OUR COLUMNISTS Religious Communities Hardly Score with TIME Commentary by Matt Friedeman You'd think that in trying to identify a hundred people who have had a positive influence in the world over the past year, that TIME Magazine could drum up a healthy list of those known for their relationship with God and service to those less fortunate. Think again. Why Condoms Will Not Save Us Commentary by Jane Jimenez Long heralded as the key to solving problems associated with teen sex, you would think a national agreement on the issue of condoms would exist by now. Ignore Truth at Your Own Risk Commentary by Brad Locke It's a startling contrast, the types of comments and commentary Barry Bonds' surpassing of Babe Ruth has elicited from fellow major leaguers and the journalists who cover them. The Truth of Scripture -- The Lies of The Da Vinci Code Commentary by David Sisler Know what the Bible says. Know what happened in history. And be ready with an answer for the 43,000,000 who bought the hardcover version of Dan Brown's novel, and the millions more who are buying the paperback, and the still millions more who will see the movie. When God Wrote His Message In the Sky Commentary by Mark Creech It seems as though God anticipated the question, as well as sought to answer it, when Pope Benedict recently inquired about God's "silence" during the Holocaust.

...The publisher of a Christian gospel tract designed to look like American paper currency -- in a value that doesn't exist -- says if federal agents want to confiscate any more of them from his offices in California, they better come with a warrant. After someone in North Carolina supposedly tried to deposit one of the "million-dollar bill" tracts into a bank account, Secret Service agents on Friday contacted the Great News Network -- whose address appeared on the tract -- and without a court order or warrant, seized more than 8,000 of the tracts from the Denton, Texas, ministry, and threatened ministry officials with arrest for counterfeiting. The gospel tract is printed by Living Waters Ministry in Southern California and is distributed by individuals and ministries around the world in evangelism efforts. Evangelist Ray Comfort, who heads up Living Waters, says his attorneys have advised him not to turn over the tracts should he receive a visit from federal agents as well. "The thinking is that if agents show a judge a copy of the $1 million tract, he would laugh till he cried and then, after catching his breath, he would thank the agents for a good laugh and then ask them to stop wasting his time," Comfort tells WorldNetDaily. According to the Living Waters website, there has been such a run on the tracts since Friday's seizure that they can no longer be ordered online. The California ministry says if it is issued a "cease and desist" order, it will do so until the matter is resolved -- but that it has printers ready to print 100,000 more of the tracts in a design that complies with government requirements (1.5 times larger than normal currency). [Jody Brown]

...An attorney with the American Family Association says well-known evangelist Ray Comfort is preparing to file a lawsuit against the federal government after agents seized thousands of gospel tracts published by his ministry, Living Waters Ministry. On Friday the government seized more than 8,000 tracts designed to appear as million-dollar bills and suggested counterfeit charges could result. According to Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney with the AFA Center for Law & Policy, the tracts could not be confused with real currency because million-dollar bills do not exist. "Secondly, it says 'This is not legal tender' on it," explains Fahling. "It also has the gospel message on the outer perimeter of the bill, on the back. And it says a number of other things with relation to the gospel." Consequently, says the attorney, "no person with half a brain" could believe the tracts were legal tender or could ever hope to pass them off as such. The Center for Law & Policy represents Living Waters Ministry in the matter. [Allie Martin]

...On Tuesday, when the date will be 6-6-06, fans of the "Left Behind" novels can enjoy The Rapture. That's the title of the last prequel to the apocalyptic series about the biblical end times. Author Tim LaHaye says this new book describes what it will feel like for Christians to be part of the Rapture. "They'll all be taken up to be with Christ and then into Heaven, that place that He said He'd prepare for us -- and then the judgment seat of Christ, the marriage supper of the Lamb," he explains. "There are plenty of activities." LaHaye does not expect Christians to really be "raptured" -- or caught up from Earth to Heaven -- on June 6, 2006, since Jesus said no one knows the day that will happen. And he says he is sure the mark of the beast -- 666 -- will not be introduced on Tuesday. LaHaye understands scripture to teach that that will not happen until three-and-a-half years after the Rapture. [AP]

