33 pastors make presidential endorsements from pulpit

Most pastors get a bit squeamish when the subject of politics and the pulpit arises. For at least 33 pastors this past Sunday, the subject was tackled from head-on:

33 Pastors Flout Tax Law With Political Sermons

By Peter Slevin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, September 29, 2008; A02

CROWN POINT, Ind., Sept. 28 -- Defying a federal law that prohibits U.S. clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation Sunday that voting for Sen. Barack Obama would be evidence of "severe moral schizophrenia."

The Rev. Ron Johnson Jr. told worshipers that the Democratic presidential nominee's positions on abortion and gay partnerships exist "in direct opposition to God's truth as He has revealed it in the Scriptures." Johnson showed slides contrasting the candidates' views but stopped short of endorsing Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.

Johnson and 32 other pastors across the country set out Sunday to break the rules, hoping to generate a legal battle that will prompt federal courts to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

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Asked why he felt the need to discuss the candidates by name and to be explicit in rejecting Obama and his pro-choice views, Johnson said he must connect the dots because he is not sure that all members of his congregation can do so on their own.

The congregation greeted Johnson's reasoning and his criticism of Obama with applause.

"When things of the world don't line up with Scripture," said Ed Kraus, 61, who executes reverse mortgages for a living, "he has a right to say they don't."

Ruth Stiener went a step further. "He has a duty," she said. "Heaven forbid that that is ever taken away from our pastors."

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"Senator Obama is a committed Christian and a man of deep faith," said Joshua DuBois, Obama's national religious affairs director. "And the notion that there is only one way to address issues like abortion, or that people of faith cannot support full civil rights for all Americans, is absurd."

Read the rest here.

"Son, I'm Home": More parents move in with kids

Ran across this little bit today...read it but whatever you do, don't let your in-laws see this!

More parents move in with kids
In-laws, too, and others

By Greg Toppo and Anthony DeBarrosUSA TODAY

In the 1990s, your family came for dinner. Now they're moving in.

The number of parents, siblings and other relatives who live with adult heads of households grew 42% from 2000 to 2007, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Leading the way: parents, up 67%, to 3.6 million.

The figures suggest it isn't only elderly parents moving in. The number of parents under 65 in these households increased by 75%, and those 65 and older were up 62%. Both groups outpaced the rise in the number of people in family households overall, which is up 6% since 2000.

"This is just a major trend," says Stephanie Coontz, a family history professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., who directs research at the Council on Contemporary Families.
Coontz suspects that a host of factors — among them higher housing costs and the USA's struggling economy — are prompting families to combine expenses. Also, intergenerational households are more common among the country's growing number of immigrants, she says.

But Coontz also notes that parent-child relationships are closer now than in the past. The downside, she says, is the emergence of the so-called helicopter parent who may hover too closely, but the upside is a tighter bond between generations and, in many cases, closer friendships between grown children and their parents. "I don't know how many of my students have told me, 'This may sound weird, but I talk to my parents more than I talk to my friends.' "

Read the rest here.

Mickey Mouse: target of Jihad?

I'm not kidding. The loveable American icon is the target of an Muslim cleric's fatwa (religious decree) which labels Mickey as "a soldier of Satan" who "should be killed in all cases". You can't make this stuff up:

"Saudi cleric Sheik Mohammed Munajjid said the cartoon character Mickey Mouse should be killed. Munajjid said in an interview with a religious Web site that under Islamic law, rats and mice are considered "repulsive" and as "soldiers of Satan."

"For children they've become something great and beloved. Like this Mickey Mouse, who is seen as a great figure, even though under Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed," said Munajjid."

No word on Donald Duck's fate...

Something to think about...

I don't want the blog to morph into a constantly running commentary on the culture, but some things are pertinent enough to warrant mention here. This is one of those, written over at the Christian Theology blog. The question was in response to one of the major party candidates for president being unable to tell Rick Warren when life began. Further, they told Warren, neither theology or science could answer the question.

