be killed if he was deported because he spied on the militant group for Israel's Shin Bet security's intelligence agency and abandoned Islam.

According to Mosab's spokesperson, he will hold a press conference by phone later today. CT will update this story after that.

Christian author John Eldredge has commented on a Mexican drug cartel’s use of his teachings in their indoctrination procedures, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported Friday.

The 50-year-old author of Wild at Heart and other books, known for his emphasis on “masculine Christianity,” was responding to reports that the group La Familia Michoacána, which some say is the most dangerous drug cartel in Mexico, uses his writings to “instruct and motivate their recruits.”

“People have used the Bible to justify a lot of evil actions,” Eldredge said. ”It brings me sorrow and anger to know they are doing this, and I renounce their use of my words in this way.”

A CT report late last year mentioned La Familia’s use of Eldredge. The Spanish-language weekly Milenio reported in May 2009 that “during the raids and arrests made in recent months by the military and federal forces in the state, the authorities have found a common denominator that, along with high-powered rifles, grenades and drugs, usually appears: copies of the book Wild at Heart, the most recent Eldredge title published in Spanish.”

“In the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue," Eldredge writes in Wild at Heart, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s report on La Familia references this line when discussing Eldredge.

Leopoldo Cervantes-Ortiz, a Presbyterian pastor and chair of the ecumenical Basilea Center of Research and Support in Mexico City, spoke with CT back in October. He said that La Familia is "an example of how a neo-evangelical mentality permeates some drug trafficking groups today.”

"It is very striking that a work of this type is influencing negatively,” Cervantes-Ortiz said of Wild at Heart, “considering that its original purpose is to train men with a new way to live masculinity."

La Familia is known for emphasizing spirituality in its members. According to the Guardian, “advancement within the organization depends as much on regular attendance at prayer meetings as on target practice.”

The leader of La Familia, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, is a “pious” man who wrote a booklet which discusses “personal empowerment, Christian living and proper deportment,” McClatchy Newspapers reports.

"If you want to say 'I love you!' to those who surround you and to your friends, say it today," Moreno writes.

They also purport to believe strongly in “divine justice.”

“La Familia doesn’t kill for money, doesn’t kill women, doesn’t kill innocent people. It only kills those who deserve to die,” read a 2006 note accompanying five severed heads thrown into the Sol y Sombra nightclub in Uruapan, Michoacán, according to the FPRI report.

La Familia “purportedly [had] concluded that the five men were involved in the rape and murder of a waitress/prostitute who worked in the bar and had been impregnated by a member of La Familia,” the report relates, adding that the group has claimed to administer such “divine justice” to everyone from rapists to graffiti artists.

John Eldredge seems to doubt that La Familia members are taking his message in context.

“If they'd actually read the book, they would know that submission to Jesus is central to the entire message,” he said. “They seemed to have missed the central point which gives context to everything else.”

(Photo of John Eldredge courtesy Ransomed Heart Ministries.)

In a statement issued by Liberty University Friday, a panel of four trustees announced they had found that Ergun Caner, dean of the seminary at the Lynchburg, Virginia, school, had made "self-contradictory" statements about "dates, names and places of residence" in his public talks following the events of September 11, 2001. However, the trustees found no evidence to question Caner's basic claim that he was "a Muslim who converted to Christianity as a teenager."

Caner has been the target of both Christian and Muslim apologists and bloggers who claim that he falsified his biography in order to inflate his credibility as an expert on Islam. Christianity Today earlier reported on the controversy here and here.

Apparently, Liberty University's trustees consider Caner's misleading statements to be serious enough to undermine his ability to serve as seminary dean. They are removing him from that role while allowing him to remain on the faculty. This nettles critics.

The team America faces Saturday in its second round World Cup matchup is spiritually united, ESPN's Jeff Bradley reports.

"We love to sing together, dance together, pray together," Ghana striker Asamoah Gyan told Bradley. "It brings joy to our hearts. This is our team."

