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. Forgotten by Men and Nations Commentary by Mark Creech America is a deeply divided nation. Why are we so fractured? I suggest it is because we no longer have a point of reference for morality. We live in a time when every man does that which is "right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6).

...There is some disagreement over whether the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has really decided that public church prayer for one candidate to win an election violates tax-exemption guidelines. Robert Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State says the claims that the IRS is telling churches how to pray are completely false. He says, "The report that the IRS had told churches not to pray for the victory of George Bush or John Kerry was erroneous. There's no such letter from the IRS. There's no such directive." Boston contends that when Christian activist Pat Mahoney announced the IRS response to his own letter, the religious leader "made some claims that later turned out not to really be accurate, and the IRS has denied that it has taken an action like this." Mahoney alleges he asked the IRS to clarify prayer in churches and did get a letter in response but found it unclear. So the Christian activist says his attorney, Jim Henderson of the American Center for Law and Justice, called the IRS for verbal clarification. Mahoney says the IRS told Henderson that "if Rev. Mahoney prayed that God grant George Bush four more years, that that would be considered electioneering and politicking, and [would] violate IRS code." [Bill Fancher]

...Eleven people arrested while protesting the removal of a religious monument from a city park have joined their cases and are pressing for a dismissal. Brandi Swindell of the Keep the Commandments Coalition says she will not plead guilty to charges of refusing to leave a closed area of a park in Boise, Idaho. Swindell says she and others who knelt around the monument last March while officers attempted to remove it were practicing their right of free speech. Unless the charges are dismissed, the case is scheduled to go to a jury trial next month. Commandments supporters argued the city violated the Idaho Constitution when it returned the monument to the Fraternal Order of Eagles, which first donated the monument to the city in 1965. [AP]

...An immigration think tank has released a new study that refutes the notion that illegal aliens only take jobs native-born Americans do not want. The study was conducted by the Washington, DC-based Center for Immigration Studies and is based on the latest census data. CIS spokesman Steve Camarota says that study calls into question the very idea of giving amnesty to illegal aliens by revealing that there are plenty of U.S. citizens working in low-skilled jobs. "If it were the case that immigrants only take jobs Americans don't want, then what we would expect to see is occupations that are largely or entirely immigrant," Camarota points out, "but we don't see that. There are still over 20 million native-born Americans employed in those occupations, and there are about two million native-born Americans who are unemployed who used to work in those occupations." In fact, the CIS study shows that since 2000 the number of illegal aliens holding jobs has increased by about a million, while the number of native-born Americans holding jobs has decreased by nearly half a million. "There are, in those heavy immigrant occupations with a lot of illegal aliens, about two million native-born Americans who say that they are unemployed," Camarota says, "but when they did work last, that was the kind of occupation they had." Therefore, he asks, "Does it make sense to flood the unskilled labor market with illegal aliens?" The immigration researcher feels the facts cast considerable doubt on the wisdom of government amnesty programs. [Chad Groening]

...Christian ministries in Cambodia who work with at-risk children have been trained to use Pavement Project's self-contained counseling kit, the Big Green Bag, as part of an ongoing Tearfund initiative to help traumatized and vulnerable street children talk about their experiences and recover their sense of worth. The Pavement Project is a counseling tool that uses interaction, Bible stories, and picture cards to reawaken and draw out young people's feelings of self-worth by allowing them to open up about their difficult life experiences. Developed after four year's of child-oriented research, the counseling tool is designed for use by trained workers and takes the form of a portable green shoulder bag filled with child-centered resources. Tearfund, which supports the local church in its work with at-risk children, has coordinated the Pavement Project training in response to requests from many Christian workers in Cambodia. The Big Green Bag resources are now available in 10 languages, but this is the first time they have been published in Khmer for Cambodia, following two years of development. Glenn Miles, Tearfund's Children at Risk facilitator in Cambodia, says the organization's priority is "to enable research and training for children's workers." To this end, he says, "we have built up a children's commission with the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia." Miles adds that the Pavement Project is one of the commission's key training programs this year, providing much needed opportunities for children to experience God's love through being heard, hearing His word, and acting on it. [Jenni Parker]

...A conservative Canadian activist says he believes his country's recent decision to allow Communist China to take over Canada's largest mining company is a direct slight against the United States. Recently it was reported that China will purchase Noranda, Inc., for $7 billion. Brian Rushfeldt, co-founder and executive director of the Canada Family Action Coalition, says the liberal government of Canada has turned its back on its neighbor to the south. "I see this almost as a slap in the face to our American friends," Rushfeldt says. "I don't know whether we had any offers from American companies to buy Noranda Mines up here, but I can't imagine that there wasn't some interest." The pro-family activist believes the China mining move is another indication of the "anti-American sentiment that we have been hearing from, certainly, some of our liberal members of Parliament over the past number of years." But while Rushfeldt believes many in Parliament are showing their liberal bias, he says, "The average Canadian who is informed of these kind of matters, I think probably is very opposed to what's going on. And in fact, I know from even the last election there are some very deep concerns from a lot of Canadians about this move to a less democratic notion of government." [Chad Groening]

...A Canadian Anglican bishop has canceled a cathedral performance by two Saskatchewan homosexual choirs after hearing objections from church members. The Bridge City Chorus was to perform at St. John's Anglican Cathedral in Saskatoon on November 13 together with the Regina Prairie Pride Chorus, a group of about 30 homosexual singers. Now, the concert will be held at a local United Church instead. Saskatoon Bishop Rodney Andrews says the Anglican Church has been "torn apart" by the issue of homosexuality, and the bishops have been asked to seek "calm in the midst of the storm." Canada's Anglican bishops are meeting this week in Saskatoon and are expected to debate the blessing of same-sex unions today. [AP]

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