| At least 3 million would die in India-Pakistan nuclear conflict |
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A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir would kill at least three million people, according to scientists.
Millions would die in the immediate blast and fire and from radiation. Others would suffer destroyed homes, lack of water and facilities and disease years later. |
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Yellowstone Presbytery takes no action in case of Session's non-compliance statement |
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On May 21, 2002 the Presbytery of Yellowstone voted down a recommendation from a special Pastoral Committee of Two to form an administrative commission that would have attempted to persuade the Session of First Presbyterian Church, Anaconda, Montana to modify its current Statement of Conscience on G-6.0106b. At this time, the presbytery has decided to take no action on the Anaconda Session Statement of Conscience.
From Anaconda's Statement of Conscience: "...we are compelled to reject any interpretation of G6.0106b that would categorically exclude persons from ordained service solely because they are in a relationship other than a civil contract between a man and a woman..." |
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The "Confessing Church": the new Puritans
By Berry Craig |
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"I believe the Presbyterian Laymen and the Confessing Church Movement when they say they don't want to split the Presbyterian Church. They want to take it over. They are the new Puritans....
"The Laymen and the CCM are what most Presbyterians are not: ideologues, folks who, according to historian Paul F. Boller, believe "they have final answers to the big questions about human existence in their grasp and consequently the obligation to force their views on the rest of the world..." |
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How connected must a Presbyterian Church be?
By Robert H. Bullock Jr. |
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"...political efforts within the denomination continue to be premised on a denomination that no longer exists — one in which there is a HQ that can be captured, and if captured, a new flag raised, and new orders issued and a new regime entrenched.
"We must say it as clearly as it can be said: That denomination no longer exists..." |
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| Christianity outstripping Islam worldwide |
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One of the often-heard comments since Sept. 11 is that Islam is growing so rapidly it soon will become the world's largest religion, overtaking Christianity in just a couple of decades.
Many of these projections are traceable to the work of Harvard University scholar Samuel ("In the long run--Muhammad wins out") Huntington... But a new book about Christianity in the Third World says Huntington and others are missing the global demographic picture.
Southern hemisphere Christianity came into its own only after Western colonial powers packed up and left in the 1950s and 1960s. |
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| Muslims assault non-muslims in Australian immigration detention centers |
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Christians and other non-Muslim asylum-seekers have been “stoned, ssaulted, sexually harassed and abused by Islamic fanatics," according to Barnabus Fund press release.
"The majority of asylum seekers in Australia are Muslims," the release said. "Witnesses say that extremist Shiah Muslims, particularly Iranians, Afghans and Iraqis, are often those behind the violence." |
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Book review
'Jihad': Predicting an Islamic reformation
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Gilles Kepel's ''Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam'' will be a welcome respite for anyone who fears the fury associated with militant Islam. Despite the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, Kepel argues that the trend is, in fact, now on its last legs. The violence is merely a reflection of the movement's failure, not its success. |
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| Clergy exchange plan stirs security worries
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A State Department-sponsored exchange program to bring foreign Muslim clerics to the United States and send American clerics to Muslim communities overseas has some Middle East experts worrying that terrorist groups could use the program to slip into the country. |
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Cigarettes, candy, c-rations, and freedom
BreakPoint with Charles Colson |
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Unlike other nations, American identity is not based on ethnicity or geography. It’s based on a moral proposition. This proposition comes straight from the faded and yellowed document: The Declaration of Independence...
This belief has shaped the way GIs treated civilians—even in enemy countries. After all, how can you terrorize men and women when you are fighting to protect the life and liberty of every human being? |
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| Activists take new tack to promote human rights |
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Noting that ExxonMobil "operates in several countries where allegations
of serious human rights violations have been made," Amnesty International's first ever share-holder resolution, to be voted on tomorrow at Exxon's annual meeting, calls on the oil giant to adopt a "human rights policy which shall include an explicit commitment to support and uphold the principles and values in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." |
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| Gideons blocked from distributing Bibles to fifth-graders |
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A school superintendent has told Gideons International to stop its annual
practice of handing out Bibles to fifth-graders.
Two members of the Gideons, the Nashville, Tenn.-based group that places Bibles in hotel rooms, had planned to distribute them to students at the Pine Street School, as they had done each spring since around 1990.