"Rick Warren led a recent debate between candidates for president at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest CA. One of the most thought provoking parts was when one of the candidates said that when human life begins was something that could not be known either through “Theology” nor “Science”. Well either way you go with that one it seems obviously wrong.

Beginning either with theology or the sciences it seems that whether or not the product of conception is alive and/or human has become pretty obvious. There are still a lot of things to think about on the nature of human life but haven’t we gotten to the place where we understand that the offspring of a male human and a female human is both alive and human? What else is there for it to be? Dead and Bovine? Say that for some reason we can’t know whether or not it is human life. Shouldn’t we then protect it until we find out for sure? Seems only reasonable."

On the Ray Boltz tragedy...

Doug Eaton writing at the Christian Theology blog has some pertinent thoughts about Christian musician Ray Boltz's bombshell that he is a homosexual. I will link to his whole blog, and here's some of what Eaton wrote:

So what should we think about the “coming out” of such a notable Christian figure, especially since he is now claiming to be happy? Besides the obvious sorrow we should feel for the destruction caused to Mr. Boltz’s family by divorcing his wife and the grief of his four children, and sorrow for Mr. Boltz himself as he is now living outside the revealed will of God, this should cause us to think for a minute about the deceptive nature of our enemy.

Eaton also hits a nerve as he talks about a disturbing trend which has crept into American Christianity: the primacy of self-happiness, self-actualization, or veiled hedonism:

All we have to do is listen to Christian music, Christian conferences, and even the preaching in many churches to see this is this trend. The true gospel has been substituted. Instead of preaching law and gospel where we are told the truth that we need to come to Christ because we are sinners deserving of wrath, and that the wages of sin is death, what is preached in its place is sorrow and self-esteem.

Shocked

Shocked. That's the only way I can describe my feeling after
a friend of mine called me and directed me to this item on
Christianity Today's website. I like many people have been
impacted by Ray Boltz's (right) ministry of music. From songs
like "Thank You" to "I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb" to "The
Anchor Holds", Boltz sold millions of records, won many awards,
and toured the world. What's the larger lesson of his news?
Maybe it's a cautionary note that anyone can fall away. Paul's
words in I Corinthians never rang more true than tonight:
But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

9/11 plus 7

There are a few seminal moments in the life of a nation where you ask someone, "where were you when you heard..." and they'll instantly tell you where they were, what they were doing, and how they felt. The assassination of President Kennedy is one of those moments. Those who were alive in 1941 can tell you where they were when they heard that Japan had attacked a place called Pearl Harbor. On September 11, 2001 one of those moments which sears itself into the memory of a nation occured. On that early fall day, 19 men hijacked four commerical airliners, turning them into flying bombs.

Brief Chronology
-At 7:45am (CT), American Airlines flight 11 out of Boston's Logan Airport crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

-At 8:03am, United Airlines flight 175 (also from Boston) crashes into the World Trade Center South Tower.

-At 8:30am, President Bush speaking from an elementary school in Florida, states that America has suffered an "apparent terrorist attack."

-At 8:40am, the FAA orders all flight operations at U.S. airports to be stopped. This is the first time in American history this has occured.

-At 8:43am, American Airlines flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon.

-At 8:45am, as President Bush leaves Florida, the White House is evacuated.

-At 9:05am, the WTC South tower collapses.

-At 9:10am, United Airlines flight 93 crashes into a Pennsylvania field.

-At 9:28am, the WTC North tower collapses.

-At 10:02am, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani urges New Yorkers to stay at home and orders an evacuation of the area south of Canal Street.

-At 12:04pm, President Bush speaking from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana asks for prayers for those killed or wounded in the attacks and says, "Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts."

-At 1:49pm, Mayor Giuliani was asked about the number of people killed. Giuliani says, "I don't think we want to speculate about that - more than any of us can bear."

-At 3:00pm, news is revealed that Osama bin Laden, suspected of coordinating the bombings of two U.S. embassies in 1998, is involved in the attacks.

-At 5:54pm, Bush arrives back at the White House where he is to address the nation that evening.

-At 7:30pm, President Bush addresses the nation, saying "thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil" and asks for prayers for the families and friends of Tuesday's victims. "These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve," he says. The president says the U.S. government will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed the acts and those who harbor them.

