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• RSS for legislation to ban conversion | Hindu group says police discriminated against them by letting U.S. missionary Joseph Cooper be deported without a criminal trial (Sify News)
  
  
• Also: BJP seeks anti-conversion law in Kerala | Says Hindus are being persecuted (KeralaNext)
  
  
• Staines accused not Bajrang men: CBI | Even several prosecution witnesses had deposed before the trial judge that the accused were shouting slogans like ''Bajrang Dal zindabad'' before setting Staines and his sons on fire (The Indian Express)

Crime:

• 4 Mexican officials, civilian slain in shootout in Chiapas | Gun battle breaks out as officials hunt suspects in a pair of killings that some papers link to a Catholic feud with evangelical Protestants (Los Angeles Times)
  
  
• In Manila, kidnapping as a business expense | For this city's affluent ethnic Chinese business executives, kidnapping has been a fact of life—an almost ritual form of extortion (The New York Times)
  
  
• Religion-based scams take Lord's name in gain | Religious affinity scams exploit the trust, friendship and tight-knit structure of people in religious groups, regulators say (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

Church life:

• African Anglicans | American Anglican church members are breaking off from their congregation and looking to Africa for inspiration. (Morning Edition, NPR)
  
  
• The Lord's profits | The music is catchy, the mood euphoric and the message perfect for a material age: believe in God and you'll be rewarded in this life as well as the next (The Sydney Morning Herald)
  
  
• Designers merge their art with higher visions of faith | Schickel Design Co., based in Loveland, works with churches and other religious organizations as they plan new or renovated worship spaces (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
  
  
• Church presents plans for building | Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church space will incorporate worship space, basketball courts, and industrial manufacturing (The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.)
  
  
• Church struggles with changes in its mission, financial woes | Humility has been a hallmark of Worldwide Church of God leaders since they disowned the very non-mainstream beliefs of their founder, Herbert W. Armstrong (Pasadena Star News)
  
  
• Ex-pastor: 'New spin' by church | Officials say David T. Moore wasn't truthful. He says he has been slandered (The Press-Enterprise, Inland California)
  
  
• Vatican stands firm on women priests | The Vatican has upheld its decision to excommunicate seven women ordained as priests last year by a controversial cleric (BBC)

Film:

• A very violent 'passion'  | Mel Gibson's movie about the last hours in the life of Jesus Christ is his riskiest yet (New York Daily News)
  
  
• Visual Bible International begins filming the Gospel of John | Word-for-word biblical adaptation on schedule for release late summer 2003 (Press release)
  
  
• Son of God, the Maine man | Some religious groups are limbering up to protest The Second Coming (The Guardian)

Clergy sex abuse:

• Boston's Catholics say little done to restore church trust | Cardinal Law's exit has not eased discontent. His successor is called unresponsive, and the diocese's tough legal strategy sparks outrage (Los Angeles Times)
  
  
• A requiem for a loss of innocence |  Bearing their portraits and telling their stories, hundreds rally for alleged victims of clerical abuse at a New Hampshire cathedral (Los Angeles Times)
  
  
• Also: Protesters aim to force N.H. bishop to step down (The Boston Globe)
  
  
• Also: Demonstrators call for resignation of bishop (The New York Times)
  
  

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January (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47