The Vatican is worried. There’s an exodus of Catholics around the world to Pentecostal churches, and they want to stem the tide.

At a meeting of the world’s cardinals, Walter Kasper, who heads up the Vatican’s office for relations with other Christians, said the Church must undergo a “self-critical pastoral examination of conscience” to confront the “exponential” rise of Pentecostalism.

An article in USA Today noted that when charismatic televangelists Randy and Paula White recently separated, “the most remarkable part of the reaction was that there wasn’t much reaction at all.”

A recent study by the pro-abortion Allan Guttmacher Institute found that abortions have decreased by 17 percent worldwide, from 46 million in 1995 to 42 million in 2003.

But despite that drop, one-in-five pregnancies still are terminated each year. The report also found that the number of "unsafe" abortions was increasing, particularly in developing nations.

A 21-year-old Oklahoma native was said to have miraculously awakened after being declared brain dead as a result of critical injuries sustained in an all-terrain-vehicle accident, reported NBC News affiliate WOAI in San Antonio.

Family members of Zack Dunlap were astonished when he stretched out his arm and grabbed a nurse who was prepping his body for organ donation. The Dunlap family had urged their entire hometown of Frederick, Okla., to pray for a miraculous recovery.

Amid a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed in October by former professors at Oral Roberts University (ORU), which included allegations of financial impropriety and sexual misconduct, Richard Roberts resigned his position as university president on Friday, Nov. 23.

In addition to the no-confidence vote by faculty, ORU’s provost, Mark Lewandowski, one of four top administrators named in the wrongful-termination suit, announced last week that he was willing to go as far as resigning his top academic post if Roberts was reinstated, the AP reported.

Groups of various Baptist denominations not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., plan to launch in Atlanta this January a new coalition of moderate and liberal-leaning Baptists, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Dubbed the New Baptist Covenant, the group was organized as a result of meetings led by former President Jimmy Carter, who severed ties with the SBC in 2000 over its "increasingly rigid" positions, the AP reported.

"Despite such suffering, trauma and disappointments ... more people are coming to Christ and submitting their lives to Him and accepting Him as Lord and Savior," said the Rev. Philbert Kalisa, an Episcopal minister and founder of REACH, a Christian organization with a mission to help Rwandans reconcile.

Since 1997, Kalisa has been leading peace-building and conflict-management seminars across the nation. "The work of REACH-Rwanda with the people who were traumatized during the genocide of 1994 is so incredibly healing," said Gerry Gardner, president of REACH-USA and staff member of Church of the Holy Spirit in Osprey, Fla.

Cyclone Sidr barreled through Bangladesh last week and left more than 3,000 people dead and 95 percent of the affected area’s rice crops destroyed—the second natural disaster to hit the Muslim nation this year, reported Gospel for Asia (GFA), a ministry dedicated to church-planting in Asia.

GFA immediately deployed 125 missionaries and volunteers to distribute food, blankets and other emergency supplies.

Just one day after Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue hosted a multi-faith prayer service asking God to send rain over the drought-stricken Southeast, a quarter inch of rain fell over the state.

The governor believes it is heaven’s answer to the citizens’ prayers, reported the Atlanta Journal Constution.

A great number of black men are in prison, others have contracted HIV/AIDS, an increasing percentage are down-low (quietly gay) and some have prematurely died. In addition, many black men can't relate to her Ivy League education.

I don't like it, but here are the statistics. Blacks account for more than one-third of all abortions in the U.S., though we represent 12 percent of the population. Seven out of 10 black babies born in 2006 will be born out of wedlock. Forty percent of African-American adults are single.

On Saturday, Nov. 3, a pro-life group called 40 Days for Life will conclude its 40-day prayer and fasting campaign by organizing 24-hour prayer vigils outside abortion clinics across the country. Prayer has been ongoing since Sept. 26, and the group’s leaders are asking all pro-life supporters in churches and ministries to take action by joining in the daylong prayer vigil Saturday. “Saturday is the busiest day of the week at most abortion facilities. That's when the need for prayer is greatest,” said David Bereit, national campaign director for 40 Days for Life. “We are inviting pro-life believers across America to join in solidarity with 40 Days for Life by holding simultaneous prayer vigils outside every abortion center and Planned Parenthood facility in the United States … any location where people are willing to stand and pray.” According to its organizers, thousands of pro-life participants in the 40-day mission have prayed, fasted and peacefully stood outside abortion clinics in 33 states and nearly 100 communities, resulting in an estimated 300 cancellations of planned abortions.