Bradley says that spirit continues to the field. "What I've noticed, more than anything, about the Black Stars, is they are a team in every sense of the word," he wrote. "From their pregame (and postgame, and halftime, and pre-training and post-training) songs and prayers, to their disciplined adherence to Rajevac's rigid system that features a single striker, they are true believers that the whole can be greater than the sum of its individual pieces. ... It's 11 together with one goal."

Captain John Mensah (right) told the German news service DPA that prayer is no afterthought.

"We are Christians and we all know how important God is," he said. "We all respect God and we pray every time before the game and after the game. ... We praise God, what he has done for us. Then the next day is match-day, so we use that opportunity to give us strength and help us go on into the game."

The team isn't praying alone. The government and nation's churches have called for united prayers at home for the team.

And now that Ghana is the only African team left in the World Cup, Cameroon players Alex Song and Samuel Eto’o both said, in separate interviews, "Everybody must pray for Ghana."

The country of Ghana is 83 percent Christian--mostly Protestant (71%) and Pentecostal (26%). 83 percent of Christians say they attend services at least weekly.

Pro-life politicians and activists are responding to the findings of British doctors who say that the human fetus cannot feel pain before 24 weeks.

The study, which comes out of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, comes out amid hints that pro-life members of the British Parliament—possibly including Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron—might want to pull back the UK’s legal time limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 20 weeks.

The Royal College hasn’t dissuaded Labor MP Jim Dobbin, a leader of the pro-life movement in the House of Commons, who told the London Evening Standard, “Other experts would differ. This does not diminish the case for lowering the limit.”

“This is a nakedly political attempt by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to defend the status quo,” said a spokesman for the British based Pro-Life Alliance in a Friday press release. “The Prime Minister has openly backed a reduction to 20 weeks and this is supported by an overwhelming majority of the British population. The RCOG are trying to stop abortion reform and will ignore the opposing side of the argument to suit their purposes.”

Pro-life advocates on this side of the Atlantic agree.

“The overwhelming consensus in the medical community in the scientific literature is that it is undisputed that unborn children begin feeling pain at at least 20 weeks gestations,” Mailee Smith, staff counsel for Americans United For Life, said to CT this morning. “And this accepted medical consensus is demonstrated in the general practice of administering anesthesia during in utero surgical procedures of unborn children who are 20 weeks gestation or more.”

Smith and the Pro-Life Alliance both point to the research of American Dr. Kanwaljeet “Sunny” Anand, an researcher in pediatrics and anesthesia, who has been a leader in research suggesting that unborn children feel pain after 20 weeks in the womb.

Anand testified before Congress in 2005 that “based on evidence suggesting that the types of stimulation that will occur during abortion procedures, very likely most fetuses at 20 weeks after conception will be able to perceive that as painful, unpleasant, noxious stimulation.”

Anand “was not even consulted” in the RCOG’s study, complains the Pro-Life Alliance.

The extent of this study’s influence is not yet clear. The Telegraph reports that the Prime Minister’s office said that Cameron will "continue to be guided by the science on the matter."

In America, Smith says it will probably have not much affect on the overa;l abortion debate, though it may be cited in certain cases (like Nebraska’s recent law, which specifically deals with fetal pain as a factor in restricting abortion).

“For the most part this study is going to be overwhelmed by the evidence” for fetal pain at 20 weeks, Smith said.

As far as some in Britain are concerned, questions of fetal pain shouldn’t be central to the abortion debate at all.

“Beyond the issue of pain and fetal awareness, the vital core of this debate seems to have been forgotten,” said an article from the London-based Christian Concern for our Nation. “Life is life and should be protected no matter how little or how fragile the life taken.”

Breaking news:

Disability advocate Joni Eareckson Tada has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is expected to have surgery on Monday, June 28.

According to a news release from her organization, Joni and Friends:

Internationally-beloved disability advocate, artist and quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada has been diagnosed with breast cancer, it was announced today by Doug Mazza, Joni and Friends International Disability Center president and COO, following confirmation by her physicians.