Related link: Students free to give out Bibles |
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| Scotland a pagan country, says church paper |
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In 1972, 43% of Scots said they rarely or never attended church. This figure has risen to over 60% today. Even of those who claim to belong to the Kirk, half go less than once a year, and 12% claim to regularly attend. |
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Everybody loves Father Brian
"The Catholic laity have been enablers and share in the guilt of these criminals." |
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When he was accused in 1995 and sent away for treatment, everyone turned on the victim: One letter writer to the local paper said:
"More Father Brians are needed in this sad, hateful and so much jealous world. ... Giving up his whole life for God is enough proof of his unselfishness..."
When Blackwell, the Baltimore priest who was shot, was initially removed from his parish, the parish turned on the boy and his family, and demanded their priest back.
John Cornelius, a priest in Seattle, has been suspended. Everyone was so surprised. Everyone loved him so much... |
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| Atheist loses bid to halt Bush's faith references
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A Sacramento atheist's legal attempt to make President Bush stop mixing politics and his Christian faith has been tossed out of federal court.
Dr. Michael A. Newdow, an emergency room physician with a law degree who is acting as his own attorney, could not be reached for comment Friday. However, he vowed last year to appeal a related ruling.
He built his lawsuit against Bush around a prayer delivered at the 2000 inauguration by the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, that was based on Christian beliefs and referenced "the Lord Jesus Christ." |
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Chart-storming Greek monks on North American tour
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After storming the pop charts and ruffling the feathers of the conservative Orthodox Church, Greece's "rocking monks" are taking the next natural step -- a North American tour to spread their message.
The group of young monks from Saints Augustine and Serapheim Sarof monastery, nestled in the serene hills near the town of Nafpaktos in central Greece, have achieved celebrity status in their homeland with a rock sound and lyrics touching on subjects from globalization to drug abuse.
In less than two years, the "Free Monks" collective has recorded three albums -- their most recent featuring songs in English for the first time -- and this June's tour will take them to Chicago, New York, Boston, and Toronto. |
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HIV-AIDS education: is it truly prevention?
By Dr. Laura Schlessinger |
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The guise is HIV-AIDS prevention – certainly a worthy goal in and of itself – but that end does not justify stripping prevention education for children of any and all moral and ethical considerations....
Whatever the reason, it is unacceptable that, in order to teach children about sexual health, we end up encouraging them (however inadvertently) to experiment with many different sexual techniques and partners, thereby exposing them to the very dangers we are trying to forestall. I am perplexed that HIV-AIDS prevention tells kids about all kinds of other things, but doesn't really tell them how not to get infected. Without a doubt, the only surefire way for children to stay healthy is abstinence. |
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Is every faith defensible?
Prince Charles has proposed to make monarch "defender of all faiths" |
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As a young prince Henry VIII wrote a brilliant defense of the Catholic doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. For the king's efforts the pope awarded him the title "Defender of the Faith." When, years later, Henry broke with Rome and proclaimed himself the head of the church in England, the monarch kept the title and passed it along to his successors.
Prince Charles, aware that on any given Sabbath fewer than a million of his future subjects worship in his nation's established Anglican faith, has proposed on his accession to the throne to make himself the defender of all faiths.
It is a bad idea. How can one simultaneously defend all faiths when so many of them conflict with one another? It is one thing to hold that religion is a good thing, but quite another to affirm that all faiths are equally good. If anything jumps out of today's newspaper headlines, it is that the world's conflicts are so often justified on the basis of religious differences. Can the future king equally defend the faith of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland when their adherents are at each other's throats? |
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Letters from readers |
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Bruce M. Williams "...Dr. Hunsinger's argument regarding G-6.0106b would appear to be of that case of logical fallacy called the 'straw man argument'..." |
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Karl S. Landstrom "Two of the items in Dr. George Hunsinger's letter of May 24 deserve immediate response..." |
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George Staples responds to George Hunsinger's call for a "break with the insidious culture of blaming that pervades our debates" |
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George Hunsinger replies to letter from A. Franch. |
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Glenda L. Smith "The problem we have as a church is not whether homosexual persons are monogamous or celibate but whether they are continuing in sin..." |
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Donald D. Denton "...It appears that some members of our communion want the worst of both worlds - Congregationalism when it comes to ordination and theology but Episcopacy when it comes to finances...
"The prospect of an aroused membership refusing to support programs and policies that vitiate or insult their values strikes fear into the hearts of people who have grown comfortably arrogant in their power..." |
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Alan Wilkerson suggests to solve the problems about per capita contributions by only having session members be active members... |
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Earl H. Tilford, Jr. "Earl C. Apel asks, "what constitutes acceptable intimate behavior between two people (gay or straight) who are single?" In the case of homosexual couples the answer is very straight forward. Nothing. All homosexual activity is an abomination according to the Bible. There are no exceptions..." |
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