The First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge, La., voted 425-61 earlier this week to end its 25-year association with the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), reported the Associated Press (AP). The breakaway congregation is the latest church to leave the nation’s ninth largest denomination over interpretational disputes regarding Scripture. The next step for the Louisiana church is to request membership with the smaller but more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church. “This was a defining moment for us,” the Rev. Gerrit Dawson, senior pastor at First Presbyterian, told the AP. “We want to conduct our mission with clarity about the lordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Scriptures.” In recent years the 2.3 million-member PCUSA has seen a decline in membership. Some conservatives fault the liberal direction the denomination has taken, namely in its avoidance of requiring clergy and lay officers to limit sex to man-woman marriages. Phil Josephson, a Presbyterian Church elder in Kansas City, Mo., told the AP: “We believe that PCUSA has moved away from being the true church and having the same biblical foundation.”

The 20th annual White Ribbons Against Pornography (WRAP) campaign that runs until Sunday, Nov. 4, is a weeklong initiative calling for Americans to fight against the “flood of pornography devastating our land.” The $10 billion porn industry captures more than 32 million individuals a month. WRAP sponsors hope to flash a spotlight on the dark and dirty underbelly of pornography in America. “There is no longer any doubt that pornography inspires crime,” said Chuck Colson, president of Prison Fellowship. “Most child molesters admit that they consume hard-core porn on a regular basis. And those who create porn are now victimizing even the youngest children.” White-ribbon wearing WRAP participants protest the scourge of porn by, among other things, educating themselves of all anti-pornography laws and then phoning local and national legislators and prosecutors to urge them to fight porn. In Tennessee this year, in conjunction with WRAP and sponsored by the Pure Life Revolution (PLR) and Girls Against Porn organizations, the first Porn-NO Prayer Summit and anti-porn evening rally will be held in Nashville this Saturday, Nov. 3. “Many people, [both men and women], and increasingly more people of faith, are succumbing to the allure and deception of porn,” stated the PLR Web site. “Many others are coming to realize that our nation is facing a serious moral crisis and pornography is fueling it.” WRAP events will be held throughout this week. For a list of events, click here.

Answer: Fish does, indeed, have incredible health benefits. In fact, by including fish in your diet (or taking fish oil supplements daily) you can lower your risk of heart disease by 50 percent, your risk of death from hardening of the arteries and stroke by 45 percent, and your risk of death from all causes by 27 percent.

And to think: This important nutrient comes right out of Genesis 9:3 where, after the devastation of the plant kingdom from the flood, God added certain animal products to our diet to protect us. One of these animal products is fish. (It's interesting that the last meal Jesus consumed on Earth consisted of fish!)

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Thousands of students from campuses in the U.S., Canada and several other countries were expected to vow silence, on Oct. 23, in protest of the millions of abortions that destroy human life every year. The fourth annual Day of Silent Solidarity is sponsored by Stand True Ministries, a youth-oriented, pro-life organization. During the daylong event students will wear red armbands to symbolize the spilled blood of abortion victims while others will wear red tape over their mouths as a reminder of aborted babies’ silent cries. “Thousands of American babies are permanently silenced every day by the violent act of abortion,” said Bryan Kemper, president of Stand True. “This day is in honor of those children, and we will stay silent as an act of solidarity with these innocent victims.” Students are advised to “respect” professors and speak to them when required. But if asked by other students why they aren’t speaking, students will silently distribute educational flyers about abortion and its effects. Though some schools have unsuccessfully tried to ban this event, sponsors say they have seen lives saved as a result of previous days of silence. “Last year we heard back from 16 girls who canceled their abortion appointments because of this event,” Kemper said. “We are expecting over 100,000 students to participate this year, and they are excited to have a united opportunity to stand up for babies with fellow students from around the country in a peaceful and effective manner.”

Promenade Pictures is releasing the movie The Ten Commandments in theatres nationwide Oct. 19 amid a controversy that began brewing after Radio Disney asked that any mention of the word “God” be removed from the movie’s promotions. In the original Radio Disney advertisement, it was said that Moses was “chosen by God.” But Radio Disney executives asked that all references of this kind be removed from future promotions. “It is shocking that Radio Disney censored God from the ad promoting the animated movie The Ten Commandments,” said Mathew D. Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which has launched a petition drive asking Radio Disney to “stop its ridiculous censorship of the word ‘God.’” “The epic story of The Ten Commandments is about God choosing a humble man named Moses who led the Israelite people out of bondage to freedom,” he said. In a press release, his group points out that Radio Disney has had no problem in the past promoting movies involving “mythical gods, Tiki gods, Navaho gods and animal gods.” Promenade Picture executives told FOX News that they found the demand by Radio Disney distasteful. “In connection with The Ten Commandments, I did find it offensive,” said Promenade president and chief operating officer Cindy Bond. “God in our movie is the main character,” she said. “You rip the whole guts out of the piece.” Added Staver: “Walt Disney would have been sadly disappointed to hear that Radio Disney censored God from one of the greatest stories ever told.”