...The head of a Washington, DC, think tank that promotes ethics in public life says members of Congress aren't above the law, and that it is wrong for House leaders to try to protect them. Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson continues to be embroiled in a controversy over a videotape in which he is apparently seen taking a $100,000 bribe from an FBI informant. Federal agents later obtained a court order to search Jefferson's DC office. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi complained that members of Congress are immune from such searches. But Ken Boehm of the National Legal and Policy Center says that simply is not true. "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that," he explains. "What you do have in the Constitution is limited immunity from arrest when a congressman is participating in a session of Congress. Well, they weren't arresting him, so that doesn't apply." And even that is limited, Boehm adds, explaining that there is an exception for a felony. "Well, somebody taking $100,000 in a bribe -- I would say if that's not a felony, there is no such thing as a felony." Boehm says this political interference in a criminal probe is outrageous and demonstrates just how out-of-touch Congress is with the American people, who he believes side with those who are trying to get to the bottom of all the corruption on Capitol Hill. Hastert and Pelosi, he says, "don't have a leg to stand on." [Chad Groening]

...A Boston Globe columnist says conservatives aren't happy with their president or their GOP-controlled Congress. Jeff Jacoby has written a column that points out a dangerous unrest in the conservative political camp. "Polling information shows ever more strongly and ever more vividly that a lot of principled conservatives and principled Republicans are completely disenchanted with the way the Republican Party has been conducting itself," the columnist shares. Jacoby predicts many in the Republican Party's base of support will be sitting on their disgruntled hands come November. "If you keep voting for a party because you believe in certain principles and that party keeps walking away from those principles, there comes a time when you decide you're not going to keep sending them back to office," he says. He recalls penning a column in 1995 that he says was the very first he wrote "about how the Republican majority in Congress was betraying the ideals that it had run for and gotten elected on in 1994." The columnist says it took him only about a year before it "began to become so unbearable to see what Republicans were doing once they got this kind of political power." Jacoby expects the GOP may learn a tough lesson this election as it loses its political power. He believes the Republican Party has not fulfilled the promises its candidates have run on, one of the major ones being to reduce the size of government. [Bill Fancher]

...A Washington, DC-based immigration reform organization believes the Senate and House immigration bills are just too far apart for the two chambers to be able to come up with a compromise bill. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) believes the Senate's "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" bill is neither comprehensive nor in any way real reform. FAIR spokesman Jack Martin does not think Senate-House conferees will be able to come to any agreement. "Dying on the vine is a possibility," he says of the measure. "The possibility for compromise is pretty murky, because it is basically an 'immovable object meeting an irresistible force'-type situation." Stalemate in conference committee, he says, is a likely possibility because "... both sides would stick to their positions, and they wouldn't be able to find any middle ground." At that point, Martin says, there is a possibility that the House could try attaching its "enforcement first" measure onto an appropriations bill that the Senate would have a great deal of difficulty voting against. The FAIR spokesman believes that in the end, no bill would probably be better than a bad bill coming out of the conference committee. [Chad Groening]

...A judge has rejected a Wisconsin pharmacist's claim that his religious rights were violated when Wal-Mart fired him for refusing to fill birth-control prescriptions. The ruling said Wal-Mart had accommodated Neil Noesen's religious opposition to birth control by having other pharmacists fill prescriptions. But federal Judge John Shabaz said Noesen went too far by putting customers who called about birth control on hold indefinitely and by refusing to get service for those who showed up in person. The 32-year-old Noesen, a Roman Catholic, also was sanctioned by the state Pharmacy Examining Board for refusing to fill a contraceptive prescription or transfer it while working at another store in 2002. The board reprimanded him and forced him to attend ethics classes. [AP]

...United Methodist students have approved resolutions criticizing the exclusion of homosexuals from the denomination. At the United Methodist Church's recent Student Forum, students voted to criticize a church court decision which supported a pastor's refusal to offer church membership to an unrepentant homosexual. Of the 16 resolutions presented at the conference, 14 dealt with church membership and inclusiveness, particularly regarding homosexuals. Only six resolutions passed. United Methodist News Service reports that Martin Methodist College student Daniel Smith said the homosexuality is condemned by the Bible and is wrong. But Calvert Bryant from the University of Toledo argued that the Bible is not absolute fact. Bryant was in favor of a resolution asking the UMC to say the Bible cannot be taken literally and discrediting biblical passages which condemn homosexuality. Although that resolution received a majority of votes, it did not receive the two-thirds necessary to pass. [Natalie Harris]

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