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That or is important. It's not just about the limits of the Constitution. It's about people worrying about religious influence (or, if you will, power).

3. The Boston Globe looks at religious involvement in foreign aid
While The New York Times is getting attention for its look at religious tax and regulatory exemptions within the U.S., The Boston Globe has more quietly been examining how international Christian groups get funding from the U.S. government's foreign aid budget. "Many of these groups do excellent work, and the government has been relying on them for decades, especially during emergencies," the Globe says in a roundup editorial. "But all have an overriding purpose—to convert people to Christianity—and the government needs to distribute the money with a skeptical eye … [T]he U.S. government should not subsidize their work unless it comes without religious content." The Globe is going a bit further than the usual (and important) keep-the-money-separate argument. The paper instead argues that the only religious groups that should get funding are secular ones.

4. The Denver Post: Watch out for Dennis Leonard
At least we at Christianity Today had heard of K.A. Paul. Who is Dennis Leonard? Apparently, he's a hugely popular prosperity gospel preacher in Colorado. His Heritage Christian Center "is a Pentecostal congregation with weekend attendance of about 7,000 - roughly 40 percent black, 40 percent white and 20 percent Latino and other races," church officials told The Denver Post. The paper examines Leonard, his theology, and his money in a special report that's worth reading, even if you've never heard of him. (What's up with this week and special reports on religion?)

5. Did the Amish forgive too quickly?
While several newspapers are doing in-depth special reports on religion, the religion story getting the widest attention this week is still the Amish. But this week, it's less about the school shooting per se and more about the Amish reaction to it. Op-ed writers and columnists around the country are astounded at speed and extent to which the Amish community—including some immediate family members of the victims—forgave shooter Charles Roberts. It was "religion in its best light," said Bruce Kluger of USA Today. "I don't know about you, but that kind of faith is beyond comprehension," Rod Dreher wrote in a widely reprinted Dallas Morning News column. "I'm the kind of guy who will curse under my breath at the jerk who cuts me off in traffic on the way home from church. And look at those humble farmers, putting Christians like me to shame." (Former "Professional Catholic" Dreher, by the way, "came out" as a communicant of the Orthodox Church today, though The Washington Post mentioned as much a few months ago and he earlier said he was "considering Orthodoxy.")

Other op-ed writers are wondering about the lessons to be drawn. "Hatred is not always wrong, and forgiveness is not always deserved," Jeff Jacoby wrote in The Boston Globe. "I admire the Amish villagers' resolve to live up to their Christian ideals even amid heartbreak, but how many of us would really want to live in a society in which no one gets angry when children are slaughtered? In which even the most horrific acts of cruelty were always and instantly forgiven? There is a time to love and a time to hate, Ecclesiastes teaches. If anything deserves to be hated, surely it is the pitiless murder of innocents."

Quote of the day
"National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy.'"

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October (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50