Week of January 23, 2006
Churches have until Feb. 1 to pay $50-per-person
deposits to “lock in” project and youth registrations for the 2006
World Changers. Thousands of teenage through college-age Southern
Baptist students are expected to renovate substandard housing around
the country in 93 U.S. cities. Renovation projects will kick off June
10 and run through Aug. 5, said John Bailey, North American Mission
Board national manager for World Changers. Among the cities scheduled
for projects are Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport. However,
available spots for those three cities were near capacity at press
time. Mission board leaders said in the wake of last fall’s devastating
hurricane season on the Gulf Coast, World Changers is increasing the
number of construction renovation projects in the affected states of
Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Churches that have not yet
registered can call (800) 462-8657 or visit worldchangers.studentz.com
site to sign up or see a list of project cities.
Louisiana College has scheduled its first Walk Like
a Wildcat weekend for Feb. 9-10, with a second being March 9-10. The
two-day event is designed to introduce high school students to the
Louisiana Baptist school in Pineville. Prospective students have the
opportunity to spend the night at the school and to attend classes and
extracurricular events with current Louisiana College students. The
event is set to begin Feb. 9 at 5:30 p.m. and conclude the following
day at 12:30 p.m. “We want the students to have an opportunity to learn
what campus life is all about at LC,” Director of Enrollment Management
Byron McGee said. “They will attend classes on Friday morning and will
have a chance to speak with professors in the major field of their
choice.” For information or to register for the event, call
(318) 487-7259 or (800) 487-1906 or visit
www.lacollege.edu/campusvisit. Details regarding the second “Walk Like
a Wildcat” event will be released at a later date.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the
country’s No. 1 provider of abortions, has named a veteran
pro-abortion, anti-conservative leader as its new president, and a
critic predicts the organization will become even more aggressive.
Cecile Richards, 48, is the new head of PPFA, which announced its
selection Jan. 9. The new Planned Parenthood president has served
previously on the boards of directors of both PPFA and another leading
abortion rights organization, NARAL Pro-choice America. She also
established and directed the Turner Foundation’s national pro-choice
project and Pro-choice Vote, a political action committee during the
2000 election campaign. In the 1990s, Richards founded the Texas
Freedom Network, which sought to offset the influence of religious
conservatives.
More than 200 Mormon missionaries are pulling out of
Venezuela. Michael Purdy, a Salt Lake City spokesman for the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in a statement that the church
has experienced problems renewing visas and obtaining new visas for
their U.S. missionaries in Venezuela. The announced withdrawal comes
two weeks after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered New Tribes
Mission, an evangelical Christian group based in Florida, to leave the
country. Chavez accused the group of having ties to the CIA and abusing
indigenous peoples. New Tribes Mission, which has worked in Venezuela
for 59 years, strongly denies the claims and has requested discussions
with Chavez to resolve the dispute. The Venezuelan government
temporarily suspended foreign missionary permits in August after
television broadcaster Pat Robertson of Virginia Beach, Va., called for
Chavez’s assassination. Chavez ousted New Tribes Mission a few days
after Robertson criticized him again, charging the Venezuelan with
seeking atomic materials from Iran and having ties to Osama bin Laden.
But Venezuela has officially dismissed any connection between
Robertson’s statements and the New Tribes decision.
The sole abortion clinic in Springfield, Mo., has
closed, leaving southwest Missouri without an abortion provider. The
board of Springfield Healthcare Center voted last year to cease
operations, the Springfield News-Leader reported. Clinic administrator
Michelle Turner-Collins denied the decision was based on a new state
law restricting abortion or on threats, a poor safety record or
finances, according to the newspaper. A new Missouri law, which has
been temporarily barred from enforcement, requires doctors who perform
abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of
their clinic, according to the News-Leader. The nearest abortion
clinics for women in southwest Missouri now are in St. Louis; Columbia;
Fayetteville, Ark.; Wichita, Kansas; and Overland Park, Kansas, a
suburb of Kansas City. The Springfield clinic’s closing continues a
trend that has occurred for more than two decades. Since 1982, the
number of sites providing abortions has been declining. As of 2000,
there were 1,819 abortion providers, according to the Alan Guttmacher
Institute. In the same year, 87 percent of United States counties did
not have an abortion provider, the institute reported.
A Christian high school in California is suing the
University of California for refusing to grant credits for some classes
taught at the school, which the university claims support a Christian
worldview not protected by the First Amendment. Representatives of
Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, Calif., say the university
has unconstitutionally treated their students unequally compared to
other students during the admissions process. The civil rights lawsuit
alleges that the University of California, with 10 campuses throughout
the state, is infringing upon Calvary Chapel’s freedom to be religious
as a religious school. Some classes were rejected because the main
textbooks were from Christian publishers such as Bob Jones University
Press, USA Today said. A federal judge is expected to rule soon on the
case, which is being watched nationwide because it could impact
religious schools and even home schools across the country if the
university wins. A decision either way is expected to be appealed to
the U.S. Supreme Court, USA Today said.
In 312, Constantine saw a sign in the sky – in the
shape of a cross – that led him to invoke the Christian God and to
defeat his fellow Emperor Maxentius in a decisive battle. The victory
paved the way for the recognition of Christianity by the Roman Empire
and the union of church and state that lasted for nearly 1,500 years.
However, the historical record is not clear whether what Constantine
saw occurred in a dream or as a vision in the sky. Now, scientists say
what he saw could have been the result of a meteorite hitting nearby.
They cite discovery of a meteorite impact crater dating from the fourth
or fifth century A.D. in the Italian Apennines Mountains. The crater is
a seasonal lake, which has a pronounced raised rim and no inlet or
outlet and is fed solely by rainfall. There are a dozen much
smaller craters nearby, such as would be created when a meteorite with
a diameter of some 10 meters shattered on entry into the atmosphere,
researchers say. Some say the crater was caused by a meteorite landing
with a one-kiloton impact – equivalent to a small nuclear blast – and
producing shock waves, earthquakes and a mushroom cloud. Samples from
the crater have been dated to the year 312, plus or minus 40 years.