Anti-'Under God' Atheist Takes on Congressional Chaplains

Michael Newdow hopes lightning strikes twice Californian Michael Newdow is clearly trying to become the next Madalyn Murray O’Hair. The emergency room doctor who famously sued over the Pledge of Allegiance has now filed suit in federal district court charging that government funding of chaplains in the U.S. Congress is unconstitutional. “If congressmen want to go to church, [then] walk down the block like other Americans do and go to church,” Newdow told The Washington Post. “Don’t get my government engaged in it.” He also claims he was discriminated against when he applied for the jobs of House and Senate chaplains because he’s an atheist.

There’s no way this case is going anywhere—the Supreme Court has already ruled that state-funded chaplains are constitutional. “In light of the history, there can be no doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the fabric of our society,” Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in the 1983 case Marsh v. Chambers. “To invoke divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, a violation of the Establishment Clause; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.”

But Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott warns Newdow’s crusade is no joke. “We should not look upon this as a frivolous case but as another attack on religious liberty,” he tells the Post.

Bruce Springsteen, Messiah There are fans, and then there are fans. Steve Gushee, religion writer for the Palm Beach Post and Cox News Service is apparently a superfan of Bruce Springsteen. “The Boss is an unlikely candidate for sainthood in most religious traditions,” Gushee writes. “Still, [his latest album] The Rising is a profound faith statement regarding Sept. 11 that no religious group has equaled. … Thank God, someone is doing the church’s job.” The church, according to Cox, “offered little to soothe the angst felt almost universally after the catastrophes at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on that Pennsylvania farmland.” He faults Catholics for being too distracted by the pedophilia scandal and says “Prominent Protestant leaders” such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Franklin Graham “have behaved disgracefully … [offering] recrimination and accusation in place of reconciliation and hope. … Springsteen, on the other hand, sings of prayer, resurrection and new life.”

Finally someone dares to speak the truth!!! Knock Falwell, Robertson, Graham, and some Catholic bishops off the list, and absolutely no Christian leaders have said anything healing about 9/11. No one has provided any direction or hope from the ruins of the World Trade Center. Dude, give us a break.

Heroic religion A couple of years ago, Weblog noted an article examining the religion of Superman and Batman. Now, in the wake of disclosure that The Fantastic Four’s Thing is Jewish, The Dallas Morning News examines lesser-known 7 superheroes’ religion. Jews still come out on top, but the paper notes that the X-Men’s Nightcrawler is planning to become a priest and that Nightwing (the original Robin) listens to dc Talk and reads the NIV Bible.

Church and state:

Committee endorses ‘under God’ after debate | Pledge is still controversial (The Bay City [Mich.] Times)
Clearfield’s commandments | Another divisive debate on the Decalogue (Editorial, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Nearly half of Americans think First Amendment goes too far, survey finds | 48 percent of respondents agreed the government should have the freedom to monitor religious groups in the interest of national security — even if that means infringing upon the religious freedom of the group’s members (Associated Press)

Politics:

New Christian group meets with positive reaction | Body calls for national dialogue (The Daily Star, Lebanon)
‘Church Lady’ ad for lottery is withdrawn | Backer changes tack to avoid offending some (The Tennessean)
Walking in faith | Condoleezza Rice talks about her faith at a Sunday school class at National Presbyterian Church (The Washington Times)
Regier wrangle isn’t ‘people of faith’ vs. the infidels | While private citizen Regier’s religious beliefs are his business, people of all religious stripes, or none at all, have every right to squirm over his professed desire to “bring God’s voice … to public policy” in his role as secretary of Florida’s Department of Children & Families (Bill Berlow, Tallahassee [Fla.] Democrat)
New Christian loyalist group unveils founding document | But questions persist as to whether gathering exists solely to rival Qornet Shehwan (The Daily Star, Lebanon)

Life ethics:

Split vote puts stem-cell backers in double jeopardy | The House of Representatives cast a shadow over legislation allowing stem-cell researchers to destroy human embryos last night, when it voted to allow a separate vote on the issue (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Australia’s House of Representatives bans human cloning | MPs voted 89 to 43 to support splitting the bill and then unanimously passed a ban on human cloning (ABC News, Australia)

Courts:

Judge says it’s ‘premature’ to enter Maui church battle | At issue is property where a congregation aims to build a chapel (The Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
Unhappy wife loses bid to sue Catholic Church for $25m | Court rules every marriage celebrated by a minister or registrar after oath or solemn affirmation shall be valid and legal (AAP)
A religious bias suit by evangelical chaplains against the Navy | The law confronts denominational diversity (Marci Hamilton, FindLaw.com)
Lawsuit targets church | Ex-pastor claims broken promises, financial ruin (Wilmington [N.C.] Star)

