AP News, September 6th, 2007
The chief state naturalist is planning a group field trip to the new Creation Museum because of a growing number of park visitors challenging naturalists with what they learned at the museum.
"Visitors are asking, 'Well, it said this at the Creation Museum, but you all are saying something different,'" Carey Tichenor said.
The Creation Museum in Petersburg was built by the Answers in Genesis Christian ministry and presents the Bible's creation story as fact supported by science.
"The theory of creationism is that the world is only 6,000 years old," Tichenor said. Park naturalists interpret the geologic history based on science and talk about history that dates back millions of years, Tichenor said.
As many as 18 park naturalists are planning to visit the northern Kentucky museum on Nov. 1. Their goal is to better understand what visitors are asking, not to challenge religious beliefs, Tichenor said.
"We will tell the person if they want to believe what they saw at the Creation Museum that's fine and good," Tichenor said. "And then we explain to them why we are saying what we say at the park _ which is interpreting the scientific evidence produced for the site."
The Creation Museum, which opened in May, is welcoming the opportunity.
"I hope they can carve out some time to meet with some of our Ph.D. scientists," said Mark Looy, a museum spokesman.
The Northern Kentucky Convention & Visitors Bureau recently revised how it promoted the museum on its Web site in response to a protest by the head of the Kentucky Paleontological Society. The description had read, "This 'walk through history' museum will counter evolutionary natural history museums that turn countless minds against Christ and Scripture."
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Rockland jail chaplain's suspension set to end after ruling
NEW CITY, N.Y. (AP) _ A Christian jail chaplain who distributed anti-Islamic cartoon booklets could be back at work soon under an arbitrator's ruling.
The Rev. Teresa Darden Clapp faced administrative charges of misconduct and other offenses for bringing cartoons into the Rockland County jail with stories that end with people deciding that Islam is a false religion.
Arbitrator Paul Bailey decided Tuesday that her punishment should be a 30-day suspension without pay. Since she had been suspended without pay since May, Bailey's decision effectively ends her punishment.
Clapp could not be reached for comment.
The chaplain often brought religious tracts to the prison that had been bundled together by members of her church, Bailey said in his ruling.
Clapp had testified that sometimes there were too many materials to read before she distributed them. She said she apologized and removed the cartoon panel booklets as soon as an inmate complained about them, and she acknowledged she had erred by bringing them in.
Noting that the administrative charges against Clapp weren't brought until more than a month after the incident, Bailey wrote that he had "the uneasy feeling that the employee is being disciplined, not because of her negligence, but to soothe anger" aroused by publicity about the booklets. Bailey said the jail needs to set new standards for distributing religious material.
Some local Muslims called for Clapp's dismissal.
"I don't want her to lose her job _ it will be a hardship on her _ but she should not be sent to the same position," said Mohammed Ziaullah, who testified at Clapp's hearing.
Jail officials have said they would hire a Muslim chaplain and provide food for Muslim inmates that met Islamic dietary laws.
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Beijing, critic of religion, to build religious worship center in Olympic Village
BEIJING (AP) _ Beijing Games organizers say they plan to build a multi-faith worship center in the Olympic Village, a striking move in a country that heavily restricts all religious activity.
"All will be arranged in accordance with the practices ... adopted by other Olympic host cities," Liu Bainian, vice president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, said in the official China Daily newspaper.
Liu said Chinese Catholics were preparing to welcome visitors to churches in Beijing and the six other host cities with multi-lingual priests.
The Communist Party-controlled association governs China's Catholic churches, while other state-controlled bodies keep watch over the country's Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, and Protestants.
Worship in non-state recognized churches and temples is illegal and other religions have no official recognition.
Christian mission groups from around the world plan to quietly defy the Chinese ban on foreign missionaries and send thousands of volunteer evangelists to the event.
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Italian Catholic leaders renew effort to outlaw abortion
ROME (AP) _ Roman Catholic leaders in Italy are renewing their fight against legalized abortion following a recent botched procedure involving twins.
Doctors performing the operation in Milan last month were supposed to have terminated one of the babies diagnosed with a genetic condition. Instead, they accidentally aborted the healthy baby, after the fetuses apparently changed position during the procedure.
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former head of the influential Italian bishops' conference and the pope's vicar for Rome, said Tuesday that the 1978 law must be reviewed in light of medical advances.
Italy permits abortion in state hospitals up to the end of the third month of pregnancy.
Ruini said the "cultural condition" did not exist now for overturning the law altogether, but he said it could at least be improved, the ANSA news agency reported. He did not say how.
The Italian religious affairs weekly Famiglia Cristiana has devoted an entire issue to the topic, saying the law is based on outdated science, such as the minimum gestation at which a fetus is viable.
Italy's health minister, Livia Turco, said there was no need to revise the law and argued its existence was responsible for lowering Italy's abortion rate. Since 1982, the abortion rate has dropped 45 percent and continues to decline, she said.
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Albania OKs United Methodist Church
TIRANA, Albania (AP) _ Albania, a former communist nation which is now majority Muslim, has officially recognized the United Methodist Church.
Methodist Bishop Patrick Streiff, leader of the denomination in Central and Southern Europe, signed papers Aug. 20 that formally authorized the church.
About 60 percent of Albanians are Muslim, with the rest of the population divided among Albanian-Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and a slowly expanding Protestant presence.
Methodist missionaries began working in the small Balkan nation in the 19th century, when Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire. After World War II, the nation came under communist control and repressed religion until the 1990s.
In 1997, the United Methodists opened an aid center in the mountain village of Bishnica. The next year, the first 25 people were baptized and became charter members of The United Methodist Church of Albania. The church now has about 150 members.
Nearly 8 million United Methodists are in the U.S., with another 3.5 million church members overseas.
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http://www.umc.org/
