CHURCH OF ENGLAND TRIES TO BROADEN APPEAL WITH SONGS BY U2 AND PRAYERS FOR GOOGLE

The ideas for alternative-style worship are part of an initiative launched by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to appeal to the younger generation.
They are set out in a new book compiled by the Church's Fresh Expressions programme, which aims to boost church attendance with more relevant and exciting services.

However, traditionalists have criticised the unorthodox services as "pointless" and "shallow", and have warned that experimenting with Church tradition would do more harm than good.
One Holy Communion service promoted in the book, called Ancient Faith, Future Mission, begins with the congregation being shown a video clip from the YouTube website about a United Nations anti-poverty campaign.
Worshippers are told that "our planet is messed up" and that "things are not right".
They are then asked to approach the altar and rub sea salt on their fingers to represent tears, before walking around and meditating at eight "prayer stations" representing themes such as "gender equality" and "environmental sustainability".
A psalm is recited in "beat poetry" style to the accompaniment of African Djembe drums, and prayers are said "for the corporate world, for influential CEOs who oversee billion-dollar industries".
The prayers continue: "We pray for John Chambers of Cisco Systems, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Dr Eric Schmidt of Google Inc, H Lee Scott Jr of Wal-Mart Stores and others who have already made commitments to justice."
Among the alternative services explored in the book, which is co-edited by the Rt Rev Steven Croft, the new Bishop of Sheffield, are so-called "U2charists", services in which the congregation receives communion but sings the songs of the Irish rock band U2 instead of traditional hymns.
The services, which include such songs as "Mysterious Ways", "One", and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", have been pioneered at St Swithin's church in Lincoln.
The book also features Transcendence, an event held in York Minister in which traditional Latin chant is set by DJs to hip hop or ambient dance music and video images are projected onto the walls.
The Rev Sue Wallace, who has pioneered the event by blending modern technology with ancient prayers, says that the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Many of the services promoted in the book feature physical activity and symbols alongside traditional sermons.
In chapter of the book, Archbishop Williams says: "The Bible is full of stories about God communicating through act and sign as well as language ... Far from being bound to communication through clear information economically expressed in words, our society is still deeply sensitive to symbols and inclined to express important feelings and perceptions in this way."
The Fresh Expressions initiative was launched by the Archbishop in 2004 to combat the significant drop in churchgoing that has been seen in Britian over recent decades. In the past few years the decline appears to have steadied.
Church leaders are particularly concerned about the loss of younger people, who are abandoning the pews at a greater rate than their older counterparts.
The Rt Rev Graham Cray, who heads the Fresh Expressions initiative, said that it was vital that the Church explored new ways of engaging with modern culture.
"We have to reconnect with a very large percentage of the population that has no contact or interest in traditional church," he said.
"It is important to offer spirituality to people who are offered a multi-choice lifestyle and who think that the last place they'll find it is in church."
He said that the new services were carefully designed for specific communities and stressed they was not supposed to challenge traditional worship.
However, the Rev David Houlding, prebendary at St Paul's Cathedral, bemoaned the Church's attempt to widen its appeal.
"All this is tosh. It's just a passing fad, irrelevant, shallow and pointless," he said.
"There's no depth to it and it's embarrassing because it'll make people think that we're eccentric and silly."
The Fresh Expressions initiative has spawned churches for surfers as well as commissioning priests to work in night clubs and skateboard parks.

NASA BACKS MONTH LONG HOMOSEXUAL PRIDE CELEBRATION MONTH

NASA is celebrating homosexual pride month.
After a presidential proclamation declaring June homosexual pride month, NASA is drawing some reaction for its support. Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel tells OneNewsNow NASA has obviously gone off course and they need to get back on track.

"NASA needs to focus on what it's good at and that is sending people to the moon, not celebrating sexual perversity," he believes. "NASA has clearly misfired here. It's off track. It's out of step with the American people, and I think it goes back to the president of the United States who is left of every social issue."

Staver does not believe people will tolerate Obama lifting up perversity. "When he simply ignores the Day of Prayer, he apologizes for America, says that America is not a Christian or a Jewish nation, and lauds Islam and apologizes to the Islamic leaders and bows down to them," he points out. Celebrating homosexuality will be part of America's downfall if its people do not change course, Staver concludes.

CHRISTIAN MURDERED FOR DRINKING TEA FROM A MUSLIM CUP IN PAKISTAN

International Christian Concern (www.persecution.org) has learned that radical Muslims running a tea stall beat a Christian man to death for using a cup designated for Muslims on May 9.

The young man, Ishtiaq Masih, had ordered tea at a roadside stall in Machharkay village, Punjab, Pakistan, after his bus made a rest stop. When Ishtiaq went to pay for his tea, the owner noticed that he was wearing a necklace with a cross and grabbed him, calling for his employees to bring anything available to beat him for violating a sign posted on the stall warning non-Muslims to declare their religion before being served. Ishtiaq had not noticed the warning sign before ordering his tea.

The owner and 14 of his employees beat Ishtiaq with stones, iron rods and clubs, and stabbed him multiple times with kitchen knives as Ishtiaq pleaded for mercy.The other bus passengers and other passers-by finally intervened and took Ishtiaq to the Rural Health Center in the village.

The doctor who took Ishtiaq's case told ICC that Ishtiaq had died due to excessive internal and external bleeding, a fractured skull, and brain injuries.Makah Tea Stall is located on the Sukheki-Lahore highway and is owned by Mubarak Ali, a 42-year-old radical Muslim.