-At 9:49pm, it is reported that Attorney General Ashcroft told members of Congress that there were three to five hijackers on each plane armed only with knives.

In closing, two fitting tributes (both from Christian music legends). The first, "There She Stands" by Michael W. Smith (warning: you may need a Kleenex nearby). The second, "The Ones Left Standing" by Wayne Watson.

Comment: A pundit who gets it...

It isn't often one of these political "talking heads" gets it right but a couple of days ago Fred Barnes (above) did get it right about the controversy surrounding the daughter of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, who is 17 and pregnant. Barnes was responding to a question of whether or not this revelation would hurt Palin with religious conservatives. Barnes said this:

I mean these are the people who realize that we're sinful, we're imperfect, and that's why we're Christians, because we need Jesus Christ in our lives.

I don't want the reader to get hung up in the politics of this issue. What I want you to see is one of those rare moments when someone in the secular world, in a secular line of work actually "gets it". Mr. Barnes nailed the essense of the Gospel message in a nutshell. It's rare when these pundits who generate more heat than light say something worth paying attention to, but Mr. Barnes did and he is to be congratulated for it.

Note: the writer's views contained in this post are his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Reconciliation Church.

Europe was once a Christian continent...

The decline of Christianity accompanied by the rise of twin forces, secular postmodernism and Islam, is an interesting if not alarming development. Christian churches are shuttered while mosques open. Now this interesting news item, the announcement of the building of the "largest mosque in Europe":

Chechen president to inaugurate 'largest mosque in Europe'

THE JERUSALEM POST

The Russian-backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov will inaugurate the "largest mosque in Europe" on October 17 in Chechnya, the Russian official news agency Novosty reported.
Over 10,000 worshipers will be able to pray inside the mosque, which will be named after the president's father, Ahmad Kadyrov, who was killed in 2004.

"The largest mosque in Europe... will by inaugurated on the first day of the International Peacemakers' Conference, titled 'Islam - Religion of Peace and Progress,'" the grand mufti of Chechnya, Sultan Mirzayev, told the press.

Mirzayev underlined that approximately 50 countries have already approved their participation in the three-day conference.

The building of the mosque began more than three years ago. Surrounding the mosque will be Chechnya's Islamic administration, a religious school, an Islamic university, a hotel and a religious library.

Kadyrov, 31, is the son of Ahmad Kadyrov, an anti-Russian rebel leader who at one point was titled "Chechnya's rebel mufti" [mufti - an Islamic, cleric who issues religious decrees].
In 1999 the Kadyrovs defected to the Russian side. On March 2, 2007 then Russian president Vladimir Putin nominated Kadyrov as Chechen president.

Culture Watch: Creeping Secularism?

Interesting stuff came out today in the form of a Pew Research Center report on the role of religion in public life. Close to 3,000 adults 18 and over were surveyed about several issues regarding church and state. The broad findings? 52% of those surveyed felt that churches should "stay out" of political issues, while 45% felt that churches should express their views. The Pew Center finds the responses of "social conservatives" most striking: 50% of those who fell into that category felt that religion and politics shouldn't mix; in 2004 only 30% of the same group felt this way. Why is this? The Pew Center doesn't answer this. Other interesting facts from the survey included:

-Two-thirds of the public (66%) say that churches and other houses of
worship should not endorse one candidate over another, which is unchanged since 2004 (65%).

-Half of Americans (50%) say that it does not bother them when politicians talk about how religious they are, but the number expressing discomfort has edged upward over the past four years.

-An overwhelming majority of the public continues to say that it is important to them that a
president have strong religious beliefs. More than seven-in-ten Americans express this opinion, and attitudes on this issue have not changed in recent years.

-A slim majority (52%) says the GOP (Republican Party) is friendly toward religion, compared with 38% who say the same about the Democratic Party.

-When asked to assess their own moral values on a scale from liberal to conservative,
49% of Americans place themselves on the conservative side of the scale, while just 20% place
themselves on the liberal side (29% describe themselves as moderate.)

