Chicago Tribune tells Chicago to relax about Baptists
“To judge by the reactions it has provoked, you would think the Southern Baptist Convention had announced a program of forced conversion,” it said in an unsigned editorial yesterday.
Six-foot high Ten Commandments can stay in front of Indiana courthouse
“Although the text of the Ten Commandments dominates the monument, it cannot be said that the message of the monument is exclusively religious,” says U.S. district judge, while lawyer credits “God’s will” for victory.
Christian Y2K hypemeister not ‘letting down my guard’
“While their [sic] is certainly cause celebrate, the ‘fat lady’ has not yet sung,” says Michael Hyatt, Senior Vice President and Associate Publisher of Thomas Nelson Publishers. “While I hope that she is truly a ‘no-show’ and nothing significant happens, I am not yet willing to make my plans based on that assumption. I am certainly not at the point of wanting to dispose of my preps or let down my guard.”
Bush parodist seeks Rutherford Institute help
Zack Exley’s gwbush.com is one of the Web’s most famous political parodies, but has (naturally) been attacked by the Bush campaign. Exley has now turned to John Whitehead’s Rutherford Institute, a religious liberty organization that has recently branched out into more civil liberty cases—notably backing Paula Jones against President Clinton—for legal help.
(See our December 7, 1998 issue for more on the enigmatic Whitehead and the Rutherford Institute.)
Time Magazine, Los Angeles Times,
CNN gang up on Catholic hospital
Monday’s Los Angeles Times ran an article on how Catholic hospitals often refuse to perform medical procedures, such as tubal ligations and abortion, that contradict their religious beliefs. As a case study, they looked at Gilroy, California, and a woman named Zina Campos, who can’t get a tubal ligation because a Catholic Healthcare West bought out the town’s South Valley Hospital, renaming it St. Louise Regional Health Center. It’s exactly the same case covered by Time in its November 15, 1999 issue, and the same town CNN covered in October. Apparently, Catholic hospitals’ biggest problem is that they only have that one patient.
Peter Jennings to search for Jesus
The ABC anchor tells Larry King that “he’s fascinated by religion … [and] about the real historic life of Jesus.” So he will host a two-hour ABC special on Christ’s life some time in the next few months, tentatively titled “Peter Jennings in Search of Jesus.” Jennings’s research? “We looked first of all, of course, at the New Testament, the Gospels. Then we went to look at the archaeology and listen to the historians on the side. And we put together a two- hour prime-time special which I think is very exciting.” The show, he says, is “a bit controversial,” but doesn’t say why.
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