OUR COLUMNISTS WorldCom's Ebbers Gets 25 Years ... Is There a More Christian Way? Commentary by Matt Friedeman America is a long way from devising sentences that take real justice to heart. Until we do, however, we only hurt ourselves. And, in this case, we destroy a man who could still contribute much, given the opportunity. Medically Accurate Cowards Commentary by Jane Jimenez Trojan brought condom ads to mainstream television last month. One hopes next month they will buy a little more time to offer Americans the medically accurate truth about condoms. Itching Ears Commentary by Brad Locke Failure is inextricably tied to self-esteem for many people, but those who don't fear failure are the ones who succeed most often. When nothing else can cause a person to re-examine his approach and fix it, failure will often do so. It is a great teacher. Amnesia Commentary by David Sisler What would it be like to wake up and not remember the evil that you had done, the people you had hurt, the sins you had committed? What would you pay for a little selective amnesia? Preaching a 'Celebrity Gospel' Commentary by Mark Creech A "celebrity gospel" is when a preacher compromises the gospel of Christ in order to achieve or sustain a celebrity status. Columnist Mark Creech offers two examples of preachers he says are proclaiming a celebrity gospel of late.

...A report being released today show America's divorce numbers seem to be going down. However, one of the key reasons for that decline is one that many Christians will find troubling. The report is called "The State of Our Unions 2005" and is put together by New Jersey's Rutgers University using U.S. Census Bureau statistics and other data. The report shows the U.S. divorce rate is now 17.7 per 1,000 married women, compared to 22.6 in 1980. But the authors of the report indicate this drop probably has little to do with more stable marriages. Instead, they say it can be attributed mostly to a huge jump in the number of couples cohabitating without benefit of marriage. In fact, the report says the U.S. marriage rate has plummeted 50 percent since 1970. Meanwhile, it would seem that, as one of the report's authors, David Popenoe, noted recently in an interview with USA Today, "Co-habitation is here to stay." And that is not good news, he added, especially not for children. Popenoe says as society shifts from marriage to co-habitation, family instability only increases. [Fred Jackson]

...Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media suspects the liberal mainstream press of joining in the apparent push to get White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to resign. He observes that the media has been in a "feeding frenzy" over reports that Rove told Time magazine staffer Matt Cooper that Valerie Plame "apparently worked for the CIA." But Kincaid asserts, "There's no evidence at this point that [Rove] knew in the notes that have been revealed of his conversations with Cooper. He refers to Plame as Joe Wilson's wife, who apparently worked for the agency, so the word 'apparently' suggests that he wasn't even sure about her status." The media watchdog feels the news coverage in this matter should be focusing on what he considers to be the real scandal surrounding Plame and her husband. "The investigation should have been into how Valerie Plame and her husband ... worked to get him on this trip to Africa for the purposes of trying to discredit the Bush administration," Kincaid says. In fact, he contends that Rove deserves a medal for trying to warn the media about the possibility of ulterior motives on Plame's and Wilson's part. Kincaid notes that Wilson later became a presidential campaign advisor for Senator John Kerry. [Chad Groening]

...Christian author Connie Neal says the devil is using Harry Potter -- to make uninformed Christians look foolish. Neal, a former youth pastor and author of The Gospel According to Harry Potter, says the sorcery that some Christians condemn in Harry Potter is a literary device that is also used in The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, and she notes that her family has "had a Harry Potter book club and Bible study." Neal says J.K. Rowling's books contain biblical messages that can be used to teach children about good and evil and the Bible's warning against using sorcery and witchcraft "in our world." Barna Group surveys in 2001 revealed that, even then the Harry Potter series was nearly three times as widely known as the Left Behind series, the Bible-based end times thrillers by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Although the target audience for the Harry Potter books is children, more than two-thirds of American adults (69 percent) were aware of the series, even before the release of the first of the Harry Potter films and the related hype. Commenting on these findings, Barna said they tend to remind Christians that American culture and people's faith are both constantly changing, and assumptions need to be continually re-examined to assess their validity. [AP/Barna]

