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This is the setting of the Age of Aquarius
Back in the late 1980s, no threat seemed bigger to American evangelicals than the New Age movement. As it turned out, openness to Westernized versions of Eastern mysticism was just a symptom of a larger cultural embrace of personal pluralism and pick-and-choose spirituality. (The nuances were drained from the term postmodernism, and it replaced New Age as Christians' bogeyman.)

Now even the New Agers aren't New Agers anymore. Case in point: New Age Journal is now Body & Soul. "Even though the title New Age Journal was a good one and represented ideas of health and wellness and spirituality, towards the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century it gained more negative connotations," editor Jenny Cook tells Media Life magazine. "New Age took on things further out on the spectrum, like crystal gazing, that the magazine was never about."

And about that change in cultural trends, check out Cook's comments about the magazine's need to address spirituality: "Some of our readers are people who spend their adult lives sampling different religions and then going back to their original religion after experimenting."

Christianity and Islam:

• Baptist pastor attacks Islam, inciting cries of intolerance | Critics said the remarks by the Rev. Jerry Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., and a past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, illustrated how hate speech against Muslims had become a staple of conservative Christian political discourse. (The New York Times)
  
  
• Also: Anti-Muslim remarks stir tempest | Leading evangelicals back Baptist preacher (The Washington Post)
  
  
• Presbyterian Church urges Muslim dialogue | Crucial since Sept. 11, General Assembly advises (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
  
  
• Doctor loses residency, accuses UW of bias after session on Islam | Christian who questioned lecture complains to EEOC (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Education:

• Family sues church over new admissions policy | Rules, which eliminated school tuition two years ago, base future admissions on how often children's parents attend Mass, how much they contribute to the collection plate and how extensively they volunteer time to the church. (The Daily Herald, Chicago suburbs)
  
  
• New education department office reaches out to the faithful | Officials from the Department of Education are touring the country this summer, spreading the gospel that religious and community groups are welcome to vie for federal education dollars. (Education Week)
  
  
• University of California recruiters look to churches | University system is studying a collaboration with religious groups in an effort to attract more underrepresented minority students (Los Angeles Times)
  
  
• For students with disabilities, vouchers fail the test | Voucher programs threaten to usher in a new form of segregation. (Jim Ward, San Francisco Chronicle)
  
  
• Public grants allowed at religious schools | State high court rejects ACLU's arguments on church-state issue (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
  
  
• Also: Decision extends student aid (Seattle Times)
  
  
• Also: State grants can be used at religious schools (Associated Press)

Clergy:

• Clergy campaign for dress-down Sundays | Some argue that young people are put off by liturgical dress (The Times, London)
  
  
• Experts: clergy at risk of burnout | Clergy who have counseled grieving families and comforted anxious parishioners after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are at risk of developing compassion fatigue — in other words, getting sick of helping people (Associated Press)
  
  

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June (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46