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4. Jars of Clay too chicken to release protest songs
"People want to buy what they want to be told," Jars of Clay lead vocalist Dan Haseltine told the Argus Leader this week. "They want people to lie to them." And so, the Argus Leader reports, Haseltine obliges. "Haseltine says Jars of Clay can't release the war protest songs it has written — its fans probably aren't ready for them," the paper's Robert Morast writes. "It's also why Haseltine rarely shares his political opinions. 'If you rock the boat too much, your records won't appear in certain Christian record stores anymore,' Haseltine says … . 'There are just taboo subjects that make it hard to be a Christian artist.'" Morast ends his column by saying that he "has new respect for Jars of Clay." Why? Because Haseltine won't say or sing what he really believes because he's worried about the effect on sales? What is respectable about that?

5. Religious visa fraud hurting Christian ministers
Last year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found that 35 percent of religious worker "green card" visas were based on fraudulent information. A significant percentage of those were from "special risk" countries— Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, Syria, and Iraq — where 3 of every 4 visa applications were fraudulent. This week, Cox News's Eunice Moscoso says the fallout is bad news for priests, nuns, missionaries, and other religious workers hoping to enter the U.S. Crystal Williams of the American Immigration Lawyers Association says the visas "seem to have come to a grinding halt." Among those hardest hit: the Catholic Church, which wants foreign priests to fill empty pulpits.

Exchange of the day
From today's Focus on the Family broadcast:

James Dobson: [In a private meeting a few weeks ago,] I asked you a pretty bold question. And I appreciate the fact that you didn't seem offended by it. But I asked you if the rumors were true that you were in an affair with a woman obviously who wasn't your wife at the same time that Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were having their escapade.

Newt Gingrich: Well, the fact is that the honest answer is yes. But it was not related to what happened. And this is one of the things the Left tries to do and one of the places where, frankly, I think the way this report of the special counsel was written weakened the case. …

I drew a line in my mind that said, "Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept felonies and you cannot accept perjury in your highest officials."

Dobson: Well, you answered that question with regard to Bill Clinton instead of referring to yourself. May I ask you to address it personally? You know, I believe you to be a professing Christian and you and I have prayed together, but when I heard you talk about this dark side of your life when we were in Washington, you spoke of it with a great deal of pain and anguish, but you didn't mention repentance. Do you understand that word, repentance?

Crime | Abuse | Violence | Military | Sudan | Iran | China | Nigeria | Homosexuality | HPV | Gingrich on Focus on the Family | Rudy Giuliani | Mike Huckabee | Romney and Mormonism | John Edwards | Obama's pastor | Politics | Environment | Life ethics | Church and state (U.S.) | Church and state (non-U.S.) | Czech cathedral battle | William and Mary cross | Higher Education | Education | Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy | Evolution | History | "Lost Tomb of Jesus" | Books | Film | Music | Art and media | Money and business | Prayer Palace | New Life Church and Ted Haggard | Church life | Anglicanism | Catholicism | Atheism | Missions and ministry | People | Other stories of interest

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March (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51