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• Baptist church embraces lesbian minister | Sometime soon, the church probably will be disfellowshipped from the Southern Baptist Convention, which has taken similar action against about a dozen other churches since 1988 that acted to ''approve, affirm or endorse'' homosexual behavior (The Tennessean)

Clergy sex abuse:

• 16 priests named for first time in sexual abuse lawsuits | At least three still active; total of accused at 130 (The Boston Globe)
  
  
• McCormack says trust in church is 'strong' | A day after Bishop John B. McCormack met with alleged abuse victims of a Massachusetts priest, the bishop disputed their account that he told them he had lost trust in the Roman Catholic Church (The Boston Globe)
  
  
• Also: Despite crisis, Lennon has faith in church's strength (Boston Herald)

Art, media, and culture:

• Am I anti-gay? | Activists are upset with an ad my magazine accepted, but advertising and editorial are two different things. (Robert Epstein, Psychology Today)
  
  
• Evangelicals produce American religion's classiest magazine | Books & Culture, sister publication of evangelicalism's quality middlebrow voice, Christianity Today, has established a solid niche as a spiritual equivalent to The New York Review of Books (Associated Press)
  
  
• Also: Books & Culture's website
  
  
• Bill Viola coaxes new meaning from old masters | As you stand in the darkened room at the Getty Museum before Bill Viola's "The Quintet of the Astonished," you might at first think it's a still life (Long Beach [Calif.] Press Telegram)
  
  
• 'Christian rockers' no oxymoron | One of the most promising new groups of guitar slingers is Sanctus Real, which released its first major-label record, "Say it Loud," a few weeks ago (The Orange County Register)

Obituaries:

• Christian feminist Monica Furlong dies | Was a leading figure in the successful campaign for the ordination of women priests in the Church of England (Associated Press)
  
  
• Tolkien son accused of sex abuse dies | Had suffered from dementia (Birmingham Post)
  
  
• 'Conscience of the nation' dies at 91 | Alan Walker was the Methodist founder of the Lifeline phone counseling service and superintendent of the Wesley Mission from 1958 to 1978 (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Other stories of interest:

• State wants to fix its 'highway to Hell' | New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wants to change the number of the route officially known as Highway 666 (Reuters)
  
  
• Living longer with religion | Does faith really help people live longer? Some say it's more helpful than you think (Wilmington Star)
  
  
• Drought defeats Hutterites | Dry, sandy soil forces Hardisty colony to declare bankruptcy, shut down (The Edmonton Journal)
  
  
• Tackling life with faith | Randy Gradishar says Christianity is more important than Hall of Fame (The Denver Post)
  
  
• Controversial bishop fights on in retirement | In 1989, the Right Rev. Paul Moore Jr. retired as the Episcopal bishop of New York, ending a 17-year, often controversial, tenure as an eminent embodiment of theologically and socially liberal Christianity (The New York Times)
  
  
• A patron saint for hopeless clickers | Vatican turns to cyberspace in its search for protector of users of the Internet (The Washington Post)

• Vatican guard was "driven" to kill commander, says book | Volume accuses the Vatican of a shameful "conspiracy of silence" to conceal sordid details about life in the Swiss Guard and "hide the the fatal failings that make the force unfit to protect the Pope" (Reuters)

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January (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47