USA Update
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Lieberman stresses faith. Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman told a black church in Detroit that the nation needs more, not less, faith in private and civic life and challenged the notion of a strict separation between church and state. Speaking at Fellowship Chapel on Sunday, Aug. 27, Lieberman started his first week of solo campaigning by saying the country's "moral life is stagnating" even as the economy is booming. "As a people of faith, we need to reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God's purpose," he said.
___ Pastors support death penalty. An overwhelming majority of Protestant pastors support the use of capital punishment and an even larger majority oppose the practice of physician-assisted suicide, according to a new poll. The survey of 518 Protestant pastors, conducted by Phoenix-based Ellison Research, showed pastors support the death penalty 72 percent to 28 percent. Only about 15 percent of pastors feel strongly that the death penalty should be abolished. But a wide middle--about 37 percent--do not have strong feelings one way or the other about the death penalty. Opinion on the use of physician-assisted suicide was more uniform, with only 17 percent of pastors supporting laws to allow physician-assisted suicide and 83 percent opposing them.
___ Petra first rock band in Gospel Hall of Fame. Petra will become the first Christian rock group to be inducted into the Gospel Music Association's Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Petra is among eight inductees who will be honored Oct. 30 in Nashville, Tenn. Others include Shirley Caesar, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Kingsmen, and Roger Breland and Truth.
___ Anybody home? No one's picking up the phone at 40 percent of the nation's Protestant churches, a survey by the Barna Research Group has found. Researchers never could contact a person at 40 percent of churches called even when multiple callbacks--as many as 12 per church--were placed. And at 44 percent of the churches where there was no human contact, there also was no answering machine to take a message. "If churches really want to help people, they have to be accessible. When we make it difficult for people to get our attention, we send a negative message about the heart of the church while also training them to look elsewhere during their times of need," said researcher George Barna.
___ Top biographies listed. Corrie ten Boom's "The Hiding Place" and C.S. Lewis' "Surprised by Joy" tied for first place in the list of top Christian biographies/autobiographies of the century recently released by Christian Reader magazine. The rest of the list includes "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; "Born Again" by Charles Colson; "The Cross and the Switchblade" by David Wilkerson; "Through Gates of Splendor" by Elisabeth Elliot; "A Severe Mercy" by Sheldon Vanauken; "The Seven Storey Mountain" by Thomas Merton; "Power of the Powerless," a biography of Oliver de Vinck, by his brother Christopher de Vinck; "Something Beautiful for God," a biography of the celebrated nun Mother Teresa by Malcolm Muggeridge; and a tie for 10th place: "A Prophet With Honor," a biography of evangelist Billy Graham by Walter Martin, and "Here I Stand," a biography of Protestant reformer Martin Luther by Roland Bainton.
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