Former New York Times religion reporter Ari Goldman has joined Get Religion as a blogger on religion and the media.

This is a major coup for Get Religion and for my friend Terry Mattingly.

Goldman is a highly respected author, journalist and educator and he’ll bring great insight to the website.

Stand Firm in Faith has posted some of the teachings of Episco-Buddhist Bishop-Elect Kevin Genpo Thew Forrester.

[Genpo is the name Forrester began using after his lay ordination into Buddhism. Genpo, he says, means "way of universal wisdom" although it also allegedly means "mysterious dharma."]

Forrester’s teachings are universalist, New Age and at odds with the Apostles creed and Nicaean Creed, but it’s unclear if they’ll disqualify him from the House of Bishops.

Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention has fallen the last two years, but nobody but Rick Warren is bucking the trend. His Saddleback (mega)Church reportedly just added 2,400 people to its membership rolls.
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By Frank Lockwood
(c) 2009
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Legislation allowing underage Jews to drink beer during religious ceremonies has sparked widespread support in the Arkansas Legislature and puzzlement, even laughter, in the Jewish community.

“I can’t think of any religion, off the top of my head, that uses beer sacramentally,” said a chuckling David Gilner, director of libraries at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.
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USA TODAY has a story that states the obvious. States where organized religion is weak are far more likely to back gay marriage than states where organized religion is strong.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good story and it’s written by a great religion reporter, and it uses new data, but it contains absolutely no surprises — at least for those of us who have been studying exit polls and voter surveys on this topic for the past decade.
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Organizers had expected 15,000 to 20,000 to attend the Dallas event. Instead, roughly 1,500 book buyers showed up, Publisher’s Weekly reports.

This was supposed to be the first annual Christian Book Expo. It may end up being the last annual Christian Book Expo, too….

Quite a story from the Washington Post about the treatment of some U.S. Muslims who travel outside the U.S. during the “War on Terror.”

This story brings back memories. A Nevada high school student had her microphone cut off during her valedictory speech because she veered off the school-sanctioned text and mentioned her faith.

Back in 1985, I was elected to give a graduation speech. But school officials vetted every word, scrubbing away anything they found objectionable.

Five years later, my brother was elected to give a graduation address and his speech faced similar scrutiny. So he wrote two speeches — one for the censors and another to actually deliver on Graduation Day. No one (except the censors) realized they were witnessing an act of defiance as he spoke. The uncensored speech was so tame that it raised absolutely no eyebrows. My brother knew it was possible that they’d cut his microphone, but figured they’d be afraid to do so because it would focus public attention on their censorship.

I attended the Bill Gaither Homecoming concert in Little Rock Friday, enjoying 4 hours and 15 minutes of stellar Southern gospel music. But nobody sang better than Janet Paschal…

By Frank Lockwood
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Fans won’t have to shop on eBay to find Janet Paschal’s old-time hits anymore.
The Southern gospel great’s latest album, Treasure, includes songs that she popularized decades ago.
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will become the nation’s third largest religious body in about a decade, if current trends continue.

According to the 2009 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, there were 7,931,733 United Methodists in the U.S. in 2007 and 5,873,408 Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons.)

The LDS church is growing at an annual rate of 1.63 percent, the yearbook states. The Methodists are shrinking at an average rate of 0.8 percent.

I’ve run the math and, if I’m doing it right, it appears that Mormons will surpass Methodists in the year 2020.

This assumes that the Methodist church keeps shrinking [as it has each year for decades] and that the Mormon church keeps growing at a constant rate [the rate fluctuates somewhat from year to year. In 2006, for example, it grew 1.56 percent and in 2005, it grew 1.63 percent.]

To see the Yearbook’s numbers, click here.

Minor shifts could accelerate or decelerate the shift, but it’s hard to imagine it not occurring sometime in the next 20 years.

The tabloidization of television news continues. The Seattle Times reports that the leader of Hookers for Jesus will debate Unitarian-Universalist (and former Pentecostal preacher) Carlton Pearson on Nightline later this month. The topic: Is Satan real?

Pearson will argue against the existence of a literal Satan. The Hookers for Jesus leader will argue that Satan is real. Also joining in the debate: a Seattle megachurch pastor and self-help guru Deepak Chopra.

Why in the world was this group tapped for the debate? “We went for the most interesting voices we could find,” a Nightline producer explained.

CBS News reports Cindy Winter, the widow of a murdered Southern Baptist minister, has forgiven the man who is suspected of killing her husband.

Terry J. Sedlacek reportedly labeled Sunday, March 9, as “Death Day” in his planner.

That morning he shot and killed the Rev. Fred Winters, pastor of First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois during an early morning worship service.

The Providence Journal has a fascinating article on Ann Holmes Redding, the syncretic Episco-Muslim priest, who faces ouster from the priesthood because of her mingling of Christian and Muslim doctrine.

In the interview, Ann Holmes Redding indicates that she doesn’t believe in a literal interpretation of John 3:16.

Episco-Buddhist bishop-elect Kevin Genpo Thew Forrester has told his fellow Episcopalians in Northern Michigan that his new middle name is Japanese for the “way of universal wisdom.”

But Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi, a popular “American-born, Japanese trained Buddhist” teacher based in Salt Lake City, says Genpo means “mysterious dharma.”

A Japanese-English dictionary does not list “Genpo” but lists “Genpou” — a word that means “salary reduction.”

Genpu, another Japanese word, means “your honored father.”

South Carolina Episcopalians today passed a resolution opposing the election of Kevin Genpo Thew Forrester as a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Forrester accepted Buddhist lay ordination and changed his name to reflect his syncretic spirituality.

He added the middle name “Genpo” — a Japanese word that means “the way, the truth and the life.”

Oops. Wrong religion. “Genpo” means “the way of universal wisdom.”