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"Independence officials have resisted granting a permit to build. On Tuesday, the Planning Commission tabled a request for the permit so that the City Council can consider using eminent domain to take the property. Possible uses include a park or water-retention area," Molly Kavanaugh reports.

Vice Mayor Gregory Kurtz told the paper, "One of the concerns of people is that it starts out as a simple church and who knows what it evolves into," he said.

Forget the crazy state and federal laws that forbid this kind of discrimination for a second and consider this: it's an Eastern Rite Catholic church. How big do they think it's going to get? What's the biggest immigrant Catholic megachurch?

In related news, a suburban Chicago church lost its suit seeking to convert a warehouse into worship space. The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, ""When there is plenty of land on which religious organizations can build churches (or, as is common nowadays, convert to churches buildings previously intended for some other use) in a community, the fact that they are not permitted to build everywhere does not create a substantial burden." That's going to be a significant ruling in disputes invoking the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).

Beyond the top five

6. Go to college, keep your faith
"Students who attend college are more likely to maintain religious beliefs than those who choose not to attend higher education," says a study published in the journal Social Forces (the article isn't available online yet). The Daily Texan summarizes the findings: "college graduates reported a 59.2-percent decline in religious service attendance [since high school] compared to a 76.2-percent decline among those who chose not to attend college."

7. Fellowship of Christian Athletes settles lawsuit with Kansas school district
The club now has the same rights as all other extracurricular clubs.

8. Iraqi Christians debate Assryrian Christian homeland idea
AsiaNews seems to be very much in against the idea of the Nineveh Plain homeland proposal. The Assyrian International News Agency seems to be very much in favor of it. There are some interesting theological arguments among the historical, practical, and other discussions.

9. The New Republic covers Martin Burnham and Christian martyrdom
The article is well worth a read (especially all the way to the end, where former missionary Gracia Burnham says, "I don't think that Abu Sayyaf is going to hell"). But it's also interesting that this article comes just a couple months after The Atlantic devoted a cover story to the Burnham abduction and "rescue." (Mark Bowden's article has been optioned by Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer.) Why all the mainstream press attention to the Burnhams five years later, when there wasn't all that much attention during their abduction?

10. David Plotz finishes blogging the Old Testament
The Slate deputy editor is now working on a book based on his one-year reading, and looking "for a wry Christian writer who can blog the New Testament."

Quote of the day
"For the Creation Museum, I did what I did as an actor. It doesn't necessarily mean I believe in evolution or I believe in creation. I'm hired to get a point across. On the flip side, if I was hired to play a murderer, that doesn't mean I'd go out and kill somebody. It's make-believe."

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June (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51