“Joni is to undergo several more tests, followed by surgery within the week,” said Mazza. “The extent of the cancer will not be determined until the procedure.” Ken Tada, Joni’s husband of nearly 28 years, is very hopeful. “The doctors have assured us that more advancements have been made in the last five years in treating breast cancer then in the last 150 years,” he said. “We are confident Joni is in very good hands.” Joni echoed Ken’s sentiments. “I’ve often said that our afflictions come from the hand of our all-wise and sovereign God, who loves us and wants what is best for us. So, although cancer is something new, I am content to receive from God whatever He deems fit for me,” she said. “Yes, it’s alarming, but rest assured that Ken and I are utterly convinced that God is going to use this to stretch our faith, brighten our hope and strengthen our witness to others.”

Click here for medical updates.

For the full press release, click here.

Full disclosure: Art Simon, founder of the Christian hunger advocacy organization Bread for the World, is one of my personal heroes; I served briefly on the Bread for the World’s board of directors; and I consider David Beckman, Bread’s current president to be a sacrificial servant leader.

That’s why I was delighted yesterday to learn that David Beckman and Jo Luck, president of Heifer International, have been jointly awarded this year’s World Food Prize.

Rush Limbaugh’s June 5 marriage to girlfriend Kathryn Rogers has generated a lot of discussion. Much of it is about his surprise reception singer, Sir Elton John — but a few people have commented on his choice of pastor.

Ken “The Hutch” Hutcherson, a former NFL player and the famously pro-family pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, Wash., officiated at the conservative radio icon’s fourth wedding.

"He had asked me to come to the wedding, and his uncle, Judge [Stephen] Limbaugh, was supposed to do the entire service, and there were some complications," Hutcherson told CT.

Judge Limbaugh could not solemnize a marriage in Florida, so Rush asked Hutcherson to make it official.

“Uncle Steve led it off, and then the Hutch, in his own inimitable way secured the deal,” Limbaugh told his audience on his June 15 radio show.

Some have questioned why Hutcherson, well-known for his pro-marriage stand, would preside at the thrice-divorced Limbaugh’s Palm Beach, Fla. ceremony. The former Dallas Cowboys linebacker uses a football analogy to explain why he felt he ought to be a part of it:

"The Buffalo Bills went to the Super Bowl and they lost a lot of times, but they never gave up," Hutcherson said. "Rush Limbaugh never gave up on the institution of marriage."

The wedding, he says, was “absolutely fantastic,” with the couple “committing themselves to Jesus Christ.” If they are growing in Christ, Hutcherson believes, a couple won’t have a hard time growing together.

And Hutcherson says he didn’t mince words in his message to the bride and groom.

"If anyone knows me they know that I would not bite my tongue [about what makes] a successful marriage," he said, namely: "There's no such thing until there's 'death do us part.'"

Hutcherson says that a number of the guests, including conservative luminary Sean Hannity and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, came up afterwards to thank him for his message.

Surprise over Hutcherson’s part in the wedding was nothing compared to the transatlantic — correction, worldwide — bemusement surrounding Elton John’s concert at the reception.

Hutcherson says he and the assembled guests greatly appreciated the knighted pop idol’s unexpected performance.

"It was a great concert. It was surprising," Hutcherson said. "Rush and Katherine didn't let anybody know" that John was coming.

"I think Elton was blown away by the reception he got," Hutcherson said, musing that if Limbaugh had shown up to a liberal crowd, he would not have gotten as warm a reception as John did at the Limbaugh wedding.

After his honeymoon, Limbaugh returned to the air June 15.

(Image source: Wikipedia User: Apache119)

The private equity firm Kolberg & Co. led a group of investors to acquire a majority stake in Christian publisher Thomas Nelson, announced Thomas Nelson Tuesday in a press release.

