Graduation Prayer Allowed

One Year Ago... Christian Singer Dies

Christian singer Dana Key unexpectedly passed away one year ago today. A member of the pioneering Christian band Degarmo & Key, the 57 year old died from a blood clot. He served as senior pastor of The Love of Christ Church in Cordova, Tennessee which had planned on a DeGarmo & Key reunion to take place just a few days after his death.

Jerusalem: City of David

In the video below, 60 Minutes reports from under the city of Jerusalem at a controversial archeological dig that has become a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But That's Not in the Bible

CNN takes on misquoting the Bible here.

Narnia Book Facts

• Written by Christian apologist CS Lewis

• Published in 1950

• Seven Books in the Series

• More than 95 million copies in 41 languages

• A lion named Aslan is a Christ-like figure

• Rights Owned by HarperCollins

• First editions are selling on the web for as much as $20,000

• JRR Tolkien's response to Wardrobe: "It really won't do, you know"

• JK Rowling says she adored Lewis' stories and they influenced Harry Potter

Getting to Know.. Scientology

• 1911: L. Ron Hubbard is born in Tilden, Nebraska
• 1930's: Hubbard becomes known as a science fiction writer
• 1940's: Hubbard serves in the Navy during World War II
• 1950: Dianetics is published, putting forth the view that man is immortal, basically good and has loops of memory from past lives called "engrams" that must be cleared to bring unity with the universe and psychological and physical health. Drugs and other tools of psychology just create needless suffering
• 1953: Hubbard formally establishes the Church of Scientology (no relation to Christian Science)
• 1977: The FBI raided Scientology centers in Los Angeles and Washington and found evidence that Scientologists had been wiretapping
• 2000: Battlefield Earth is released, a movie based on a Hubbard novel starring John Travolta; it cost more than $100 million to produce and market but earned only $21 million
• 2000's: famous adherents include Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley Scientology is considered a Cult by the governments of Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Canada, etc.

Blue Like Jazz: The Movie

A film version of the best-selling Christian book Blue Like Jazz will be screened in Portland this month. The film came about thanks to an odd Internet site called Kickstarter. The site allows people to post ideas for projects that readers can pledge to support. Steve Taylor, who made The Second Chance, set a goal of raising $125,000 through the site for Blue Like Jazz. But by last fall, he had $345,992. That's when a major investor saw the interest in the film and pledged to match that amount. Taylor is now calling everyone who gave $10 or more to thank than them. He's about halfway through a notebook of 3,300 names.

Polling Numbers on Mormon Candidates

A new poll finds 25% of voters say they would be less likely to support a candidate who is Mormon, such as Mitt Romney. About one-in-three white evangelicals say they would not consider voting for a Mormon candidate. The same Pew poll found only 18% said they would never consider backing Romney while nearly 40% of Republican voters said there was "no chance" they would ever vote for Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin.

Davis Dies

Christian music pioneer Paul Davis has died at the age of 67. His New Christian Music Radio Show could be heard on over 360 radio stations around the world. Davis worked with the artists like Johnny Cash, Amy Grant, and Bill and Gloria Gaither. During the 1980s he became director of the Gospel Music Association.

Getting to Know… Bill Hybels

1951: Born in of Dutch ancestry and raised in Calvinist theology in Kalamazoo, Michigan
1974: Hybels married his longtime sweetheart. They have a daughter and a son.
1975: founded Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois with about 12,000 members. Willow's annual leadership summit, draws some 50,000 pastors and key volunteers attend or tune in via satellite.
1980s: Served as a chaplain for the Chicago Bears
1990s: One of President Bill Clinton's closest spiritual advisers.
More than 2000 non-Catholic pastors chose Willow Creek as the most influential congregation in the US.

Tony Alamo Verdict

Two former members of cult leader Tony Alamo's ministry have been awarded $33 million each by a Texarkana, Arkansas jury. They claim Alamo ordered them beaten. The jury found Alamo liable for battery, outrage and conspiracy. Alamo plans an appeal and his lawyers say the men will never see the money - because there isn't any. Last year, a federal judge awarded 5 young women whom Alamo sexually assaulted and took as "wives" $500,000 each.

Life in Prison for Meyer's Former Employee

Joyce Meyer's chief of security has been sentenced to life in prison for strangling of his wife and their two sons in their beds at home in Columbia, Illinois. Prosecutors says Christopher Coleman sent fake threats in an email and spray-painted obscenities on walls at the crime scene to make it look like the killings were the work of a Joyce Meyer stalker. His deceased wife's family has filed a lawsuit against Joyce Meyer Ministries for “its failure to recognize that accused family murderer Christopher Coleman was a threat to his wife and two sons."

Getting to Know.. the Church of God in Christ

• Also known as COGIC
• more than 6 million US members
• National headquarters in Memphis
• Founded in the early 1900s by Charles Harrison Mason, a son of slaves and a former Baptist preacher
• America's largest black Pentecostal denomination
• Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last sermon, at Mason Temple, COGIC's mother church