...The Boy Scouts of America says a recent ruling by a federal court will deny both the Scouts and the U.S. military the opportunity to be involved in a unique training experience. A federal district court in Chicago ruled recently that the military can no longer lend support to the BSA's annual National Boy Scout Jamboree because their participation supposedly violates the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. That means the BSA Jamboree event scheduled to take place at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, in 2010 can no longer be held there. But Scouts spokesman Robert H. Bork says the court's ruling means the Scouts will miss the chance to be involved in an important training exercise. "How many other times do they have an opportunity to assemble something like 17,000 tents and practice providing medical services, security, and a host of other benefits or services to a facility that has 40,000 people assembled, and 250,000 additional visitors?" he asks. And as for the U.S. military officials who approved the use of the military facilities at Fort A.P. Hill, Bork notes, "They regard this as a training exercise and as a public relations exercise -- not as any sort of cash contribution or donation to the Scouts." In fact, he says, the Boy Scouts have spent many millions of dollars on enhancing the camp in building climbing walls, preparing campgrounds, supplying running water, bathroom facilities, and "a host of other improvements to that fort, which we only use ten days every four years." But Bork is hopeful that the Pentagon will be successful in its appeal of the court's ruling, so the BSA and the military can carry on their tradition of mutual support. [Chad Groening]

...America's largest church has celebrated its move into a former Houston concert and sports arena with a capacity crowd of 16,000, including the governor of Texas. Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen called the conversion of the former Compaq Center into his congregation's new sanctuary "a dream come true." He told worshipers that he and his wife, Victoria, went on their first date in the arena 19 years ago. Governor Rick Perry said government can "do a lot of things, but only the church can teach people to love." There also were video messages from people around the world -- including Bishop T.D. Jakes of the Potter's House church in Dallas -- welcoming Lakewood to its new Houston location. Lakewood recently became the first church in the United States to average more than 30,000 worshipers weekly. [AP]

...For more than 30 years Ron Hill has served as a missionary to west Africa through the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Hill, his wife, and 49 other teams work in the region, which is made up of 22 countries and comprises a population of 280 million. According to the missionary, there are many challenges involved in reaching those in west Africa who have never heard of Christ." Most of our unreached peoples being of Muslim backgrounds," he says, "and there are some issues there that take a lot of sensitivity and understanding." In addition, he notes, "These folks, the ones that are really unreached, are remote. They're deep in the jungles, and they just take a lot of sacrifice and patience to reach." Also, Hill points out, there are more than 1,300 people groups in this part of Africa. "You can imagine only having about 200 missionaries trying to reach the United States," he says. "It's going to require a mobilization of the church, and for the church to get out of their comfort zones. Nothing is going to happen until we have intensive prayer that God will make those breakthroughs into the peoples." The Southern Baptist missionary adds that this is an opportune time for missions, since many African nations are now particularly open to the gospel after years of struggle for independence. [Allie Martin]

...Two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April of 2003, evangelical Christianity is growing in Iraq. Since that time, 15 evangelical churches have opened in Baghdad. Also, there are more reports of local Iraqis moving into positions of church leadership. Jerry Dykstra is a spokesman for Open Doors USA, a ministry that is involved in many projects providing help to the Church in Iraq. He points out that there are still areas where violence and oppression against Christians is rampant, but he says Kurdish influence could keep the nation's constitution from becoming strongly Islamic, and many believers who had fled the country are returning. Still, he says there are many risks involved with belonging to or working with the Church in Iraq. Among the projects Open Doors is involved in developing are religious literature distribution, the operation of two Christian resource centers, and the planned opening of a Christian school. The ministry was also planning to open up a mobile medical clinic in northern Iraq, but many doctors who were enthusiastic about the idea refused to help because of the threat posed by terrorists. "Preventive health care and education on hygiene are urgently needed," Dykstra notes, adding, "Both Muslims and Christians see this as one of the most important needs for Iraq." [Allie Martin]

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