As part of the deal, Publisher's Weekly reports, Kolberg plans to appoint 55% of the Thomas Nelson board of directors, including the innovative publishing mogul Jane Friedman, CEO of the digital-only publishing firm Open Road Integrated Media and former CEO of HarperCollins, as well as several Kolberg senior execs.

“We are very excited about what this means for Thomas Nelson’s future in the rapidly evolving publishing industry,” said Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt in the press release. “We are eager to start working with Kohlberg and our other new board members as we build upon our success bringing some of the most talented Christian authors and speakers to millions of people around the globe.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, Thomas Nelson hopes that this deal will enable them to be more aggressive about acquiring other companies.

Thomas Nelson revealed in their press release that the purchase “will significantly improve the company’s capital structure and eliminate the majority of its long-term debt.”

The company, privately held since 2006, has not disclosed details of its financial situation. The recent economy has not been good to the publishing firm, though they “tried getting ahead of the recession by cutting staff from about 600 to between 400 and 500 in the past couple of years,” the Journal reports.

"It sounds like they are an excellent company that just had a bad balance sheet," said Roger Briggs, a partner in a Nashville private equity firm, to the Tennesean.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. traces its history to 1798, when Thomas Nelson, Sr. opened a second-hand bookstore in Edinburgh, Scotland. The publisher opened its first United States office in 1854. They were the first to publish the American Standard Version, the Revised Standard Version, and the New King James Version of the Bible.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal has further comment, noting that companies who have previously acquired religious publishers have found that "these deals aren’t universally generating heavenly returns."

The captain of France's national soccer team is said to have blamed noise from the "vuvuzela" for keeping his team awake at night and contributing to a poor match against Uruguay in the World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa.

But Tinyiko Maluleke, president of the South African Council of Churches, told Ecumenical News International that the three-foot noisy horns are forcing the world to wake up and acknowledge Africa's past sufferings.

Nearly 85,000 people have logged on to a website, www.banvuvuzela.com, to silence the horns during the World Cup; a little more than 9,000 want to keep them.

Soccer fans and players say the constant noise from the horns can cause hearing loss and makes the matches unwatchable, even on TV.
Coaches on the sidelines say the noise makes it difficult to communicate with players on the field.

"In the 19th century, white missionaries sided with colonials and gave blacks the Bible, while they took the land. Now, we have created the vuvuzela, which is one of the most obnoxious instruments: very noisy; very annoying. It will dominate the World Cup," Maluleke said recently in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the 2010 World Missionary Conference.

"I see the vuvuzela as a symbol -- as a symbol of Africa's cry for acknowledgement."

Southern Baptists issued a veiled but sharp critique of the nation's oil companies on June 16, saying "all industries are ... accountable to higher standards than to profit alone."

Members of the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Orlando, Fla., said the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was a timely reminder that "our God-given dominion over the creation is not unlimited, as though we were gods and not creatures."

The resolution, passed as the two-day assembly concluded, urged churches to pray for an end to the catastrophe and asked businesses and governments to work together to prevent future accidents.

The nonbinding statement comes as various religious groups are struggling to determine how best to respond to the spill and those whose livelihoods hang in the balance.

"We call on Southern Baptists to be ready to assist the communities and churches of the Gulf Coast through the clean-up process with the same generosity of spirit that Southern Baptists exhibited after Hurricane Katrina of 2005," it reads.

Baptists also adopted statements stemming from their opposition to homosexuality, opposing the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act and plans to allow openly gay members to serve in the military.

A few headlines in global World Cup coverage have caught CT’s attention:

North Korean soccer fans are the target of a group of Brazilian evangelists who came to South Africa for the Cup, the Guardian reported. The group sees a rare chance to speak to citizens of the normally closed country: “We were praying for North Korea to qualify,” one pastor said to the Guardian.

No word on who they were rooting for in yesterday's match between the two countries, but Brazil's win probably had little effect on the evangelism: As the paper notes, North Korea allowed few actual North Koreans travel to South Africa, and those folks cheering were probably Chinese paid by the North Korean government.

