TODAY IN GOD:
RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE
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EVEL KNIEVEL GETS BAPTIZED, NO LONGER EVIL (BUT STILL KNIEVEL)
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – Former motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel has taken a leap of faith.

The 68-year-old Knievel was baptized during the Reverend Robert Schuller‘ s “Hour of Power” service at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

Knievel spoke for about 20 minutes to more than 4,000 people who gathered inside the Crystal Cathedral for services, telling them how he’d been a sinner all his life and now things had changed.

Schuller said Knievel had called him a couple of weeks earlier, telling him, “Dr. Schuller, I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.”

Schuller said he has long admired Knievel for what the minster calls his “possibility thinking” in attempting motorcycle jumps that seemed impossible, but he had kept his distance because Knievel’s private life was non-Christian.

Schuller flew to Tampa, Florida, to verify Knievel’s conversion.

He said Knievel stood at the baggage claim without a cane despite all his physical ailments, including a liver transplant, diabetes and hepatitis.

And to those who think Knievel found Jesus only because he’s afraid to die, Knievel says: “Let them say what they want to say. I’m a long ways from dying.”
SOURCE: ABC LOCAL AT abclocal.go.com

WEEPING ICON ALERT!: Orlando Virgin Mary appears to shed tear
ORLANDO, Fla. — A statue of the Virgin Mary shipped overseas to a Central Florida business has grabbed the attention of the Orlando Catholic Diocese and groups of worshippers after it apparently shed a black tear inside the store.

Castle Designs in Orlando received the marble statue weeks ago from overseas, according to the report.

The statue is a reproduction of the Pieta — one of Michelangelo’s greatest works of art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the body of Christ.

The black tear was just recently noticed at the store and owners said it appears to be coming from inside the statue.

“We started noticing that there was a small gray line every day that kept getting darker and darker,” Castle Designs CEO Les Roberts said.

“It doesn’t appear to be stained from the outside so it’s kind of unusual because it does appear to be coming from the inside,” Castle Designs representative Chris Wilson said.

Store owners said the members of the Orlando Catholic Diocese plan to come to the business and look at the statue.

“It could have been anywhere on this entire statue, why on that one spot?” Roberts said. “That’s what’s amazing.”
FOR THE FULL STORY W/ PIX (NEWS-PRESS OF SW FLORIDA) CLICK HERE

Pagans pick up the rosary
Picking up her Catholic rosary, Meg, a 24-year-old from Maine, begins her prayers like this:

“Hail Persephone, full of strength and beauty. … Blessed are you and blessed is the cycle of your life. Holy Persephone, queen of life and death, pray for your children now, and in the hour of our need. Blessed be.”

Meg calls herself a Christo-Pagan, a blender of traditional Christianity and pagan goddess worship. For her, adapting the Catholic rosary brings a peace that adhering only to the Christianity of her youth did not.

“It makes me feel very connected to God,” said Meg, who declined to give her last name because she — like many pagans who aren’t open to their families — still lives in what some call the “broom closet.”

“Going through this cycle of prayer, it switches your brain into recognizing that something holy is happening and God is with you,” she said.

Meg’s prayer is one example of how some neo-pagans (followers of Wicca, Druidry, Asatru and other forms of ancient goddess or nature worship) are retooling the centuries-old Catholic rosary and other prayer beads for worshipping Celtic, Norse, Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.
FOR THE FULL STORY (RNS VIA CHICAGO TRIB) CLICK HERE

Darwin’s publisher was urged not to publish evolution work
LONDON – Charles Darwin’s publisher was urged by an adviser not to publish the scientist’s historic work “On the Origin of Species,” The Times reported on Wednesday.

Citing correspondence between Darwin’s publisher John Murray and one of his special advisers Reverend Whitwell Elwin that is on display at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, the paper said that Elwin suggested instead that Darwin write about pigeons.

Murray asked Elwin for his opinion on Darwin’s work on evolution, and unsurprisingly for a reverend, Elwin gave the evolutionary thesis, which challenged Church teaching of creationism, a thumbs-down.

“At every page I was tantalised by the absence of the proofs,” Elwin wrote to Murray in a letter dated May 3, 1859, lamenting the “harder and drier” writing style.

Elwin instead suggested an earlier work by Darwin on pigeons should be made into a book because “everybody is interested in pigeons.”

“The book would be received in every journal in the kingdom and would soon be on every table.”

As history has shown, however, Murray ignored Elwin’s advice and went on to publish Darwin’s work.
SOURCE: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE VIA YAHOO NEWS

Scientist says cremation should meet a timely death
SYDNEY – An Australian scientist called Wednesday for an end to the age-old tradition of cremation, saying the practice contributed to global warming.

Professor Roger Short said people could instead choose to help the environment after death by being buried in a cardboard box under a tree.

The decomposing bodies would provide the tree with nutrients, and the tree would convert carbon dioxide into life-giving oxygen for decades, he said.

“The important thing is, what a shame to be cremated when you go up in a big bubble of carbon dioxide,” Short told AFP.