Amid allegations of financial mismanagement and sexual misconduct brought on by a lawsuit filed by three Oral Roberts University (ORU) professors, ORU President Richard Roberts announced Wednesday he had would step down for an indefinite amount of time, reported the Tulsa World. "Today, I have asked the Board of Regents of Oral Roberts University to grant me a temporary leave of absence until such time as these matters can be resolved," he said. "I have prayed about it and feel that it is in the best interest of my family and the university." Roberts noted that the allegations have greatly affected his family, citing specifically the "untrue allegations of sexual misconduct by my wife, [Lindsay]." Roberts said he would remain CEO of Oral Roberts Ministries and continue working on his television show, preaching, teaching and writing books, reported the World. "I pray and believe that in God's timing, and when the board feels that it is appropriate, I will be back at my post as president," he said. "Meanwhile, I will give myself afresh and anew to my family, and to prayer and the Word of God.”

ORU Being Sued by Former Professors

Kimberly Daniels says that racial injustice in our nation's past has caused some blacks to believe that "the white man" is the devil, and she warns against this deception.

For months I had been dreaming that I was an inmate in prison. In every dream an unseen enemy had set me up by planting drugs of some kind on me. Because of these dreams, a burden I had never experienced came on me. As a result, I began to research the criminal justice system in America. I have a bachelor's degree in criminology, yet I was never taught what my research revealed. I learned that, according to statistics compiled by Common Sense for Drug Policy:

Of the 246,100 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses in 2001, 56.7 percent were black, 23.2 percent were white and 19 percent were Hispanic, according to 2002 Justice Department statistics.

In 1998, a federal Household Survey found that 72 percent of all drug users were white, 15 percent black and 10 percent Hispanic. Despite these numbers, blacks constituted 36.8 percent of those arrested for drug violations, more than 42 percent of those in federal prison for drug violations and 58 percent of those in state prisons for drug felonies.

In 1986, and before mandatory minimums for crack offenses became effective, the average federal drug-offense sentence for blacks was 11 percent higher than for whites, according to a 1992 report published by the Federal Judicial Center. In 1990, when harsher drug-sentencing laws were implemented, the rate skyrocketed to 49 percent higher for blacks.

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On Oct. 8 and 9 the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, a committee consisting of clergy, scholars, government officials and health officials, gathered for the first-ever conference to help end HIV/AIDS in the African-American community. Co-chaired by Bishop T.D. Jakes and the Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, the committee hopes to develop a five-year plan to strategically and significantly reduce cases of HIV/AIDS infections among African-Americans. Jakes also noted that African-Americans are 10 times more likely than whites and three times more likely than Hispanics to be infected with the deadly disease. “While the struggle with HIV/AIDS in any community is tragic and devastating, the battle within the African-American community is a unique one,” said Jakes, senior pastor at Dallas megachurch The Potter's House. “African-Americans wrestle with socioeconomic issues, a lack of education, delays in early detection, treatment and prevention, and insufficient access to affordable care and medications. These factors contribute to a rapid and startling ascent of African- Americans who contract and are dying from the disease,” he said.

Those attitudes, if generous, were often patronizing; and if not, they were probably outright racist. In fact, it is one of the historical curiosities of American religious history that the Azusa Street Pentecostal phenomenon of 1906 was widely denounced at the time precisely because, as the Los Angeles newspaper of the day, The Daily Times, put it: "Whites and blacks mix in religious frenzy." In short, when Pentecost came to North America big-time in the early 20th century, it was striking for its departure from conventional racial separatism.

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• trigger excessive inflammation, which eventually will lead to heart disease or cancer
• cause the blood to clot, creating a predisposition to heart attack or stroke
• constrict blood vessels, a reaction that eventually leads to hypertension
• promote cell growth and blood vessel growth, which increases the risk of cancer. 
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This summer Italian police arrested an imam and two of his aides, all from Morocco, in a mosque in the central city of Perugia they were using as a "terrorism school."
 
The "religious" leader taught courses on preparing poisons, bomb making, and hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps most chilling, according to the Italian anti-terrorist police, the imam had downloaded videos from the Internet on how to pilot a Boeing 747 – presumably enough to fly one into a skyscraper.
 
The Ponte Felcino mosque held dozens of barrels of chemicals used to make explosives. Its grounds were used for weapons training and practicing ambushes and attacks. "We have discovered and neutralized a real 'terror school' which was part of a widespread terrorism system made up of small cells that act on their own," said police anti-terrorism head Carlo De Stefano.
 
"It's time to halt the terrorist production line by closing the mosque terrorism schools."
 
Police said the cell was in contact with another organization, the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, which is believed linked to al-Qaida and the 2004 Madrid bombings and 2003 attacks in Casablanca.
 
Islamofascism is being exported from the Middle East and cultivated in mosques linked throughout the world. One such linkage is a mosque in England that was involved in the mass murder of schoolchildren in Beslan.