South African churches, meanwhile, are taking advantage of the mission field the Cup provides. Associated Baptist Press reports on Baptists hosting World Cup church screenings, holding soccer outreaches for area children, and even writing a special newsletter they will distribute at World Cup events.

CTV reports that churches are addressing the dark side of World Cup tourism by raising concerns about the increase in child trafficking accompanying the flood of people entering South Africa for the Cup. (Children's HopeChest president Tom Davis has a blog that's more or less devoted to trafficking and other social justice issues of the World Cup.)

On the field, however, officials have muted expressions of faith. The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), which governs the Cup, is not allowing players to demonstrate their religious faith, and some Christian leaders are protesting. The Association of Evangelical Priests in Paraguay called the ban “an attack on religious freedom and freedom of conscience,” reports Agence France-Presse.

AFP notes that this might affect Brazilian players like the world-famous Kaká, a evangelical Christian who’s been known to wear an “I Belong to Jesus” T-shirt underneath his jersey and reveal it after victories. The Times of London's Matthew Syed speculates on why athletes like Kaká bring their faith to the field.

The New Republic discusses the rise of evangelicals on Team Brazil, and Baptist Press has a profile of U.S. goalie Tim Howard, a well-known Christian who was “Man of the Match” in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with England.

Der Spiegel reports that African soccer officials frequently have to crack down on witchdoctors who try to get spiritual forces involved in the sport.

Religious concerns even surround TV coverage of the Cup in some countries. Sports Business Daily reports that Hyundai has pulled a World Cup commercial after Catholic groups protest what they saw as “sacrilegious and offensive” imagery. In Somalia, radical Muslims have killed two and arrested many others for watching the Cup, which they say distracts from “pursuing holy jihad,” according to the Telegraph.

Finally, if you’d like a fresh perspective on “the beautiful game,” CNN has video of a new innovation: Lego footballers reenacting Saturday’s USA/England game.

(Image from www.shine2010.co.za)

Atlanta-area pastor Bryant Wright was elected as president of the Southern Baptist Convention during its annual meeting in Orlando today. Wright replaces Johnny M. Hunt, who was elected in 2008.

Messengers at the convention also voted to approve the Great Commission Resurgence recommendations, which Wright had supported.

Wright won in a runoff with Florida pastor Ted Traylor, 55.11 percent to 43.97 percent, according to the Baptist Press, which posted the rest of the results. He initially faced Traylor, Alabama pastor Jimmy Jackson, and Minnesota-Wisconsin convention leader Leo Endel.

The Baptist Press and the Florida Baptist Witness posted interviews with Wright.

They say it only takes a spark to get a fire going.

The famous “Touchdown Jesus’ statue outside Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio was hit with a lot more than a spark, and some Christians are trying to understand why.

"This is not right," a church member by the name of Gifty told WDTN news after the Monday night fire that resulted in around $700,000 worth of damage to the statue and the church’s nearby theater. "We just all have to go on our faith and ask God. This cannot be a coincidence."

“Something is not right that we have to pray about,” she said.

The Dayton Daily News posted audio of an almost embarrassed 911 caller alerting authorities to the June 14 conflagration.

“I swear to God this is not a prank,” he said to the dispatcher. “I just saw lighting strike it and it is on fire.”

The statue’s official name is the “King of Kings,” but many use the nickname “Touchdown Jesus” because it depicts Christ raising both arms to the sky. The church installed it in 2004, with a steel frame covered in wood and Styrofoam and coated with fiberglass mat and resin. Church leaders have said they plan to rebuild.

“It sent goosebumps through my whole body because I am a believer,” said Levi Walsh, 29, quoted in the Middletown Journal. “Of all the things that could have been struck, I just think that that would be protected. ... It’s something that’s not supposed to happen, Jesus burning,” he said. “I had to see it with my own eyes.”

