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By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service Washington – The Internal Revenue Service has concluded that a Southern Baptist pastor’s endorsement of former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was a personal one that does not jeopardize his church’s tax-exempt status. Pastor Wiley Drake of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., received a May 12…

By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service A minister to married adults at Prestonwood Baptist Church, a prominent Dallas-area Southern Baptist megachurch, has resigned after being charged in an Internet sex sting. Joe Barron, 52, was charged Friday (May 16) with soliciting a minor online, the Associated Press reported. Police said he had communications of…

By Ron Csillag Religion News Service Toronto – Despite stern warnings and threats of discipline, a Lutheran church north of Toronto on Friday (May 16) ordained an openly gay man who is legally married to another man. Lionel Ketola, 45, will now serve as associate pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Newmarket, Ontario, and…

The Dallas Morning News – May 15, 2008 (MCT) CALLAHAN COUNTY, Texas – In his first sermon after leaving jail, Yisrayl “Buffalo Bill” Hawkins was in classic form: folksy, paternal and apocalyptic. “No, we’re not getting ready to kill ourselves,” said the prophet of the House of Yahweh, a barbed wire kingdom of brimstone prophecies…

By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) The U.S. Coast Guard has granted a religious exemption to an officer who sued after being denied a waiver from receiving a Hepatitis A vaccine that he believed was derived from aborted fetuses. Lt. Cmdr. Joseph J. Healy, a Catholic from Catonsville, Md., sued the Coast…

By JONATHAN D. RUBIN c. 2008 Religion News Service WASHINGTON — Dramatic increases in food and gas prices are leaving some religious hunger-relief groups praying for relief. Problems were already apparent in 2006, but U.S. churches now report increased difficulty getting meals to people who need them. Food distributors see a perfect storm: a huge…

Associated Press – May 16, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO – Even as same-sex couples across California begin making plans to tie the knot, opponents are redoubling their efforts to make sure wedding bells never ring for gay couples in the nation’s most populous state. A conservative group said it would ask California’s Supreme Court to postpone…

Associated Press – May 16, 2008 TRAMOUNG CHRUM, Cambodia – When residents of this poor, Cambodian village need something built, they call on the Lightmans. The Jewish-American family’s latest gift: a mosque. “We never had such a beautiful mosque in our village,” said 81-year-old Leb Sen, a toothless, village elder with a wrinkled face. “The…

By Daniel Burke c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) It doesn’t have much of a beat, the kids can’t dance to it, and it’s sung in a dead language. But Gregorian chant seems to be the hottest thing in sacred music right now. Consider the following: — The wildly popular “Halo” videogames use Gregorian chant…

Associated Press Boston – For decades, Boston University sociologist Peter Berger says, American intellectuals have looked down on evangelicals. Educated people have the notion that evangelicals are “barefoot people of Tobacco Road who, I don’t know, sleep with their sisters or something,” Berger says. It’s time that attitude changed, he says. “That was probably never…
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