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Each year, two British churches are torched by arsonists and £28 million (US $42 million) worth of materials are stolen from houses of worship. Even worse, last year saw 462 attacks on Britain's religious clerics, according to watchdog group National Churchwatch.

The stripping-themed game, apparently a satire of the popular "Tomb Raider" series, has garnered the ire of Dads and Daughters, the National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families, the Center for Health and Gender Equity, and the American Family Association. Folks, listen: sometimes people do things just to provoke you, get some media attention, and make a couple of quick bucks. Without these protests, would anyone have even heard of this game? Probably not. As Jonathan Kay, senior editor of MyVideoGames.com, notes, this cheap game would have headed "straight for the bargain bins."

"There seems to be some ambivalence within the [Christian bookstore] industry about Web businesses such as iBelieve.com and other Christian-oriented e-commerce sites," reports the Chicago Tribune. "In fact, competitors for [these stores] are the mega-chains such as Borders, Crown Books and Barnes & Noble, all of which have begun to carry some religious titles in an effort to tap into a growing market." Meanwhile, several Christian bookstores are taking a "wait and see" approach to e-commerce, worried that "spending too much time on a Web site would take away from the brick-and-mortar business."

The latest album by Sinead O'Connor, who once tore up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live (she later expressed deep regret) is profoundly religious, say reports., On one track, "The Lamb's Book of Life," she sings, "Everything in this world would be OK / If people just believed in God enough to pray." Another track on the "'Faith and Courage" album reworks the Kyrie Eleison. O'Connor is an archdeacon in the Tridentine Church, a breakaway order from the Roman Catholic Church.

"[Christina] Broadnax, 18, and her friends have discovered something interesting: People can dance just about any way to God's music and pull it off," reports The Washington Times. "The four call themselves the Anointed, a group of rhythmic sistas blessed with a talent for dance and a knowledge of how lyrics and movement fit together. They are trailblazers on a mission to spread the gospel by incorporating modern dance moves, traditional ballet techniques and contemporary hip-hop, freestyle motions to soul-stirring music." Don't expect any new insights into liturgical dance from this article, unless you count "We want audiences to see God's power manifested through our dance" as particularly insightful.

In its May issue, Fast Company profiles Sister Barbara Rogers, "a nun with an MBA from the Yale School of Management" who revitalized a once-struggling girls' school. Her secret was to always choose the riskiest approach in reimplementing the school's core vision statements. "It was really quite simple: We chose the approach with the highest possible risk, because that was the only way to go," she tells the magazine. "And that's what made it fun."

"Fogel seems to have recreated the 'secular religion' advocated by philosopher John Dewey. But for people who like the old-time religion, the secular kind just doesn't do the trick," writes Peter Coy in a review of Fogel's new book, which suggests a growing spiritual surge will help people with "self-realization." "Maybe so. Maybe the New Agers will inherit the earth. But the energy these days seems to be with new groups like Vision America, a coalition of pastors that opposes abortion, gambling, gay rights, and pornography. Self-realization is not high on Vision America's agenda."

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May (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44