2 of 5

• Also: Supreme Court favors uniform civil code (India Express)
  
  

• Rape and torture empties the villages | Serious attacks on and persecution of religious minorities by Islamic fundamentalists are increasing, and despite a detailed dossier on 18 months of persecution of religious minorities, and women in particular, the British government calls Bangladesh a "generally safe" country. Amnesty International says this makes "no sense" (The Guardian, London)
  
  

Church life:

• Rural megachurches invoke resistance | Counties worried about threat to preservation efforts (The Washington Post)
  
  
• Method in the merger | So, it's third time lucky for the Methodists. They have finally persuaded the Anglicans to enter into a covenant that allows the two churches to live and work together, rather than form a united church (John Vincent, The Guardian, London)
  
  
• Panel pushes for safer passenger vans | General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. should add lap-and-shoulder seat belts and other improvements to their 15-passenger vans by 2006 to make them safer in rollover accidents, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday (Associated Press)
  
  
• Also: NTSB urges steps to boost safety of vans (Reuters)
  
  
• A little too personal | Can you sue the person in the pulpit for preaching hellfire — at least if it gets personal? (Peter Steinfels, The New York Times)
  
  
• Women clergy face challenges as their numbers rise | The number of women clergy tripled between 1983 and 1996, from 16,408 to 43,542 (Associated Press)
  
  
• Keep church away from airport: city staff | Group wants complex inside noise zone (The Ottawa Citizen)
  
  
• One immigrant church yields to another | Belorussian parish closing books (Chicago Tribune)
  
  
• Shakers get by with help from their friends | Dying religious sect lives a simple communal, agrarian lifestyle of worship and hard work. Supporters pitch in (Associated Press)
  
  
• Lutherans to tackle tough issues at Winnipeg assembly | Lutheran World Federation faces moral division and global needs (Canadian Press)
  
  
• Iraqi minority looks towards future | Sabaean Mandeans John the Baptist as savior (Associated Press)
  
  
• Experts say Moscow cathedral unstable | St. Basil's Cathedral, Russia's most recognizable landmark with its swirling, multicolored onion domes, is on shaky ground (Associated Press)
  
  

U.S. politics and law:

• Drug firms gain church group's aid | Claim about import measure stirs anger (The Washington Post)
  
  

• Yesterday: Drug Importation Bill Ignites War Between Religious Conservatives (Weblog, Christianity Today)
  
  
• Ken Connor considers running for U.S Senate | Stepped down from Family Research Council earlier this month (Associated Press)
  
  
• Holding civic groups accountable | As nongovernmental organizations become part of the established political landscape, they owe it to the public to be accountable and transparent (Editorial, The New York Times)
  
  
• Ads claim anti-Catholic bias blocking Bush court nominee | The ads, which appeared in newspapers in Maine and Rhode Island, depict a sign with the words "Catholics Need Not Apply" hanging on a courthouse door (Chicago Tribune)
  
  
• Deal offered on child tax credit | Democrats said the Senate Republicans' compromise offer included benefits for richer families that were too costly to pass (The New York Times)
  
  

• Striving in Richmond: faith, hope and charity | Andre Shumake hopes President Bush's faith-based office and subsequent regulatory changes brought about by an executive order will help stop the killings (San Francisco Chronicle)
  
  

next page... |  2 of 5

share this page

July (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47