“It meant so much to so many people,” said church member Cassie Browning to the Dayton Daily News. “The statue can be destroyed and gone, but Jesus can’t be.”

"I'm thinking it's a sign from Jesus that we need to learn something, as Christians, as a whole, we're not doing something right," said church member Kevin Jones to WHIO.

Others have chimed in with their views. On the Internet, Lindsay Van Kirk of SportsGrid.com’s “Power Grid” blog wryly suggests that the fall of Touchdown Jesus is a sign that recent controversies in the football world may have “made God a bit mad.”

Mark Brumley, on Ingatius Press’ “Insight Scoop” blog, thinks that the fire is a sign that lightning and fiberglass do not mix according to the laws of God’s universe. But, he says, if the fire sparks self-examination among Christians who see the charred remains, maybe that was part of God’s plan.

“Since most of us usually have something to repent of or to repent more deeply of,” he wrote, “the destruction of the statue certainly can be taken as a providential reminder to turn away from sin.”

Artist Thomas Kinkade spent a night in jail after being arrested Friday in California on suspicion of drunken driving.

The Monterey County Herald reports that Kinkade, 52, was booked into the Monterey County Jail Friday night and was released Saturday after posting bail.

The arresting officers described Kinkade as polite and cooperative. Monterey County prosecutors were awaiting a police report Monday to decide if criminal charges will be filed against him.

Kinkade's website describes him as the most-collected living American artist. He is famous for his use of light in paintings of cottages, lighthouses, and landscapes.

The Thomas Kinkade Co. said in a statement it was reviewing the allegation, according to the Associated Press.

Kinkade's company owes millions of dollars to art gallery owners who won fraud claims, the Sacramento Bee reports.

One of Kinkade's firms filed for bankruptcy protection from the gallery owners and creditors earlier this month.

Christianity Today articles on the artist include "Gallery of Accusations," "Darkness Looms for 'Painter of Light,'" and "The Kinkade Crusade."

The St. Petersburg Times reports that two former members of the Church of Scientology’s elite Sea Organization leadership group have filed lawsuits in federal court, alleging that the church violated labor laws and forced them to abort two children.

Claire and Marc Headley filed separate actions in January 2009. In addition to the abortions, the Headleys allege that the Church created a working environment that constituted forced labor and violated human trafficking laws.

According to the Times, Claire Headley testified in a May 28 court filing that the church threatened her with “heavy manual labor and … interrogation” if she did not have an abortion after finding out she was pregnant in 1994. In 1996, she became pregnant again, and she alleges that she was not even allowed to contact her husband before having an abortion.

She told the paper, “I'd already promised myself the first time that I would never, ever go through with that again,” but with the church pressuring her and her husband cut off from contact, she felt that a second abortion was “inevitable.”

"I don't remember saying, 'I will' or 'I will not,'” she said. “It was more like the apathetic path of least resistance. I know I never said, 'I want an abortion,' because I did not have the strength to say that.”

The Times report includes video interviews with Headley and other women who say they went through the same thing. Sunshine “Sunny” Pereira, a former Sea Org staffer who says she handled pregnancy cases as part of her job, says she had two abortions of her own in 1994 and 2001.

In her video interview, she told the Times that the church made pregnant Sea Org staffers feel that their work was too important to abandon for a child.

"They put you in this position where you're weighing the lives of all these people you're supposed to be saving against this one little tiny speck of nuisance that's growing inside of you, and make it seem so unimportant," Pereira said.

The Church of Scientology denies that they have ever forced anyone to have an abortion.
Church spokesman Tommy Davis told the Times that people who want to have children “receive assistance from the church, including immediate prenatal care, medical care, financial assistance and even help in finding housing and employment upon departure from the Sea Org.”

Davis released sworn statements from ten women who said Scientology leaders supported them during their pregnancies.

The Church has moved to dismiss the Headley lawsuits. A hearing on the motions is scheduled for July 26.

Jimmy Dean, a country singer star who was perhaps best known for his sausage brand, has died at 81.