-A majority of Americans (54%) say abortion should be legal in most (37%) or all (17%) cases, while 41% oppose legalized abortion in most (26%) or all (15%) circumstances.

-67% of those surveyed favor faith-based initiatives.

You can see the survey in its entirety here.

"Olympic Persecution"

While swimmer Michael Phelps continutes his assault on the record books in the Beijing Olympics, another kind of assault continues in China: the assault on religious liberty. Consider this news item from the Voice of the Martyrs:

Pastor Hua Huiqi, who was evicted from his rental apartment in Beijing on July 2, and subsequently forced to leave China’s capital, was arrested Sunday while trying to attend a service at a state-approved church. The service at the Three Self-Patriotic Movement’s Kuanjie Church was attended by U.S. President George W. Bush. According to China Aid Association, Pastor Hua was walking to the state-approved church early Sunday morning when he was detained by the Chinese police. After about six hours, Pastor Hua took an opportunity and fled. He is now at large. Pastor Hua once had his door welded shut by Chinese police to keep him inside. In another incident, a policeman used a 10-pound hammer to break the locks on his door to evict Pastor Hua and his family including his 90-year-old father. Since that incident a couple of months ago Pastor Hua has been basically homeless. Government officials have labeled Hua a trouble-maker and stated their intention was to detain Hua until after the Olympic Games.

It would be nice to say that this is just an isolated incident. It'd be nice to say that Pastor Hua is just, as the government says, "a troublemaker". It'd be nice- but it wouldn't be true.

Consider what the State Department said in its most recent report on religious liberty in China:

"During the period covered by this report, the Government's respect for freedom of religion remained poor, especially for religious groups and spiritual movements that are not registered with the Government. The Government expelled several foreign citizens on charges of conducting "illegal religious activities" by proselytizing in the spring of 2007. According to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), religious organizations, and house church groups, over one hundred were expelled. The Government also questioned house church leaders about connections with foreigners and plans to disrupt the Olympics. Some of these groups alleged that these incidents were part of a coordinated government campaign to repress religious expression. The Government also continued to emphasize the role of religion in building a "Harmonious Society," which was a positive development with regard to the Government's respect for religious freedom."

Pray for China.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

One of the towering figures of the 20th Century has died. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian historian, philosopher, and author whose epic The Gulag Archipelago exposed the West to the horrors of Soviet tyranny inside their forced labor camps. One source described him thusly: "Driven, principled, frequently arrogant, a bearded figure with the fierce visage of a prophet, Mr. Solzhenitsyn (sohl-zheh-NEETS-ihn) was regarded as one of the greatest and most influential writers of the 20th century." Christian leader Charles Colson once compared Solzhenitsyn to the prophet Jeremiah after the Russian sage lambasted his Harvard audience for among other things allowing man to become "the master of this world … who bears no evil within himself...So all the defects of life" are attributed to "wrong social systems."

It's difficult to overestimate the affect The Gulag Archipelago had on shaping the mind of the West toward the Soviet Union. Historians credit Solzhenitsyn along with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II with framing the moral and ideological case against the Soviet Union. Before you go, read two pieces. One from Charles Colson about Solzhenitsyn at Harvard and the second is an editorial that ran in a Canadian newspaper following his death. It can be found here.

HUH?

Here's hoping everyone's having a good week and staying cool in this heat. Looking forward to Sunday, but in the meantime grab a cold drink and read this story about how we're all going deaf from our personal audio devices, like the ipod and the fact that we all seem to be getting older (present company excluded).

One of three U.S. adults already suffers from some degree of hearing loss and the use of personal stereos and an aging population may create a hearing impairment epidemic, researchers said on Monday.

A team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore estimated that 55 million Americans have hearing loss in one or both ears, with men, whites and the least-educated most affected.
One out of six, or 29 million adults, have some trouble discerning speech, more than previous estimates, they reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"The prevalence of hearing loss in the United States is predicted to rise significantly because of an aging population and the growing use of personal listening devices. Indeed, there is concern that we may be facing an epidemic of hearing impairment," Dr. Yuri Agrawal of the Baltimore hospital wrote.

