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Top Five Stories (Fri afternoon-Wed. morning):

1. Presbyterian court: "Conscience takes precedence over propriety"
Presbyterian Church (USA) minister Janet Edwards says her performing the marriage of a lesbian couple is an example of walking in the footsteps of her famous sixth-great grandfather, Jonathan Edwards. After all, she told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, he ministered to Native Americans, calling them virtuous when they were considered by the culture to be savages. ""I would say his acceptance of the Mohicans of the time is similar to my inclusion of gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered people now," she said.

There are a few differences, however. For example, Edwards's church didn't actually define Mohicans as savages. Today's Presbyterian Church (USA) doesn't define "gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered people" as savages, either, but the Book of Order does define marriage as "a covenant through which a man and a woman are called to live out together before God their lives of discipleship."

That's "a definition, not a directive," the court of the Presbytery of the Redwoods ruled last Thursday in the church trial of Jane Adams Spahr. Neither, the court said, is the church's 1991 General Assembly instruction that "it would not be proper" for a minister to conduct same-sex unions. Since the church didn't use stronger language, the court ruled, "the issue remains unsettled." Ministers are to act on their conscience, and since "conscience takes precedence over propriety," ministers who believe that they should conduct same-sex marriages may do so. Hath the church truly said that ministers may not conduct same-sex marriages?

2. Pastor quits over terrorism grief
A Church of England minister has shown a different approach when one's personal attitudes differ with church teachings. She resigned. It's quite a sad story: Julie Nicholson's 24-year-old daughter was killed in the July 7 London terror bombings. Since then, she says, she has been unable to forgive the bombers. "I don't wish to," she said. "Forgiving another human being for violating your child is almost beyond human capabilities. It is very difficult for me to stand behind an altar and celebrate the Eucharist and lead people in words of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness when I feel very far from that myself." The trend in many church circles these days would have been to use those feelings to deny church doctrines on reconciliation and forgiveness, notes Anne Atkins in The Telegraph. "It is refreshing to find anyone resigning from anything these days; certainly for reasons of integrity." A Times editorial agrees: "Mouthing the words is one thing. Meaning them is another. To have forgiveness turned into the most prosaic of platitudes is to demean the concept." The same can be said of a number of doctrines.

3. South Dakota bans almost all abortions
Surely you've seen this story by now. But if you haven't, be sure you check out our own news story, which was posted today.

4. Third strike for Indiana church
At first glance, the story seems like just another sad chapter in a common news theme these days: one more minister arrested on charges of child molestation. But Kevin Whitacre "is the third youth pastor at Good Shepherd [United Brethren Church in Huntington, Indiana] to be charged with such a crime in the past 10 years," notes The Journal Gazette. "Two other youth pastors were found guilty of their crimes."

5. Band sues over Christian label
When the band Mute Math signed with EMI Christian Music Group, it was to get "direct access to Capitol and Virgin" labels, says the band's lawyer. But instead, EMI released the band's EP on Word Records: a distinctly Christian label. "There's a credibility gap," the lawyer told Reuters. The band's members are all Christians, he says, but "Mute Math is not a worship artist. They don't preach from (the) stage. They don't preach in their interviews. Those things are required of you when you work in the Christian market." The band has sued Warner Bros. Records and Word for breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation.

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March (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50