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1. Christian skate a no-no says state human-rights division

The Times Herald Record of New York state reports on a roller rink that is accused of human-rights violations for trying to attract Christian customers.

Skate Time 209 offers residents a new wooden roller skating rink and a fancy skateboard park. In its hunt for customers, the business has "tot" skates and "tween" (ages 6-13) skates. There are family nights and adult disco parties.

And there are "Christian skate times" on Sunday afternoons, Skate Time's ad in the April 19 Ulster County Press said. That ad is evidence of a human rights violation, according to the state Division of Human Rights.

A "Christian skate denies or at a minimum, discourages non-Christian patronage," a June 15 letter from the state division said. The weekly paper got the same letter, accusing it of "aiding and abetting" the violation, said its editor-at-large, Greg Childers.

Is it even worth pointing out that "tot" and "tween" skates equally discourage participation from non-tots and non-tweens? Weblog doubts that the person who composed the letters would be able to recognize the inconsistency.

2. Chinese Christian explosion

"It's like in South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, when the church was a leader in the democratic movement," says Yu Jie, a Chinese house church leader. Nicholas Kristof reports on the growth of underground churches in the country.

One reason for the boom in Christianity is that China is going through just the kind of turbulent social change, including alarm at the eclipse of traditional values, that often drives people toward faith. And in China's case, Maoism wiped out the traditional religions.

Despite persecution in some areas of the country, Christians are reshaping China after missionaries failed to do so. "One of the oddest legacies of the Communist dynasty may be that after 2,000 years Christianity gains a major foothold in China."

3. Jim Wallis, hope of the religious left

Slate opens the wedge driving apart the two sides of the Religious Left. Led by "Michael Lerner, the garrulous rabbi and editor of the interfaith magazine Tikkun, and Rev. Jim Wallis, the barrel-chested evangelical editor of Sojourners magazine and head of the anti-poverty group Call to Renewal," the Religious Left (and the Democratic Party) will have to choose its spiritual director.

Martin Edlund writes that the two groups differ in their core audience. At a recent Lerner conference, Edlund says, "My breakout group of eight—led by a stunning Jewfi woman (Jew + Sufi = Jewfi) in ventilated Crocs sandals—included Unitarian and United Church of Christ pastors, a retired scientist looking to marry faith and reason, and a gay former Christian fundamentalist turned theatrical performance activist."

Wallis, on the other hand is more specific: "moderate evangelicals and Catholics." Edlund writes:

The source of Wallis' appeal is his apparent moderation, both political and theological. His argument is compelling in its simplicity: An overriding commitment to social justice is more basic to Christianity than the issues championed by Christian fundamentalists. But to prevail he must avoid seeming too militantly progressive. "The country is not hungry, I don't think, for a religious left to counter the religious right," Wallis told the NSP conference. "The country is hungry for a moral center."

Edlund advises Wallis and the rest of the Democratic Party to leave Lerner, which may do the Left some good. Wallis could steal some so-called moderate Christians from the Republicans, especially those tired of the culture wars. However, for Wallis's strategy to be a winning one for Democrats, he won't be able to ignore the issue of abortion, which sent many Christians into the ranks of the Republican Party to begin with. And the Democratic position on gay-rights issues, particularly same-sex marriage, won't ease the consciences of "moderate" Christian voters this fall.

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June (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50