LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY friarjohn)

Church leaders come forward to defend call for IRS audit
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Joe Hallett
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Picture (Metafile)
SHARI LEWIS | DISPATCH

The Rev. Eric Williams says more pastors are joining a call for an IRS investigation of the political activities of two local churches.
Religious leaders who accused two evangelical pastors of illegally playing politics came forward yesterday and reaffirmed their decision to challenge the tax-exempt status of the pastors’ churches.

Arrayed around the pulpit at the North Broadway United Methodist Church in Columbus, 22 of 31 pastors who originally filed the complaint with the Internal Revenue Service gathered for a news conference to defend their rare and explosive action. Yesterday, the ranks of signers grew to 33.
And the Rev. Eric Williams, senior pastor of the North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, said at least two dozen more ministers from Ohio and across the nation have asked to have their names added to the complaint seeking an IRS investigation into the political activities of the Rev. Rod Parsley, of World Harvest Church in Columbus, and the Rev. Russell Johnson, of Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster.

“We come from different traditions, we come perhaps from different theological points of view, we come from different experiences, but we all come together around this one single concern,” Williams said, referring to the pastors representing nine Judeo-Christian denominations.

The pastors want the IRS to determine whether the two evangelical megachurches headed by Parsley and Johnson, along with three affiliated organizations, should lose their tax-exempt status for participating in partisan politics.( Read more... )

Liks provided by yours truly.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY silvaerina_tael)

I found this rather interesting article from the Yahoo Canada site this morning. Thought some of you may like to take a look considering, as it does, claims that Canada is "too liberal and hedonistic" and "marxist"... And here I thought that we were more socialist...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060127/ca_pr_on_na/not_so_conservative

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY multiclassgeek)

Tonight's editon of "The Daily Show" featured an interview with the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who was promoting his book, American Vertigo.

During his interview he cut straight to the heart of the Christian Church's problem in America; In reference to MegaChurches (Willow Creek in particular), he said "There's a lot of good people out there, but there's also a lot of crooks". He then then went on to rail against the teaching of ID as science, and to give huge credit to Bono (who, he suiggested, would be a good guest for the show).

Not exacly an in-depth analysis of the issues, but it certainly made a good point, and thus I considered it woth a mention here.

Go here and click on the "Watch Bernard-Henri Levy" link to hear it in full.