ICC's correspondent visited the tea stall and observed that a large red warning sign with a death's head symbol was posted which read, "All non-Muslims should introduce their faith prior to ordering tea. This tea stall serves Muslims only." The warning also threatened anyone who violated the rule with "dire consequences."

A neighboring shopkeeper told ICC on condition of anonymity that all Ali's employees are former students of radical Muslim madrassas (seminaries). Ishtiaq's family said that they immediately reported the incident to the police and filed a case against Ali. However, the murderers are still freely operating the tea stall.

When ICC asked the Pindi Bhatian Saddar police station about the murder, the police chief said that investigations were underway and they are treating it as a faith-based murder by biased Muslims. When asked about Ali's warning sign, police chief Muhammad Iftikhar Bajwa claimed that he could not take it down. However, the constitution of Pakistan explicitly prohibits such discrimination.

BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY REQUIRES PERMIT TO HANDOUT BIBLES

Giving away Bibles on the campus of Bucknell University is at your own peril, since the school requires a permit for such an activity, according to a new dispute that arose involving the school's Conservatives Club.
The organization has attempted to make several political statements on campus, and has been shut down by officials with the university repeatedly, said a complaint letter assembled by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
The revelation of other permit demand for giving away Bibles came as part of an e-mail exchange over the dispute, in which school administrator Judy Mickanis told the leader of the Bucknell University Conservatives Club that its members needed a "sales and solicitation" permit to give away anything.
"The policy is in place to protect the entire BU community and I said that consistently permission was needed to hand out anything from Bibles to other matter. You just can't hand things out without approval," Mickanis' e-mail said.
According to the report from FIRE, the school in Lewisburg, Pa., is staging an assault on student rights.

The Conservatives there have had "three events censored in two months" in their attempts to make political statements by a university "using flimsy or patently false excuses," the report said.
"Bucknell promises free speech, but it delivers selective censorship," said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. "Bucknell administrators have gone out of their way to abuse and even invent policies in attempts to silence these students, all the while professing to respect free speech."
He said the student group in March tried to hand out fake dollar bills with President Obama's face on the front and the sentence "Obama's stimulus plan makes your money as worthless as monopoly money" on the back. Mickanis told the students they were "busted" and they needed a special permit for their "solicitation." She told the students their offense was the equivalent of handing out Bibles, FIRE said.
"Distributing protest literature is an American free-speech tradition that dates to before the founding of the United States," said Adam Kissel, director of FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program. "And why is Bucknell so afraid of students handing out 'Bibles [or] other matter' that might provide challenging perspectives?"
Another incident happened in April, when students were staging an "affirmative action bake sale" protest. FIRE said affirmative action bake sales are a widely used form of satirical protest against affirmative action policies that treat people of different races differently. Organizers typically display suggested pricing in which African-American and Hispanic students are asked to pay lower prices than Asian and white students for the same items. The protests are thus intended to satirize and spark debate about affirmative action policies, not to raise revenue.
But Associate Dean of Students Gerald W. Commerford shut down the event, with orders to the students to obtain another permit. When students applied for one, they were refused permission.
FIRE said by shutting down events by Conservatives Club members, "Bucknell sends the message to its students that speech is to be feared, monitored, and ultimately restrained if it is deemed sufficiently controversial."
Bucknell declined to comment to WND on the issues, but delivered a statement from General Counsel Wayne Bromfield that challenged FIRE's description of the events. He explained the "dollar bills" were disallowed because students must register to participate in that activity.
The second instance, "disparate racial pricing for doughnut sales – was prohibited because we cannot and do not permit facially discriminatory practices," the lawyer said.
The school declined to comment or expand on the statements from Mickanis that giving away Bibles would require a permit.
Fire said the school's version of events didn't align with what it had been told by participants.

MORE THAN 30 HOUSE CHURCH LEADERS ARRESTED IN SICHUAN PROVINCE OF CHINA; PRAY & MAKE A DIFFERENCE

SICHUAN -- On June 9 more than 30 house church leaders were arrested while gathering in a house church in Langzhong city, Sichuan province. Thirteen leaders were given 15 days of administrative detention, and five of the leaders were placed under criminal detention. The other leaders were released.
The Christian leaders were gathered in Pastor Li Ming's house church at 5:30 p.m., in Lanzhou city, when several dozen officials in six to seven police vehicles from the local Domestic Security Protection Squad surrounded the site, then arrested all of the Christians and searched the house. The 13 leaders who received 15 days of administrative detention are: Wang Fang, Ma Zhongqiong, Wang Huaying, Pang Kaizhen, Chen Deying, Hu Xiuying, Li Daxiu, Deng Shuhua, Chen Jingfang, Wang Yulan, Song Liangqing, Wang Shixiu and Li Shufeng.
The five leaders who received criminal detention are likely to face a formal criminal indictment or up to three years of re-education through labor. They are: Pastors Gao Guofu, Pastor Li Ming, Zhang Guofen, Gu Lianpeng and Yu Zhipeng. Pastor Li Ming was sentenced to three years of re-education through labor in recent years because of his Christian faith.
ChinaAid calls on Christians around the world to pray for the imprisoned Christians and their families. ChinaAid also strongly denounces the Langzhong authorities in Sichuan for their reprehensible conduct which violates both Chinese and international laws guaranteeing freedom of religion.