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Some Presbyterian leaders hope Kirkpatrick's retirement will allow for a change in the liberal direction the church has taken with its acceptance of homosexual ordinations.

The first ever values voter presidential debate was held Sept. 17 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., but without the four Republican presidential candidate front-runners in attendance. Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani all said they could not attend due to scheduling conflicts, reported the Associated Press (AP). “They will regret the decision,” Janet Folger, president of Faith2Action and a member of the debate host committee, told the AP. “Because they snubbed us, they will not win because we will not follow their lead.” Despite the absence of the GOP’s most prominent candidates, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was declared the winner in the values voter straw poll, receiving nearly five times the votes as the other candidates. “Unlike other straw polls where candidates have bussed in supporters or paid for their tickets, 40 national leaders chose hundreds of delegates who accurately represent America’s largest voting block,” said Mat Staver, chairmen of Liberty Counsel, and values voter debate committee member. “This is the most important straw poll yet.”

A federal judge rebuffed a request by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in early September by refusing to remove a painting of Jesus Christ from a display at the Slidell city courthouse lobby in Slidell, La. “The court today recognized that the First Amendment allows public officials, and not the ACLU, to determine what is appropriate for acknowledging our nation’s legal and cultural heritage,” said Mike Johnson, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented the city of Slidell, a Slidell city judge, and the parish of St. Tammany in the suit filed by the ACLU in July. The Jesus painting is mounted in the courthouse alongside 15 other portraits of notable lawgivers in history, including Moses, Charlemagne and Sir William Blackstone.  

 Photo Credit: Ann Barks Public Relations

A high-tech satellite company announced in early September the creation of a 3-D terrain model that it said could help resolve the mysterious Mount Ararat Anomaly—a deviation in the terrain at the top of a 15,300-foot mountain in northeastern Turkey that some believe could contain the remnants of Noah’s ark. Satellite Imaging Corporation, in conjunction with GeoEye and INTA Space Turk, released a statement describing how high-resolution, satellite-borne sensors were used to photograph and analyze the unusual 980-foot-long piece of terrain atop the mountain. The Ararat Anomaly is surrounded by rugged strato-volcanic rock and mostly buried underneath a permanent glacier. Porcher Taylor, an associate professor at the University of Richmond’s School of Continuing Studies and a leading proponent of the satellite-based research, noted the “groundbreaking 3-D (stereoscopic) fly-through movie [is] a quantum leap in making the Ararat Anomaly even more transparent.” Taylor thanked various researchers and contributors involved in the project, describing the role of GeoEye’s satellite as a “space-based Indiana Jones.”

Samaritan’s Purse, a North Carolina-based Christian relief organization, airlifted an $8 million aid package to North Korean flood victims last Friday. The flooding had left an estimated 600 people dead and 100,000 homeless, the Associated Press reported. “In spite of the political differences that divide our two countries, we need to do all we can to care for the people of North Korea,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). Graham noted the significance of the delivery in that it was the first direct flight from the United States to communist North Korea since the Korean War in 1950. The aid will help thousands of victims affected by the flooding that destroyed homes, power stations, crops and railroads in what is one of the countries most devastating natural disasters. With support from the BGEA and the United States government, Samaritan’s Purse flew a Boeing 747 cargo jet filled with 75 tons of medicines, medical supplies, temporary shelter materials and other equipment to help aid the flood victims. “This is much more than an airlift of aid,” said Graham. “It's historic and symbolic not only because the flight went directly from the United States, but also because we've had such good cooperation with the North Korean and U.S. governments. My hope would be that this aid for those suffering can also be a bridge-building opportunity between our two countries.”

Dallas pastor Brady Boyd has been elected senior pastor of New Life Church. The congregation's 95 percent vote for Boyd Monday, Aug. 27, ended a 10-month search that began last November after founding pastor Ted Haggard stepped down amid allegations he solicited a male escort and purchased illegal drugs. "This is a great day for New Life Church," said Boyd, 40, who was an associate senior pastor at Gateway Church in suburban Southlake, Texas. "All of us are excited about writing the next chapter together. God has great plans for New Life and for Colorado Springs, and my family and I are humbled that we get to be a part of this great team." As a pastoral candidate Boyd spoke at a series of services through-out August answering questions and assuring the congregation of his character. "I don't have any moral failures in my past, no bones in my closet," Boyd said during his first sermon  Aug. 12, the Rocky Mountain News reported. "I have sinned, but I am not a failure." Boyd said he was willing to rebuild the reputation of the church whose membership has fallen from 14,000 to 10,000 since Haggard resigned. Rob Brendle, New Life associate pastor, said Boyd was a man of character and the church was looking forward to new beginnings. "We're grateful to Brady for his willingness to serve our church family, and we're grateful to God for sustaining us over the last 10 months," the Associated Press reported. "We look forward to a bright future serving our community and loving one another."