"I loved music since the Seth Ward Baptist Church outside of Plainview (Texas)." he said in a 2004 interview. He also gave some colorful quotes to Esquire in a 2001 interview.

--Being a Baptist won't keep you from sinning, but it'll sure ... keep you from enjoying it.

--Do what you say you're going to do. And try to do it a little better than you said you would.
God is bigger than people think.

--My favorite song? "Amazing Grace." Anybody singing it. But the best it'll ever be done is by the Scottish National Pipe band and their National Orchestra. It'll bring tears to your eyes.

In 2008, Dean donated 1 million dollars to Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas.

“Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life. They laughed at the clothes I had to wear to school and the house we lived in. But what they did, unbeknownst to them, was they lit a fire in here,” Dean said at a university luncheon. “And for a long time, I’d say, ‘One day, I’ll show you.’ That was a great driving force in me.

In 1969, Dean started the Jimmy Dean Meat Company in Texas. He sold the company to the Sara Lee Corporaton in 1984. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of fame earlier this year.

Rescue craft are on their way to recover 16-year-old Abby Sunderland, the teenager who tried to become the youngest sailor ever to circle the globe alone.

The Sunderland family lost contact with her yacht, Wild Eyes, on Thursday morning when she ran into trouble on the Indian Ocean. A Qantas Airbus A330 found her later that day. She was fine, but turbulent seas had knocked over Wild Eyes’ mast.

Members of the Sunderlands’ church, Blessed Hope Chapel in Simi Valley, Calif., heard the news at a late-night prayer meeting for Abby on Thursday evening, according to the Ventura County Star.

"We just know that Abby is in his hands and nobody can snatch her from his hands," Pastor Joe Schimmel said as the service started. An hour later, at 11 p.m., they got a text message saying that Abby was all right, and according to the Star, Schimmel “raised his hands in jubilation.”

Her trip around the world is over, but her family is just happy to find her well: “We are very, very happy and excited that the Australian search and rescue jumped on this right away, got a plane after her,” Abby’s father, Laurence Sunderland, told CNN.

Before the voyage, Laurence told the Los Angeles Times that he believed “the Lord is in control of everything” on Abby’s journey.

"We are born-again Christians, and we don't make any decision just based on feeling or even on sound knowledge,” he told the Times in a video interview. “We also pray about it. The conviction of prayer and the answer to prayer has led to where we are with Abigail's campaign.”

Abby’s mother, Marianne, told momlogic.com that the Sunderland family became Christians when their oldest son, Zac, was 4. In 2008, the 17-year-old Zac became the youngest person to complete a solo voyage around the world. This past week, he graduated from the Trinity Pacific Christian School program, a homeschool organization in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

“God was with me every nautical mile,” he said of his own historic voyage during his graduation at Calvary Community Church, according to the Star.

With two children now having taken shots at the world record, Marianne Sunderland is grateful for God’s care.

“Sometimes I wake up during the night and I think about what could happen and think of her out there alone on the ocean,” she said. “I start to get nervous. But I believe that God controls the wind and the waves and whatever comes to her.”

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has signed a bill into law which protects church bake sales, potlucks and similar events from sanction by state food inspectors, according to WHTM.

Pennsylvania church leaders—and, no doubt, church bake sale cooks—welcomed what became known as the “Pie Bill.”

“Everybody likes pie,” pastor Mike Greb told The Philadelphia Inquirer this week. His own St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church has been at the epicenter of the recent controversy. ""These fundraisers are our survival," Greb said. "In tough economic times, they keep the doors open and the lights on."

In early 2009, an inspector from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture shut down a St Cecilia’s Lenten bake sale.

Since the food was coming from a non-state-inspected kitchen, the state government considered it a “potentially hazardous substance.” Freshman State Senator Elder Vogel decided to introduce a bill—his first in the legislature, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review—allowing nonprofits to sell home-cooked food at fundraisers.