“Why waste all that carbon dioxide on your death?”
FOR THE FULL STORY (AFP VIA YAHOO NEWS) CLICK HERE

Publisher bets on Christian fiction
As blockbuster ‘Left Behind’ series ends, industry looks for next big inspirational hit

For HarperSanFrancisco, a publisher of religious and spiritual books, the time has come to capitalize on the market for Christian fiction revealed by the success of the “Left Behind” series of evangelical novels.

Since 1995, those apocalyptic thrillers, based on the Book of Revelation and written by Jerry B. Jenkins and influential Christian-right leader Tim LaHaye, have sold more than 50 million copies. When sales figures come in for the just-published last book in the 16-part series, “Kingdom Come” — in which satanic forces are vanquished and heaven is established on Earth — that number is only expected to grow.

“It has been a wake-up call for a lot of retail channels. They realized that money could be made,” said Mickey Maudlin, HarperSanFrancisco’s editorial director. “Some of the major chains said, ‘Hey, these sell really well for us, and the only people doing them are the smaller Christian publishers.’ “

For 30 years, HarperSanFrancisco, a HarperCollins imprint, has published mostly nonfiction on diverse spiritual subjects, from Judaism and Christianity to New Age spirituality and Buddhism. Now, at the urging of major chains hoping to fill the “Left Behind” void and tap into strong sales of Christian-themed romance novels, HarperSanFrancisco is launching a line of Christian “inspirational fiction” for women. The new imprint — developed in collaboration with Avon, a paperback line within HarperCollins — is called Avon Inspire.

“Avon Inspire is gentle reading, safe reading,” said Cynthia DiTiberio, editor of the new book line. “They end with a kiss and a proposal. … It’s ‘Sex & the City’ without the sex.”

The first title, “Defiant Heart” by Tracey Bateman, comes out May 8 with a first printing of 50,000. The novel is set in the Old West. “Some people really like historical stories, some like contemporary stories. Our aim is to have one of each, each season,” DiTiberio said.

From 2002 to 2005, total sales of trade books — including adult and juvenile paperbacks and hardcovers — grew from $6 billion to $7.8 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers. Religious book sales jumped from $588 million to $876 million during the same period. Just-released sales figures for Feb. 2006 to Feb. 2007 show that religious book sales increased 33 percent.

“This is not a small, niche market anymore,” DiTiberio said. ” ‘Left Behind’ had a lot to do with it. Until the ‘Left Behind’ books sold in such huge numbers, a New York publishing house didn’t have any reason to pay attention to Christian readers.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (SF CHRONICLE) CLICK HERE

Study: Hispanics driving change in U.S. religion
A major study released today offers a close look at how Hispanics are changing the way religion is practiced in the United States – and how American culture is affecting the faith of Hispanics who come to this country.

The study, by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, is based on bilingual interviews of more than 3,600 people nationwide.

No city in the country than Dallas may show greater effects from the increase in Hispanics in the United States. Most Hispanics are Catholic. The Dallas Catholic diocese has swelled since 1990 to almost a million members from about 200,000. Most of the newcomers are Hispanic, diocese officials say.

The study details ways that distinguish Hispanics from non-Hispanics. They include:

• Denominations. About 68 percent of Hispanic adults identify themselves as Catholic, compared with 22 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 4 percent of non-Hispanic blacks.

• How they experience their faith. About 29 percent of Hispanics who attend worship services say they speak in tongues – a hallmark of Pentecostal of Charismatic worship – compared with only 11 percent on non-Hispanics. About 45 percent of Hispanic Catholics say they have witnessed or received divine healing, compared with 21 percent of non-Hispanic Catholics.

• Where they choose to worship. About 66 percent of Hispanics who attend church say their church has a Spanish priest or pastor, a Spanish-language service, and a predominantly Hispanic congregation. Even for Hispanics who are third-generation or higher, about 42 percent report attending a church with all three characteristics.
FOR THE FULL STORY (the lovely and talented Jeff Weiss in the DALLAS MORNING NEWS) CLICK HERE

Use of Wiccan Symbol on Veterans’ Headstones Is Approved
WASHINGTON, DC — To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.

The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced on Monday by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case.

Though it has many forms, Wicca is a type of pre-Christian belief that reveres nature and its cycles. Its symbol is the pentacle, a five-pointed star, inside a circle.

Until now, the Veterans Affairs department had approved 38 symbols to indicate the faith of deceased service members on memorials. It normally takes a few months for a petition by a faith group to win the department’s approval, but the effort on behalf of the Wiccan symbol took about 10 years and a lawsuit, said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United.

The group attributed the delay to religious discrimination. Many Americans do not consider Wicca a religion, or hold the mistaken belief that Wiccans are devil worshipers.

“The Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special treatment,” the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said at a news conference Monday. “They wanted precisely the same treatment that dozens of other religions already had received from the department, an acknowledgment that their spiritual beliefs were on par with those of everyone else.”
FOR THE FULLY STORY (NY TIMES) CLICK HERE