Crime and violence:

Suspect arrested at church takes deal | Las Vegas man who walked into church three weeks ago and confessed he killed his wife (Las Vegas Sun)
No death penalty in church attack | Nassau DA’s decision in 2 killings (Newsday)
Zimbabwe’s militias drive priest from parish | Patrick Kelly accused his Zimbabwean bishops of being cowed by Mugabe’s regime and of failing to defend him when he was ordered to abandon his church in the mountain village of Nyanga (Sapa)

Islam and Christianity:

Christians can learn much from the Qur’an | Christians can hardly expect Muslims to take our theology seriously if we do not know the basics about theirs (Thomas W. Goodhue, Newsday)
The learning response | Beneath all the controversy, many non-Muslims take time to learn about Islam (The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.)
Academic freedom | Reading program on Koran ignites debate (Editorial, The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Islam’s anguish | The best antidote to narrow and rigid fundamentalism is knowledge. (The Boston Globe)
Agenda against Muslim charities | Christian-based organizations support terrorism, too (Joseph B. Abboud, Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan)
Opening western eyes to a view of Islam | David Schoenbaum reviews Daniel Pipes’s Militant Islam Reaches America (The New York Times)

Schools and education:

Extreme religious conservatives have power to block books | What should Texas’ textbooks say? (Samantha Smoot, The Dallas Morning News)
Baylor frat suspended over Playboy photo | About 50 men and four women, all students at the time, posed fully clothed for the magazine (Associated Press)
Also: Texas students punished for Playboy pose | Fraternity at Baptist-run Baylor University has been suspended for a year (Reuters)
District suspends student for wearing symbol of faith | Mother says pentacle doesn’t symbolize devil worship (KXAS, Dallas)
University of Maryland reading about gay student riles conservatives | Family advocacy groups object to University of Maryland freshmen being asked to read a play about a homosexual college student, and are monitoring a Texas library’s decision to remove from its shelves a book they say promotes homosexuality and abortion (The Washington Times)

Yoga:

Colorado classroom yoga questioned | Some families at Aspen Elementary said the chanting that often accompanies yoga techniques might challenge the constitutional separation of church and state (Associated Press)
Vicar bans church yoga | Derek Smith objected to the trendy exercise because of associations with the Hindu faith (The Sun, U.K.)
Vicar in a twist over yoga classes in church hall (The Guardian, London)
Vicar’s yoga ban defended (BBC)

Missions and ministry:

Christian aid worker back in Kabul | Georg Taubmann and several other workers of Shelter Now are back, unpacking their belongings, ready to start their lives over again building homes for Afghanistan’s poor (The Christian Science Monitor)
Go-go, and sin no more | The gospel dance club that was the answer to their prayers has turned into a test of faith. (The Washington Post)
Give us our daily bread | Scotland’s first in-store chaplain, David Gillham, has been appointed at the Walmart Asda store in Livingston, West Lothian (Daily Record, Scotland)
Earlier: Aisle 4: Milk, Bread, and God (Christianity Today, Aug. 5, 2002)
Black Catholics still crusading | It has been a century of slow progress since the group first gathered in Chicago in 1893 (Chicago Tribune)
Franklin Graham event draws 80,000 | Largest religious gathering in Seattle since a 1982 event featuring his father, Billy Graham (Associated Press)

Denominational rifts:

Episcopal diocese, church end flap | Members of Christ Church in Accokeek agreed to drop their appeal of a federal court decision that removed the Rev. Samuel Edwards as their priest last year. In return, Diocese of Washington Bishop John B. Chane agreed to appoint a new priest picked by the church to replace Mr. Edwards (The Washington Times)
Also: Accokeek church, diocese reach accord (The Baltimore Sun)
Episcopal Church heads for showdown | David L. Moyer, president of the national organization Forward in Faith, may be defrocked next week (Associated Press)
A triangular religious debate | Jewish leaders are assailing the Southern Baptist Convention — and the Roman Catholics are to blame (Associated Press)

Church life:

