The Colson Center is featuring the Bible Belt Blog on its Facebook page and Twitter accounts today.

That’s Colson as in Chuck Colson, the former Nixon Watergate figure who found Christ, wrote a best-selling book, and started an influential prison ministry. [Time named him one of America's 25-Most-Influential Evangelicals. See the profile here.]

I want to thank Colson Center coordinator Billy Atwell and I want to welcome Colson Center visitors. For those of us who believe in redemption and second chances, Chuck Colson is an inspiring figure…

And, yes, I do have some Nixon-era collectibles. Specifically, a complete set of church bulletins from the Sunday morning worship services that were held in the White House periodically throughout the Nixon administration.

A former White House correspondent donated the collection to the Religion Newswriters Association and I bought it at a silent auction in San Antonio in 2007.

Five of the programs are autographed by the former President. None of them, unfortunately, are autographed by the man from North Carolina who delivered the messages at least once or twice: evangelist Billy Graham.

A majority of the Episcopal Church’s standing committees have consented to the election of an openly-lesbian woman as bishop suffragan of Los Angeles, according to the Episcopal News Service.

A majority of the church’s “bishops with jurisdiction” must also give their consent. That hurdle will likely be cleared shortly.

What impact, if any, that this has on the worldwide Anglican Communion remains to be seen.

Glenn Beck is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a famous conservative talk show host.

He’s created a stir by denouncing churches that trumpet social justice:

“I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

Somewhat coincidentally, (after I’d seen a headline about the controversy, but before I’d read the above quote about checking out church Web sites), I went to the Mormon Church’s official Web site and searched for the terms “social justice”, “economic justice” and “social gospel.”

I can sum up what I found in four words: Run, Glenn Beck, Run.
Read the rest of this entry »

Currently, there are 6 Catholics, 2 Jews and 1 Protestant serving on the nation’s highest court. But the lone Protestant, John Paul Stevens, turns 90 next month, and there is speculation that he may retire soon.

The Washington Post raises the possibility that there could soon be — for the first time in history — no Protestants on the court, and asks if that matters.

My take: American Christianity is no longer divided, primarily, between Protestants and Catholics. Today, the fault lines run between those who believe the Apostles Creed and those who do not, between those who believe that man is sinful and in need of a Savior, and those who don’t. The labels matter less than ever. The world view matters more.

Most evangelical leaders, I’m guessing, would rather see a Catholic like Scalia than a Protestant like Stevens.

I stumbled upon an unusual radio format today: Hot Christian A Cappella.

I saw the link while visiting TheChristianChronicle.org, a Web site dedicated to the Churches of Christ.

[Churches of Christ have been, historically, a cappella.]

By the way, there’s a fascinating story by Bobby Ross about Kenneth Starr.

While at historically-Church of Christ Pepperdine, Starr attended a Church of Christ congregation. But now that Starr has been picked to lead historically-Baptist Baylor University, he has said he plans to join a Baptist congregation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is getting involved in the legal fight over the anti-gay protesters who show up at military funerals with inflammatory messages like “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

The court agreed Monday to consider whether the protesters’ message, no matter how provocative and upsetting, is protected by the First Amendment. Members of a Kansas-based church have picketed military funerals to spread their belief that U.S. deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

The justices will hear an appeal from the father of a Marine killed in Iraq to reinstate a $5 million verdict against the protesters, after they picketed outside his son’s funeral in Maryland.

A jury in Baltimore awarded Albert Snyder damages for emotional distress and invasion of privacy, but a federal appeals court threw out the verdict. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the signs contained “imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric” protected by the First Amendment.

The funeral for Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Westminster, Md., was among many that have been picketed by members of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. Westboro pastor Fred Phelps and other members have used the funeral protests to spread their belief that U.S. deaths in the Iraq war are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. One of the signs at Snyder’s funeral combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto with a slur against gay men.

Other signs carred by members of the Topeka, Kan.-based church said, “America is Doomed,” “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” “Priests Rape Boys” and “Thank God for IEDs,” a reference to the roadside bombs that have killed many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The case will be argued in the fall.
The case is Snyder v. Phelps, 09-751.

The Harvard Crimson has all the details:

“While homosexuality is not considered a sin in the Episcopal Church, which is known for being more progressive than other denominations, Rev. Timothy R. Fleck said that he had his doubts about living with another man in an openly gay relationship when he was first invited to Kentucky.”

St. Martha’s, you’ll recall, is the congregation that took over Church of the Apostles’ building after Apostles’ members voted to leave the Episcopal Church USA.

A little-known fact about the first moon landing. Astronaut Buzz Aldwin celebrated the Lord’s Supper on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, drinking wine from a small silver chalice.

The act of worship was not revealed until after the flight. Sitting in the lunar module, Aldwin, a Presbyterian, read a verse from the New Testament before partaking.

Which verse? John 15:5. Read the rest of this entry »

Many of the dead were children. Families of the victims will receive 10,000 rupees ($220) each.

By RAJESH KUMAR SINGH
Associated Press Writer
KUNDA, India (AP) — A stampede among thousands of poor villagers scrambling for free food and clothes at a commemorative event killed 63 people Thursday at a Hindu temple in northern India and injured dozens of others.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Social Science Research Council has issued a report entitled “The New Landscape of the Religion Blogosphere”.

The report

“surveys nearly 100 of the most influential blogs that contribute to an online discussion about religion in the public sphere and the academy.”

I was surprised and pleased to find out today that the Bible Belt Blogger was included on the most influential blogs list.

h/t to Jose for pointing me to the list. Thanks to all of the regulars who have visited my blog and posted comments over the past three years.

ABC News says Mitt Romney has a”decent chance” of winning the Republican nomination in 2012. Why? Because he lost the Republican nomination in 2008. Here’s ABC’s (somewhat shaky) logic:
Read the rest of this entry »

This has to be the strangest story I’ve seen this week.

It’s called the Book of Prophets, and you won’t find it in the Authorized Version.

By James Hider, Jerusalem

To have a dozen of your agents identified in police tapes after an extrajudicial killing is embarrassing. To have almost 30 operatives left with their covers blown — as appears to have happened after Dubai police released fresh details of the Hamas assassination last month — might be considered reckless.

On the official website of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, is the biblical verse from Prophets, 11:14 — “where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety”.

(Full story here)

That quotation from the book of Prophets bears a striking resemblance to another passage in Proverbs 11:14.

Top-notch Episcopal Church statistician Kirk Hadaway gave a presentation to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and other church leaders — and the numbers don’t look good.

After the ordination of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003, the Episcopal Church lost roughlyone-tenth of its members. Roughly One-seventh of its weekly churchgoers stopped attending.

Is there a big correlation between Robinson’s ordination and the plummeting membership and attendance figures? The presiding bishop doesn’t seem to think so, if this Episcopal News Service article is any indication.

“Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said after Hadaway’s report that she was struck that the most recent trend of declining membership began in 2000 and 2001, ‘long before the actions of General Convention 2003, which is often the spin that is out there.’ That meeting of convention consented to the ordination and consecration of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson as the first openly gay and partnered bishop in the Anglican Communion. That decision caused intense debate across the church and the fracturing of some congregations and dioceses.”

But here’s what the church’s own statistics show:

Membership decline from 1998 through 2002 = 1%
Membership decline from 1998 through 2008 = 12%

The pattern is even more striking for church attendance.

Church attendance from 1998 through 2002 actually increased by 0.5% But average Sunday attendance between 1998 and 2008 decreased 16 percent.

This is a story that is flying under the mainstream media radar.