TODAY IN GOD:
RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE
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Barack as Jesus? I think he’s pretty nifty, too, but this is a bit much.

CHICAGO — He wears Jesus’s robes and a neon blue halo, looks like Senator Obama, and is causing a stir at a Chicago art school. An undergraduate student’s papier-mâché sculpture of Obama as a messianic figure — entitled “Blessing” — went on display Saturday at a downtown gallery run by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

By Monday, word of the piece had spread on political blogs, and the school had been flooded with calls.

David Cordero, 24, made the sculpture for his senior show after noticing all the attention that Mr. Obama has received since he first hinted he may run for the presidency.

“All of this is a response to what I’ve been witnessing and hearing, this idea that Barack is sort of a potential savior that might come and absolve the country of all its sins,” Mr. Cordero said. “In a lot of ways, it’s about caution in assigning all these inflated expectations on one individual, and expecting them to change something that many hands have shaped.”

Mr. Obama’s campaign worked to distance the Illinois senator from the artwork.

“While we respect First Amendment rights and don’t think the artist was trying to be offensive, Senator Obama, as a rule, isn’t a fan of art that offends religious sensibilities,” said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Mr. Cordero said the school had fielded plenty of calls about his work, “some of them from angry people.” He also said he had heard from a few potential buyers.
FOR THE FULL STORY (AP VIA NY SUN) CLICK HERE

HELLO, DALAI! Evangelical group targets Dalai Lama’s followers during upcoming U.S. visits
If you’re a Tibetan Buddhist or you’re leaning that way, you may not know it, but you need Jesus.

That’s the thinking behind a series of Christian evangelical workshops — including one later this month in Wheaton — that will coincide with the Dalai Lama’s trip to Chicago and other American cities this spring.

Interserve USA is putting on the workshops to teach Christians how to talk to Buddhists and, perhaps, to win converts.

“We welcome the Dalai Lama here, but we also want to have a chance to reach Tibetan Buddhists with the gospel,” said Doug Van Bronkhorst, executive director of Interserve, an international missionary group based just outside of Philadelphia.

The online announcement for the upcoming workshop offers this enticing hook: “Tibetan Buddhism. It’s ancient. It’s complex. It’s trendy. And its leader, the Dalai Lama, is visiting your city this spring.”

But Van Bronkhorst said in a telephone interview Tuesday, “We are interested in people, not notches on a belt.”

That’s not quite how it sounds to the head of the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago, which includes bishops and leaders from most of the largest Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups in the area.

“I’m speaking without knowing anything about this group,” said the Rev. Stan Davis, acting director of the council. “But my sense is that their goal is to try to convert to Christianity. Our goal would be to enter into a dialogue with them, to find out about their faith in a two-way conversation.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (By my colleague Stefano Esposito at the [newly designed today!] CHICAGO SUN-TIMES) CLICK HERE

Baptist big shot takes on Emergent whipper snappers
ST. LOUIS – For Roger Moran, the most powerful Baptist in Missouri, the past represents victory and personal grace.

He has spent nearly a decade building a political Baptist empire, one based on a conservative foundation that he put in place.

But when talk turns to the future – specifically, the future of the Missouri Baptist Convention – Moran is suddenly an Old Testament prophet of doom.

His target: a young band of moderate Christians that he believes is trying to steal back the convention, undercutting his empire. It’s a growing movement he’d like to see disappear.

“You begin to see this new generation of moderates rising up and giving cover to the more liberal factions of this movement,” Moran says. “And the point I’m trying to make is, `Folks, this thing is coming in under the radar.’”

This “thing,” according to Moran, is the emerging church – a term that has come to define a broad swath of churches that attract younger Christians by tapping into a secular culture. The movement – which promotes alternative ways of attracting young people, including rock music and alcohol – makes traditional Christian leaders nervous.

What’s at stake, at least in Moran’s mind, is the future of the Baptist church in Missouri. In a recent public speech, he declared the Missouri Baptist Convention “on the brink of a civil war.”

Proponents of the emerging church say such rhetoric will only further alienate young people. Moran and other strict conservatives, they say, are blind to the future of the faith.
FOR THE FULL STORY (Another fine one by my homey Tim Townsend at the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH) CLICK HERE

‘Superman’ Dean Cain in flap over Mormon film
“He just wants people to see the movie and draw their own conclusions,” says Dean Cain, speaking of “September Dawn” — the May 4 release written and directed by his father, Christopher Cain, in which Dean plays Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith.

The film, which stars Jon Voight, Terence Stamp and Lolita Davidovich, deals with the Sept. 11, 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, when a wagon train full of Arkansas settlers was ambushed by a renegade group of Mormons — an incident regarded as one of the darkest chapters in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The film, says Dean, asks whether church leader “Brigham Young was involved in ordering the massacre. The church says no. The film brings up some very significant questions.

“I was a history major in college and I read a lot about it,” adds the Princeton grad. “I do know that everything said by Brigham Young in the film is taken from historical records.”

The feature was made quietly last year in Canada, but has already stirred controversy, eliciting a statement from the Mormon Church to the effect that it isn’t factual, says Dean. “But they haven’t seen it,” he adds. “I’m sure he doesn’t have a problem with them seeing the movie any time.”
FOR FULL STORY (LA DAILY NEWS) CLICK HERE

Got plagues?
Catastrophe hits Lousiana again — this time in the film “The Reaping”
When filming a movie about biblical plagues raining down on a small Louisiana town, chances are pretty strong you’ll spend some off-hours discussing faith.

Now imagine that your $45 million apocalypse tale is interrupted not once but twice by the real-life catastrophes of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The difficult production of Warner Bros.’ “The Reaping,” which opens in theaters on Thursday, was life imitating art on an undeniably epic scale. And it really got people talking.

Starring Hilary Swank as a missionary-turned-professional skeptic, “Reaping” had an evacuation plan in place even before shooting started in the spring of 2005.

Twice the crew fled and returned to its home base of St. Francisville, La. — a 1,712-person town that had been destroyed by floods some 120 years ago.

As producer Herb Gains noted, “It was strange to be working on a film that had so much to do with God’s work and then be faced with God’s work in a very real way.”

So what do those involved with “The Reaping” think of suggestions that Mother Nature or her non-secular equivalent was trying to send a message?
FOR THE FULL STORY (LA DAILY NEWS) CLICK HERE