Churches try to bridge differences | A 60-member commission seeking to bridge differences in the World Council of Churches between western Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches proposed sweeping changes Thursday in the group’s voting and worship practices (Associated Press)
Hawaiian church loses a round in its battle to expand | Judge does not order Maui County to OK project and leaves key issues undecided (Los Angeles Times)
It’ll take more than magic | The next archbishop of Canterbury may be a druid, but he may not be able to hold the fractured Anglican denomination together (Ian Hunter, The Globe & Mail, Toronto)
New Los Angeles Cathedral evokes survival in adversity | In a moment of triumph for a church that has faced accusations of abuse by its priests, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels will be dedicated in Los Angeles on Monday (The New York Times)
Pictou preacher rejects bylaw | Rev. Ken Gilliard and members of his Cornerstone Community Church in Lyons Brook held an outdoor service at Pictou’s marina stage Saturday, despite being warned by the town that he would be charged with breaking its public-places bylaw for not having a permit (The Daily News, Halifax, N.S., Canada)
Baptist seminary moves into new home | The John Leland Center for Theological Studies, the D.C. area’s first Baptist theology school with a broad evangelical focus began its fifth year of classes yesterday, hoping that its new home and new accreditation will add to a winning formula for modern seminary education (The Washington Times)
Manhattan church to reopen after attack | St Paul’s Chapel has undergone a $300,000 refurbishment in the past weeks, after serving for eight months as a relief post for emergency workers and a place for visitors to leave their remembrances (BBC)
Bride faces excommunication | Priest refused to conduct wedding of Planned Parenthood worker (Calgary Herald)

Business:

Nelson’s CEO talks about company’s challenging year | A recent report that raised questions about Moore’s reimbursing the company $139,000 for personal expenses and services from employees did not come up at the shareholders meeting. (The Tennessean)
Accountable to God: Scandal time? | Learn business in a religious environment (Naomi Schaefer, The Wall Street Journal)

Pop culture:

‘The Boss’ may be evangelist the Church needs | “The Rising” is a profound faith statement regarding Sept. 11 that no religious group has equaled (Steve Gushee, Cox News)
Chevy sponsors Christian concert tour | Chevrolet will have on-site vehicle displays at the “Come Together and Worship Tour,” which will feature performers Michael W. Smith, Third Day and Max Lucado (Advertising Age)
A lonely soul with a gun | The amateurish “Baptizing Adam,” earnestly acted, posits the theory that promiscuity and religious devotion are equivalent pursuits (The New York Times)
Comic-book heroes seldom reveal their faith | Recent revelation of the Thing’s religion was a rare moment for pop culture (The Dallas Morning News)

Art:

‘Buddhist’ art in cathedral upsets evangelicals | Canterbury Cathedral has been accused of promoting “New Age” beliefs in a new art work which features video pictures of a naked baby to a soundtrack of Buddhist chanting (The Daily Telegraph, London)
Modern artwork revives church | Chris Gollon’s stations of the cross promises to be disturbing (The Guardian, London)
Church will retain Mussolini fresco | Work crews in Montreal are busy cleaning the interior of Montreal’s celebrated Church of the Madonna della Difesa, but they won’t being whitewashing its most notorious and distinctive feature—a depiction of Benito Mussolini (Broadcast News, Montreal, Canada)

Books and magazines:

‘Blue Shoe’ steps lively with humor, grace | Anne Lamott has a gift for depicting the divine in ordinary life (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Oliver North tells a tall tale of White House intrigue | It’s published by the Southern Baptists (The New York Times)
A cluttered study of today’s God-science mix | Corey Powell argues that science is itself rapidly becoming the new world religion (The Boston Globe)
The women the Taliban couldn’t take | Jane and the real enemies (Kathryn Jane Lopez, National Review Online)

Sex abuse cases:

Even good priests fear abuse policy | False accusation could haunt for life (San Francisco Chronicle)
Catholic priests sue accusers | The priests argue a lawsuit is one of the few ways they can clear their names in a climate of public anger over offenders who remained in parish work (Associated Press)

Other stories of interest:

Debate rages over biblical mystery | An archaeological site in southern Israel is at the centre of an ongoing debate over whether it could be the last resting place of biblical prophet John the Baptist (BBC)
German soccer league bans Jesus from the field | The organization in Frankfurt has told players to stop displaying religious slogans on T-Shirts (Idea, Germany)
European priests held in Uganda | Army questioning why they were with Lords Resistance Army rebels (Africast.com)
Hate, American style | Rev. Matt Hale, America’s scariest hatemonger, would probably be flattered to hear his “church” referred to as America’s Al Qaeda (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times)
Islanders opposes Sunday flights | The Isle of Lewis takes its Sabbath seriously (Associated Press)
Religion news in brief | Catholic sex abuse panel, American Indian clergy salaries, Michigan’s Catholic law school, pledging on the Qur’an, and other stories (Associated Press)
Bad vibes | Warning: Meditating may be hazardous to your health (San Francisco Weekly)
Bulgaria to build a Noah’s Ark | Black Sea competes with Turkey’s Ararat (BBC)