His megaministry has a $138 million annual budget, AP reports…

Dobson resigns as chairman of Focus on the Family
By ERIC GORSKI
AP Religion Writer

DENVER (AP) — Conservative evangelical leader James Dobson has resigned as chairman of Focus on the Family but will continue to play a prominent role at the organization he founded more than three decades ago.
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The National Council of Churches has released its list of the 25 largest denominations in the United States. All of the mainline churches are declining. So are the Catholics and the Southern Baptists.

White Pentecostal denominations, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are growing. The complete list is below.

It’s hard to tell what’s happening, statistically with the African American congregations because they don’t conduct annual membership surveys.
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The Presbyterian Church USA’s constitution bars non-celibate gays and lesbians from being ordained as elders, deacons or ministers. But the denomination’s General Assembly in 2008 nullified past ecclesiastical rulings on gay ordination and approved a constitutional amendment to strike the chastity in singleness/ fidelity in marriage language from the Book of Order. The amendment must be approved by 87 of 173 presbyteries before it goes into effect.

For more, click here.

The congregation’s ties to the Southern Baptist Convention could be severed, if SBC officials determine that the church isn’t sufficiently opposed to homosexuality, Associated Baptist Press reports.

And it happened in Buffalo, not Baghdad…
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Steve Wu, who led Willow Creek’s Chicago branch church, has resigned, according tonews reports.

The Feb. 17 story is labeled breaking news, but the news broke on Jan. 25. That’s the day worshippers were told about Wu’s resignation.

This is the first time I’ve seen the euphemism “sexual impurity” used to describe a pastor’s (another euphemism) “moral failure.”

An Arkansas legislator wants to remove language from the Arkansas constitution which bars atheists from holding office, reports “On Faith”, the religion website run by Newsweek and the Washington Post.

h/t: Jose Lazano

U.S. News and World Report has an interesting item about televangelist Pat Robertson’s views of Rush Limbaugh.

In an interview, Robertson criticized Limbaugh for saying he hopes President Obama fails.

Says Robertson: “Anybody who would pull against our president is not exactly thinking rationally.”

Two Calcutta journalists were arrested this month, accused of “outraging religious feelings.” The arrests followed riots by Muslims who objected to an article which had appeared in Calcutta’s The Statesman.

The editor and publisher of the publication have been released on bail.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has posted an article about the arrests.

The controversial article originally appeared in London and was reprinted in Calcutta. It can be read here.

John M. Palmer, general secretary of the General Council of the Assemblies of God has resigned, the church announced Friday.

Leaders of the Springfield, Mo. based denomination said Palmer had “confessed to a one-time incident that involved ethical misconduct and an inappropriate interaction with a woman that did not involve any physical intimacy.”

Palmer’s biography has been pulled from the church’s website, but is still available via Google.

He served as a senior pastor in Iowa and Ohio and held other leadership positions before his election as general secretary in 2007.

Palmer had his own blog, which is now disabled. In December, he wrote seemingly prophetic words:

“If there’s sin in my life, the Spirit will find it and reveal it – if I don’t choose to confess it. …God doesn’t appreciate it when we hide our sin.”

“God knows everything about us – He knows our actions and our thoughts. He sees what we do when no one else sees. When we do something we should not do – or say something we should not say – or think thoughts we should not be thinking – the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin. At that moment we have a choice – conceal or confess, conceal or confess, conceal or confess. . .

The best choice is to confess and renounce our sin. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).

If we choose to conceal, the Spirit will reveal! But when we choose to confess, we will be blessed!”

The Hallmark Channel will air an interview with Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu on Sunday at 7 a.m.

For those of you who prefer to sleep in, video clips are available here.

Sarah Pulliam of Christianity Today has written an interesting article about the term “Christian Right” falling out of favor among some right-wing Christians.

As Pulliam correctly notes, labels that were embraced in one age can become epithets in later years.

Early in the twentieth century, many evangelical Christians embraced the term “fundamentalist”. But it fell out of favor — especially after the media began using the term as shorthand for religious extremism of all kinds.

Now “Christian Right” is losing appeal and I think I know why.

The label, I think, has been applied too broadly, to cover anyone who is both a.) an evangelical and b.) opposed to abortion. That’s too broad a brush.

I’m less certain, though, that the label should be abandoned completely. If someone is strongly Christian spiritually and firmly right-wing politically, I’m not sure why the term Christian Right (or Christian Conservative) would be offensive.

If it walks like a duck…

The top polling firm polled people in the United States and around the world and found that the level of religiosity in Alabama is about as high as the level in Iran.

Vermont’s religiosity, on the other hand, is about equivalent to Switzerland’s.

To see where Arkansas falls, click here.

In Fort Myers, an Obama fan is called on at a presidential town hall meeting. He’s so excited, he breaks into a prayer of thanksgiving and then leaps in the air. The video is here if you haven’t seen it.

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is criticizing the stimulus package being debated on Capitol Hill. In an “Urgent” message to supporters, he blasts provisions which would prevent funds from being used by certain religious institutions.