It is common for people to ignore or disavow hearing loss, the researchers said, leading to difficulty communicating that can result in productivity problems at work, depression, and less access to health care that ultimately raises the risk of sickness and death.

Hearing loss is common among people 70 and older, according to the report. But hearing loss also affected 8.5 percent of those in their 20s and 17 percent of people in their 30s. Exposure to workplace noise, firearms, and loud music were all risk factors.

Assessing health information collected from 5,700 Americans aged 20 to 69 years between 1999 and 2004 in the federal National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Agrawal and colleagues found men were twice as likely as women (21 percent versus 11 percent) to have speech-frequency hearing loss in one or both ears.

Whites were more than twice as prone to hearing loss than blacks, and those with less education were more at risk than those who completed high school or beyond.

Also dramatically increasing the chances of hearing loss were smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Screening for hearing loss should begin in young adulthood, particularly for vulnerable groups, Agrawal concluded.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Walsh)

News item: "No more LDS missionaries Russia-bound"

This little tidbit crawled across the TV screen today. While this news item applies to the LDS church, the implications for other missionary organizations and current missionaries within Russia is obvious.

Jul. 15, 2008 07:14 AM

Associated Press

PROVO, Utah - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is no longer sending North American missionaries to Russia due to new visa laws, but are trying to find a work-around.
Missionaries who were being prepared at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, for service in Russia have been reassigned.

North American missionaries already in Russia will remain to complete their service, which runs two years for men and 18 months for women.

Last year, Russia began to require foreigners on humanitarian visas, which includes missionaries, to leave the country every three months to renew their visas.

"The church is working to find an alternative solution to the 90-day renewal requirement," church spokesman Rob Howell told the Deseret News on Monday. "Until an appropriate alternative is identified, new missionary assignments to Russia will be limited to those nationalities not needing visas.

Tony Snow on illness, mortality, and God's will

One year ago, Tony Snow penned a piece for "Christianity Today" about his experience battling cancer. Full of insight and perspective on illness, suffering, and God's place in it all, it's worth a read.

"Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.

Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face."

More:

"The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment."

"What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand."

Writer, host, White House spokesman Tony Snow passes away...

Above: Snow, with President Bush

It's rare in the world of politics that someone is as deep as their public persona projects. As with most other acquantices in public life, after really getting to know someone (sports or movie star), one walks away thinking, "man, that's not what I expected."

That wouldn't have been the case with Tony Snow, who died today after a long battle with cancer. Snow's most recent job was arguably the toughest one in politics- White House Press Secretary. Warm and affable, Snow enjoyed success first as a speechwriter for the first President Bush, then as a writer and first host of Fox News Sunday. Tony was also a man of deep faith which he expressed many times during his battle with cancer.

PBS: "Jesus in China"

Flipping through the channels the other night, I ran across PBS's "Frontline". They featured Christianity in China. Titled Jesus in China, it looked at the relationship between the "house church" (underground) movement and the communist government. While Christian brothers and sisters are beginning to see daylight in the form of less restrictions from the government, they still deal with the specter of living in a police state.

Among the more interesting thoughts from the program:

“They’ve tried to catch me several times, but they never succeeded because God protects me.” says Wang Guiyan, who runs [a house] church. “Christianity is freedom. But Chinese Christians, they still have restrictions. They are not completely free.”

----------

In case after case, the Chinese government gives a variety of reasons other than faith to arrest local house church leaders. Sometimes, they demolish the house churches altogether. But the government’s attempts to control the underground church have largely failed to diminish their faith.

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“The gap is becoming larger in China between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless,” he says. “I believe only Jesus, and not the communist party, can save this country and its people.”

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At the most recent Communist Party congress, President Hu Jintao made an historic move, adding the word “religion” to the party constitution for the first time. He urged party leaders to strike what he called a harmonious balance between church and state.

But not everyone trusts the party’s new friendly face toward religion. Fan Yafeng, a lawyer specializing in religious freedom, tells Osnos that the government’s acceptance of Christianity is strategic.

