OUR COLUMNISTS Is the Church Ready for the Competition? Guest Commentary by Dr. Marc Newman What goes on in a movie theater is the same thing that goes on in church -- worldviews are being established, behaviors are condemned or condoned, even issues about transcendence are being resolved. Deadly Ambition Commentary by Brad Locke Many athletes can't see beyond the finish line. Life to them is empty without a trophy to be won. If they only knew that there is a prize so much greater than those perishable wreaths, a glory so much more worth their time and energies (I Corinthians 9:25). Voting: Privilege and Responsibility Commentary by David Sisler The 2000 campaign should have erased forever the excuse of non-voters that, "My vote doesn't matter." As an American, voting is your privilege. As a Christian, voting is your responsibility. No Middle Ground Here Commentary by Mark Creech The Bible teaches the nation that forgets God shall be turned into hell. Quite frankly, the question every American should be asking this election is this: "Is my vote supporting what God demands of the state?"

...The Internal Revenue Service has informed churches that there are certain things for which they are not allowed to pray. The "Prayer for Life 2004 Rally" has been touring swing states this past week, conducting prayer services for the upcoming election. As a courtesy, rally organizers asked the IRS for clarification of free speech in churches. Yesterday, Pat Mahoney got an answer. "The IRS has ruled that churches may not pray that God grant the president four more years," he reports. Such a prayer, the federal agency says, would be a violation of the federal tax code. The ruling upset Mahoney, who heads the Christian Defense Coalition. "This is nothing more than censorship," he says. But Mahoney explains there is much more involved: "The IRS and the federal government are not only telling pastors what they can say behind the pulpit, but now they are dictating how pastors [and] congregations should pray." According to Mahoney, this development should scare every Evangelical in the nation. Churches, he says, should be allowed to pray "according to the teachings of scripture and the dictates of their conscience without government intimidation or harassment" -- regardless of the candidate for whom parishioners are praying. [Bill Fancher/Jody Brown]

...Clay County, West Virginia, will be defended by a Christian law firm following another threatened lawsuit by the ACLU over a Ten Commandments display. It was only one citizen -- an unnamed one, at that -- who the American Civil Liberties Union claims was offended by the display, but evidently that was enough to spur the ACLU to action against the small rural county. Joseph Murray, staff attorney with the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy (CLP), says he is troubled by the ACLU's tactics. "It appears they are picking on a small rural county unable to finance a defense of a costly court battle," he observes. "We will not stand idly by and allow the ACLU to bully Clay County into submission." According to the CLP, the display was erected four years ago to honor the development of the American legal system. The legal group is defending Clay County pro bono -- or free of charge. [Jody Brown]

...Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor is praising the growing role of international law in U.S. courts -- and she says judges who disregard its importance are negligent. In a speech yesterday to law students, O'Connor said recognizing international law could foster more civilized societies in the United States and help bring about a "more peaceful world." Conservatives have been growing increasingly alarmed by such comments, saying they point to a desire to move the country away from a biblically based society to one based solely on secular values. [Fred Jackson]

...Nigeria's president is praising Africa's Anglican bishops for opposing same-sex unions and the appointment of homosexuals as bishops. President Obasanjo -- a Baptist who describes himself as a born-again Christian -- says, "Such tendencies are clearly unbiblical, unnatural and definitely un-African." Last week, an Anglican commission set up by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams issued a report calling for a temporary moratorium on appointing homosexual bishops or blessing same-sex marriages. But the report neither condemns the consecration of the openly homosexual Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire nor calls for his removal. Obasanjo praises African Anglican bishops meeting in Nigeria "for standing so firmly against attempts to undermine our faith and falsify God's will and the word of God." [AP]

...The head of a Washington think tank says threats by Democratic lawyers to challenge the results of the upcoming national election could spell trouble for the country. American Conservative Union executive director Richard Lessner expects rough days ahead after the November 2 election. "We're entering a particularly dangerous period in the history of our country right now because what we're seeing emerge is one major political party that has decided it will not accept the legitimacy of our electoral process," he explains. "We've seen the stories that the Democratic Party has mustered 10,000 lawyers; they're going to deploy them across the country. Everywhere the vote is close they're going to challenge the legitimacy of the ballot." According to Lessner, the political parties have to be depended upon to accept the honesty of the balloting process -- or the nation risks becoming a banana republic. The Democrats' plan to challenge the outcome of the election, Lessner says, is the most dangerous aspect of the current political climate. [Bill Fancher]

...It's just a one-minute conversational message -- but it's one that every voter needs to hear. That's the motivation behind BornSilent.com, a website built around a short video that presents the facts on partial-birth abortion without resorting to offensive graphics. According to a press release, the one-minute video is presented in the style of a public service announcement -- and the creators of the website hope it becomes a tool used by political action groups to explain the controversial issue of partial-birth abortion. In addition to the brief video presentation -- viewable in both QuickTime and Windows Media -- the website presents the voting records of the presidential candidates, the U.S. House, and the Senate. [Jody Brown]

...One of the nation's most respected conservative authors and commentators says there is a fundamental difference between how conservatives and liberals view God. Ann Coulter's new book is called How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must). She says a big reason why liberal elites do not care about loving their own country is because it does not really matter to people "who have that level of money, that level of celebrity" where they are. "America, France, wherever they are, they'll be cool, they'll still have their beachfront property and Juanita the maid serving them bottled water," she says. "It's a way of bragging, of saying 'I don't need America to protect me; my money protects me.'" And Coulter says liberals really believe they are anointed to reign over the less fortunate. "They are doing -- to use a phrase that offends them -- 'the Lord's work,' and they can do anything -- except it is precisely not the Lord's work," she says. "I mean, the fundamental difference between a conservative and a liberal is conservatives think that man is in God's image, and liberals think they are God." But Coulter says when she sees how women are treated in Muslim countries, she thanks God that she was born in Christian America. [Chad Groening]

...The author of 7 Myths of Working Mothers says the "day-care mindset" of women that started in the 1970s is now beginning to change. Suzanne Venker is a stay-at-home mom herself of two young girls. She says the resurgence of stay-at-home parents, particularly mothers, is mainly the realization that the day-care plan was not working. "That whole premise or philosophy has had to play itself out," the author explains. "It sounded kind of great at the beginning because it absolutely is restricting to be at home with children, to some degree -- and it's liberating to not have to do that hard work. [But] that's the reality that we don't want to face in this country, that we're really returning to work because it's easier -- not because we have to." Venker says despite work's enticing nature, society has already seen the results of that mentality: the elusive balance of work and child rearing cannot happen because both are full-time jobs. She says when children are involved, the choice of which to do -- stay at home or go to work -- has already been made. [Mary Rettig]

...The Trinity Broadcasting Network has dropped plans for its live telethon next week and instead will show 40 hours of telethon reruns. It was reported last month that TBN founder Paul Crouch secretly paid a former employee $425,000 in 1998 to keep quiet about claims of a homosexual tryst. Crouch has denied the allegations. TBN's twice-annual "Praise-a-thons" have been a core source of fund-raising since the network's creation more than three decades ago. Network officials say the decision to use telethon reruns was made due to concerns about the health of the 70-year-old Crouch and his 66-year-old wife Jan. But they also acknowledge that the decision would take pressure off guest pastors concerned about the controversy. [AP]

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