Concerned citizens sweetened the deal by inundating their legislators with plates of cookies, the Inquirer reports. The bill passed the House and Senate unanimously last week.

In 2005, Christianity Today reported on several states which had various degrees of restriction of what churches could and could not do with baked goods.

Image via lcarsdata/wikimedia

Update (April 19, 2013): The Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that The Falls Church, a "3,000-member congregation [that] voted in 2006 to leave the Episcopal Church did not have the right to keep the sprawling property known as the Falls Church."

The ruling, which came yesterday, affirmed a lower court’s decision in favor of the denomination, but also "said some of the nearly $3 million in church coffers belongs to the Falls Church Anglican congregation."
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(Note: If you're coming here from Google News or a similar link: My apologies for the posting of a very incorrect headline, based on some initial news reports. The Virginia Supreme Court did not say that Episcopalians own the Virginia churches. Read on for what it did say.)

The Supreme Court of Virginia has ruled in favor of the Episcopal Church in the state's much-watched dispute over church property. But it's just the latest ruling in what will continue to be a long fight.

Reversing a lower court's ruling, the Virginia Supreme Court said that the Anglican churches cannot use the Virginia "Division Statute" (the state law governing property when "a division has heretofore occurred or shall hereafter occur in a church or religious society") to file their claims.

But the actual answer to who owns the property is still a long way off.

Legal details after the jump...

In late May, Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of best seller "Son of Hamas" about his life as an informant inside Israel and his life-changing decision to follow Christ, posted on his personal blog that US Homeland Security wants to kick him out of the US for his past ties to Hamas.

He writes:

I have worn many hats in 32 years—Muslim, Christian, son of Hamas, Prisoner 823, spy, traitor, USAID administrator, businessman, best-selling author. Now I am Homeland Security File# A 088 271 051. And, according to these “highly trained” civil servants, I am a threat to America’s national security and must be deported. On June 30, at 8 a.m., I have a hearing before Immigration Judge Rico J. Bartolomei at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration Court in San Diego. But I am not worried about this. I am outraged! My only concern is about a security system that is so primitive and naive that it endangers the lives of countless Americans. Honestly, Judge Bartolomei’s verdict really does not matter. If he rules to deport me, I will appeal. And Homeland Security has assured me that, if he rules in my favor, they will appeal. And this insane merry-go-round can go on like that for decades.

I interviewed Mosab some weeks ago and and edited version of this interview is in the June issue of CT and posted online today. As an American, I suppose what is most shocking about Mosab's situation right now is that he's the one that made first contact with Homeland Security!

He notes in his blog:

Hall of Famer John Wooden, who died Friday just four months shy of his 100th birthday, was most known as the greatest coach who ever lived, leading UCLA’s men's basketball team to 10 national championships, including an astonishing seven straight from 1967 to 1973, a stretch that included 88 consecutive victories.

That’s how he’s most remembered. But perhaps he’ll be best remembered as a mentor, a friend, a loving husband and father, and a source of endless wisdom and grace to hundreds of players, thousands of coaches, and millions of fans and admirers through the decades and around the world. Wooden has long said that his wisdom came primarily from two sources—his earthly father, Joshua Wooden, and from his heavenly Father.

“I really do believe the Lord has healed me and that this is going to be something that we look back on and smile on his grace and his mercy,” Matt Chandler said in today's video blog post.

Chandler, lead pastor of The Village Church in Highland Village, Texas, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor after a seizure last Thanksgiving. He has been vlogging during his treatment with generally upbeat reports, and describes his healing today somewhat casually.

"We’ve got a long road ahead of us, but all in all God has been unbelievably merciful in healing and in comfort, and in those ways," Chandler says at the end of today's video. "It would have been merciful if it had gone the other way, too, but this has been a big answer to prayer for our family and for a lot of you.”

He says next Friday he'll go back to text blogging, talking about issues unrelated to his health and recovery: "Different things concerning the church, different things concerning the Scriptures, differing things concerning the gospel."

(Video after the jump.)