“To control the Chinese society, the government sometimes chooses to be lenient and sometimes tough,” he says.

Is it really that bad?

I happened upon a news story while sorting through the news of the day, an AP piece in which the title summed up most of the article: Everything seemingly is spinning out of control.

Really? I thought to myself. Here's some excerpts:

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

---------------

"It is pretty scary," said Charles Truxal, 64, a retired corporate manager in Rochester, Minn. "People are thinking things are going to get better, and they haven't been. And then you go hide in your basement because tornadoes are coming through. If you think about things, you have very little power to make it change."

---------------

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.

---------------

And maybe this is what the 21st century will be about — a great unraveling of some things long taken for granted.

---------------

My response when I read this? It's bad, but it's not as bad as it's been before, nor as bad as it will get. First of all, it's not as bad as it's been before and the Bible gives me a pretty good idea that this is the case. Take Genesis 6:1 and following. God sees that man's wickedness is great and that "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Then the very next verse says "and it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

Genesis 6 is what is known as "the days of Noah" and they seem to be a sort of benchmark for God to measure wickedness and depravity. In fact Jesus uses Noah's time to give us a hint as to when His second coming shall be: But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (Matt. 24:37). So, although it is bad (and not getting much better- see 2 Tim. 3:13) it has been worse and will be once again. But as long as we're here, we have a chance to parner with God to forestall the decay and depravity- provided we don't add to it with our actions.

Just a thought...

Author, journalist Tim Russert dies

Host of NBC's Meet the Press and bestselling author died today in his DC office. Having met Russert, I can tell you the Tim Russert you saw in front of the camera was the same one I met in the Iowa snow when the cameras were off. Russert gained national notoriety for his use of a plain whiteboard during election night in 2000 to explain the increasingly complicated electoral math. He also drew wide praise for his 2004 book about his father, "Big Russ and Me". Russert leaves behind a wife, son, and his father- Big Russ. Please pray for the Russert family during this time of sorrow.

Daughter of Christian music artist killed

Please keep the family of Steven Curtis Chapman in your prayers in the coming days as they mourn the loss of their little one.

From the AP:

Daughter of Christian music star killed by car
Thursday, May 22, 2008

NASHVILLE, Tenn.: The 5-year-old daughter of Grammy-winning Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman was struck and killed Wednesday by a sport utility vehicle driven by her brother, authorities said.

The girl, Maria Sue, was hit in the driveway of the family's home Wednesday afternoon by a Toyota Land Cruiser driven by her teenage brother, said Laura McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

The brother, whose name and exact age weren't available, apparently did not see the girl, McPherson said. No charges are expected.

"It looks like a tragic accident," she said.

Several family members witnessed the accident, which happened in Williamson County just south of Nashville. The girl died later at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, hospital spokeswoman Laurie Holloway said.

In a statement, Velvet Kelm, a publicist for Chapman, said Maria was the Chapmans' youngest daughter.

Chapman, who is originally from Paducah, Ky., and his wife have promoted international adoption and have three daughters from China, including Maria. They also have three biological children.

The singer's Web site says the couple was persuaded by their oldest daughter to adopt a girl from China. The experience led the family to adopt two more children and create Shaohannah's Hope, a foundation and ministry to financially assist thousands of couples in adoption.

The Chapmans did missionary work at Chinese orphanages in 2006 and 2007, according to the Web site.

"After our first trip to China, my wife and I knew our lives were changing our eyes and hearts were opening to how big God really is, and we have wanted to experience more of that," Chapman says on the Web site.

"We've really wondered whether or not we should just go to China and stay there. But I don't think so. I believe God is saying, 'I want you to go, get your heart broken, your eyes opened, and then take this story back to the church in America and around the world.'"

The 45-year-old singer also has released a book about being a father titled "Cinderella: The Love of Daddy and his Princess." He has won five Grammy awards and 54 Dove awards from the Gospel Music Association, according to Kelm.

Blogger's note: Thoughts and messages of condolence and comfort can be sent here.

A list of Steven Curtis Chapman's studio works can be found here.