Bottom line: If you post a picture of Gandhi, Buddha and Jesus at the county courthouse, the courts will allow them. If it’s Jesus only, the portrait’s coming down.
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Barack Obama drew fire for suggesting that globalization converts rural Americans into bitter, intolerant, gun-toting religious zealots. But a new Rasmussen Reports survey suggests Obama’s stereotype is off by about 180 degrees. Perhaps religion (to steal a line from Jesse Jackson) makes life “better, not bitter.”
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By JENNIFER LOVEN

WASHINGTON (AP) – An enthralled South Lawn crowd of more than 9,000 sang “Happy Birthday” to Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday, and President Bush said that the first papal White House visit in 29 years was a reminder for Americans to “distinguish between simple right and wrong.”
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Yes, there’s now a faith-based board game called “Vatican: The New Papal Election Board Game.” Up to 6 people can play the game, even women. The cost: $39.95
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Maybe those “Open Hearts, Open Minds Open Doors” television commercials are paying off. Only 4 percent of Americans say they have a negative view of Methodists. The same number say they hold negative views about Jews, a new Gallup poll finds.

Ten percent view Baptists negatively, 13 percent dislike Catholics, 23 percent have unfavorable views of evangelicals and 26 percent view Mormonism negatively. Atheists and Scientologists fare even worse…
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LifeWay has posted a list of 10 ways to make visitors feel unwelcome. Click here to read it. Does anyone have a horror story about being made to feel uncomfortable at a house of worship? I do.
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So now, apparently, Barack Obama is channeling the ghost of Karl Marx and the words of Howard Dean. According to the Washington Post, the Democratic presidential frontrunner said: (more…)

What beautiful irony.

William Blake’s “Jerusalem”, the only hymn I’m aware of that denounces the evils of empire and the ‘Satanic’ industrial revolution, has been banned from Southwark Cathedral. Admirers say Blake’s words were an attack on 19th century Britain’s ‘military-industrial complex’ and England’s worldwide imperialism. But the dean of Southwark Cathedral says the song is ‘too nationalistic’ and doesn’t glorify God. (more…)

Is it ever a good idea to award the Olympics to a totalitarian state? Was it right to give a powerful propaganda tool to Berlin in 1936? Or Moscow in 1980? Or Beijing in 2008?

No puffs of white smoke. No doves from heaven. But there is a press release on the Vatican web site — in Italian.
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 I have an  Nikon SLR camera that focuses automatically. Which is great except for those rare occasions when it focuses, automatically, on the wrong object. I thought of my camera as I read a story in today’s Times, which focuses, perfectly, on the wrong items. The result: the key items are blurred, sometimes beyond recognition.
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Apparently, he’s a Superdelegate. Who knew?
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Bill and Hillary Clinton gave roughly 10 percent of their income to charity from 2000 to 2007, according to data released today… (more…)

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) – In Virgina, 11 conservative church congregations seeking to break from the Episcopal Church in a dispute over sexuality and other theological issues have won a preliminary victory in a lawsuit that will decide who controls church property.
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Take megachurch praise and worship music. Add an orchestra and a posse of hip-hop dancers. Mix in some ballerinas — and the musical artistry of former Entertainment Tonight host John Tesh. That, in a nutshell, is Alive: Music & Dance. Democrat-Gazette Religion Editor Frank Lockwood interviewed the composer and keyboardist about his latest DVD and CD. Here are the highlights, edited for space and clarity.
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