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More on Bush's faith-based initiative:

• Faith and parking (The New York Times)
• Defending 'faith-based' plan | White House to argue charities can separate religious, secular (The Washington Post)
• Religion goes with the soup | The establishment of an office to pump federal money into religious charities has brought a uniform reaction from across the spectrum of churches and civil libertarian organizations, left to right. The only problem for the president's plan is that most of that response has been negative. (Dan K. Thomasson, The Cincinnati Post)
• As Buddhas fall | We should remember that one man's faith is another's heresy, that religion is sometimes a variant of madness and the cause, not the cure, of what ails much of the world. (Richard Coen, The Washington Post)
• Leaps of faith | Quotes from "Face the Nation" (CBS News)
• Religion, politics and the weight of history | The moderator of the Reed-Dershowitz debate speaks her mind on Bush's faith-based initiative (The Seattle Times)
• Heart and soul of the faith-based debate | Waiting for details of the president's plan (Larry Eichel, The Philadelphia Inquirer)

After NewYorkTimes article, USAID will closely monitor Samaritan's Purse
Yesterday's Weblog discussed a New York Timesarticle accusing Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse of "blurr[ing] the line between church and state as its volunteers preach, pray and seek converts among people desperate for help." Weblog concluded that the organization had made a convincing argument that the newspaper blew the story, but there's still no correction, clarification, or apology in the Times corrections page. However, the Associated Press reports that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is taking steps to ensure that Samaritan's Purse has "adequate and sufficient separation between its prayer sessions and its USAID-funded activities." The agency is "warning the organization that it cannot mix evangelism and government-funded assistance," the AP reports. But Samaritan's Purse says it never did so anyway.

Lent:

• Don't confuse self-indulgence, sacrifice (Susan Cheever, Newsday)
• Catholic Church renews emphasis on Lenten discipline (Religion News Service/Chicago Tribune)
• Lent: 40 somber days | Explaining the numbers and customs behind the Christian church's doleful remembrance of Christ's passion (UPI)

Church life:

• Church services cut to limit foot-and-mouth risk | Christian leaders ask for prayer and unity during outbreak (The Times, London)
• Attracting young adults to a relevant church taxes Christian ministers (The Denver Post)
• Church blesses a coffee icon | Starbucks debuts in Munster, Indiana's Family Christian Center, making its first foothold in a church. (The Boston Globe)
• Seeking a wider view of a church's identity | A Columbia congregation explores its faith and how to express it in everyday life. (The Sun, Baltimore)
• Management: For one church, divine intervention isn't enough | St. Bartholomew's in Manhattan hires an outside accountant to turn finances around (The New York Times)

Christian films:

• Spiritual drama on 'Road' to ruin | Nothing in the Billy Graham Crusade's World Wide Pictures film Road to Redemption is remotely plausible, but the characters here are merely cogs in a well-oiled machine meant to espouse a religious message. (Associated Press)

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March (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45