American walked across North Korean border intentionally. Now he’s getting a Pyongyang Get Out of Jail Free card.
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From the Winfield United Methodist Church newsletter in Little Rock, Ark.

“Mistakes happen and there area few in our new ["Fruit of the Spirit"] cookbook. On page 108 in Jackie’s recipe for Apple Crisp please add 1 cup of sugar.

On page 90, Anna Faye Dawson’s recipe for Spinach Fandango add the following to the end of the directions.

Pour into casserole, top with cheese and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Phenomenally talented journalist William Lobdell, formerly religion reporter at theLos Angeles Times, has launched an investigative journalism site with ex-con Barry Minkow, who turned from a life of crime to a life of Christian ministry.

Lobdell wrote Losing My Religion in 2009 about his conversion from evangelical Christian to atheist. His new project is unprecedented — and risky.

The journalism will be funded by short-selling stocks in the companies that Lobdell writes about. This means the outfit will benefit financially by undermining public confidence in the companies it rights about. And if iBusiness Reporting messes up, there’ll be libel lawyers circling overhead.

More information about the endeavor is available here.

“I don’t know what’s worse, church or jail.” — Idgie Threadgoode, Fried Green Tomatoes.

Question: Did Circuit Judge Timothy Pickard improperly mix church and state by giving this option to a Michigan youth?

Read the story (below) and then let me know what you think of the unconventional sentencing option. I’ll post my two cents worth at the bottom…
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Who is America’s most influential pastor, other than evangelist Billy Graham.
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In Tennessee, some a cappella churches of Christ are forging ties with their piano-playing Christian brethren, Bob Smietana reports.

Sally Jenkins blasts National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us…

It’s a great read. You can find it here.

With economic catastrophe looming in 2008, then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson sought help from a source even greater than Alan Greenspan, according to Paulson’s upcoming book.
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According to this report, the alcohol flows freely on congressional junkets and taxpayers are footing the in-flight bar tab.

The retiree thought he was taking ceramics class, but it turns out he had signed up, inadvertently, for Political Correctness 101.

When he tried to make a cross in his ceramics class at a local community college, he was told that it wouldn’t be allowed. And if he defied orders and made one anyway? Well, he wouldn’t be allowed to fire it in the community college’s kiln.

Sounds like somebody needs to notify the State Department’s U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. It turns out there’s little religious tolerance, at least for Christians, in Turkey. Tajikistan. Texas.

Now, if he’d defiled the cross, or created it out of elephant dung, I’m guessing it would have received a better reception in Moscow. Mesquite.

(To read more, click here.

The ban on cross-making was lifted, but only after lawyers intervened.

In America, we have thought police trying to stamp out too many ideas that I always assumed were protected by the First Amendment. And all too often, these agents of intolerants are educators, which makes it all the more ironic. The targets are often evangelicals, and my hunch is that we’ll see more of this as American society becomes increasingly secular.

I don’t know about you, but I find this kind of mortifying…

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press Writer
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book by the Polish prelate spearheading his sainthood case.
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Drinking water in Russia — of both the holy and unholy varieties — is often contaminated, according to this news report.

This poll was done for the Knights of Columbus, an anti-abortion pro-Catholic group. The findings are consistent with other polls. What is interesting, to me, is the generational differences. Senior citizens and young Americans are more likely to say abortion is morally wrong than baby boomers.

ONE NOTE: This poll does not show that most Americans want to ban abortion, only that they find it to be immoral. That’s a big difference.
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A really fascinating story about Wheaton College, the Harvard of evangelical Christian colleges, was set to run in Books & Culture, but got killed at the last minute.

The bad news: You won’t be able to read it in the January/February 2010 issue (which retails for $4.95). The good news: You can read it for free here.

This is a weird, weird, weird one, folks.

A Michigan company is printing Bible citations onto high-powered rifle sights that it sells to the U.S. military, ABC News reports.

Some folks are up in arms because they say it blurs the line between separation of church and state and because it injects religion into America’s Jihad against Radical Islam War on Terrorism.

But let me ask a question that the story doesn’t address. Is it blasphemous to quote the Prince of Peace on a piece of military equipment. Is it sacrilegious to stamp New Testament scripture references onto a deadly weapon?

And finally, if Jesus were stamping scripture references onto military weapons, which quotes would he pick?

Love your enemies?
He that lives by the sword will die by the sword?
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?