Five killed in church bus crash Yesterday morning, a bus chartered by Metro Church of Garland, Texas, on its way to a youth camp crashed into an I-20 bridge support. The bus driver and four youths—ages 12, 13, 14, and 16—were killed. Thirty-six others aboard were injured.
“I thought it was a movie,” 16-year-old Kristan Grubbs told The Dallas Morning News. “I was talking to my friends, and I turned around and I saw this big pillar … coming toward us.”
Exactly how the crash happened is a mystery.
The church, which calls itself “Southern Baptist charismatic,” has been in the news before: it used to be the home church of Operation Rescue’s Flip Benham.
Bologna church targeted by Muslim militants, says Italian paper The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera says Muslims planned to destroy the San Petronio Basilica in Bologna. Paramilitary police, the paper said, intercepted phone conversations among Tunisians and Moroccans tied to the Algerian-based Salafist Group for Call and Combat; leader Hassan Hattab had ordered the church’s destruction.
It’s not just any church. San Petronio has a 600-year-old fresco depicting Muhammad being devoured by demons in Hell. Muslims have long protested the artwork, reports the Associated Press.
Gracia Burnham continues her recovery Rescued but widowed, missionary Gracia Burnham continues to heal physically and emotionally, The Wichita Eagle reports today. “Sometimes at night, Gracia Burnham’s children sleep on blankets spread on the floor of her bedroom,” says the Eagle’s Alex Branch. Gracia Burnham isn’t giving any media interviews, speaking engagements “or anything that would take her from her family,” says her mother-in-law and fellow missionary Oreta Burnham. She and her three children are, however, heading to Arkansas this weekend for an annual family reunion.
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Church & State:
- What’s Jefferson’s ‘wall’ made of? | Did he mean an impenetrable wall so high that neither could ever see the other? A picket fence that would allow roses growing on one side to entwine with ivy on the other? A Lego wall whose bricks can be rearranged according to public will? (Linda P. Campbell, The Miami Herald)
- The gospel of abstinence | The problem with the abstinence-only classes isn’t just that the groups receiving the dollars read like a Who’s Who of the Religious Right. It’s that programs preaching – excuse me, teaching – this are spreading fear, misinformation, and disinformation. (Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe)
- Another Tennessee county ordered to remove commandments display | Judge says it was difficult ‘to reach any conclusion other than that the sole purpose of erecting the challenged display was for the advancement of a religious purpose.’ (Associated Press)
- Church seeks to end Blair veto on top appointments | Calls to scrap role of the Prime Minister in appointing bishops (The Times, London)
- Monks stand by their men in a land without women | The very principle on which Orthodox monastic enclave of Mt Athos was founded—all women, and all images of women, are banned—is under challenge for gender discrimination by the European Union (The Guardian, London)
Religious liberty:
- Christians defend rights in court | Convinced traditional civil-rights groups are antagonistic to Christians, activists increasingly are turning to a secular institution—the courts—to protect the right to noisily declare one’s faith. (The Detroit News)
- Student ‘preaching’ | The First Amendment guarantees religious freedom, not freedom from being annoyed (Editorial, The Boston Globe)
- Why Jehovah’s Witnesses’ victory is a win for all of us | However, Supreme Court frames proselytizing group’s right to go door-to-door as free-speech issue, neglecting to mention free exercise of religion (Charles Haynes, Freedom Forum)
- Florida college, students settle free-speech suit | Students filed a complaint against the school in 1999 after they were detained and threatened with arrest for distributing religious literature without approval (Associated Press)
- Religious impulses, good and bad | The atheists attack the cross, the CFR folks attack soft money, and Jesse Ventura folds like a cheap tent. (David Brooks, The Weekly Standard)
- Religion more of an issue for human resource managers | The federal government’s religious discrimination lawsuit against Sykes Enterprises Inc. reflects issues human resource managers face in balancing employees’ faith and work requirements (The Tampa Bay [Fla.] Business Journal)
Church life:
- Presbyterians cover many bases | Meeting in marathon sessions, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) addressed problems from the most personal to the most political, recommending a plan for peace in the Middle East, defining when late-term abortions are acceptable and calling for a boycott of Taco Bell. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
- Black church in state of flux | More involvement key focus of event (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
- ‘Mega churches’ bring in huge congregations | Americans are comfortable with things that are big (Voice of America)
- Downtown churches face uncertain fate | Because of declining memberships, shifting demographics and lasting damage from the 2001 Ash Wednesday earthquake, Seattle is on the cusp of losing some of its most architecturally inspiring and historically significant houses of worship (The Seattle Times)
- Congregating chickens are devout about Maui church | Clucking wild birds are a noisy nuisance for the parishioners (Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
- Pot smokers to share venue with Christians | Cannabis Day and Christian churches will both be meeting in Halifax park (The Daily News, Halifax, N.S., Canada)
- We’ll have small bells | A group of drunks who gather in a graveyard have asked church officials to stop ringing the bells so loudly as it’s ruining their get-togethers (The Sunday Mirror, U.K.)
- Church’s 118-year story nears end | After series of problems, Pr. George’s congregation to hold last service (The Baltimore Sun)
- Growth pits church vs. neighbors | Neighbors have attended nearly every city meeting focusing on the church’s design plan, seeking any way to stop the church from expanding. (The Daily Herald, Chicago suburbs)
Clergy abuse scandals:
- Former Southern Baptist missionary admits abuse | Says ‘sinful acts’ with children abroad took place years ago (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
- Catholic Church faces new sex scandal | Scandal in the Roman Catholic Church may be spreading from priests’ abuse of children to abuse of women, especially nuns. (Wendy McElroy, Fox News)
- For gay Catholic priests, new scrutiny | Some worry that church could equate homosexuality with sex abuse (The Washington Post)
- Seattle priest faces removal: ‘I’m so clearly not a danger’ | But he admits he inappropriately touched children at a camp in the 1970s (The Seattle Times)
- Bishops begin enforcing abuse plan | Yet even as Catholic leaders began to clean house, outside pressure from law enforcement authorities was building (Associated Press)
- Lawyer for priest shooting suspect heckles prosecutors | Says state’s attorney is not investigating allegations that his client was molested by the priest (The Baltimore Sun)
- Taking his vows to heart | Working in the shadow of abuse scandals, one longtime priest presses on with untiring service to God and community. (Los Angeles Times)
- In hindsight, what might have been done | It has been a season of jolting ups and downs for Bishop John F. Kinney of the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minn., a man who nine years ago was at the center of an effort to focus the attention of the nation’s Roman Catholic hierarchy on the problem of priests who sexually abuse young people (The New York Times)
- Inquiry leader insists bishops are not above ‘corrective action’ | The emerging consensus for tough action against errant bishops suggests that the American church, mired in its worst crisis, may be heading toward institutional upheaval unlike any it has known (The New York Times)
- New Zealand church admits abuse cases | New Zealand Catholic Church admits 38 sexual abuse cases and offers apology (Associated Press)
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