COLSON SEES TWIN THREATS: ISLAMO-FASCISM AND NEO-atheism SAN ANTONIO (AP) Prison Fellowship Ministries founder Charles Colson says that while faithful Christians are willing to die for their faith, Islamic fascists are willing to kill for theirs.

The 75-year-old Watergate figure told Southern Baptist pastors gathered in San Antonio before their denomination's annual meeting that "Islamo-fascism is evil incarnate." Colson dismissed Islam's holy book, the Quran, as more likely to have been produced by indigestion than divine revelation. He told the pastors, "Muhammad said it was dictated by the angel Gabriel; I think he'd had too many hot tamales the night before if you read it." But he said many Christians today are too intimidated to say theirs is the one true faith.

Colson also warned that a new, militant atheism is growing in popularity in the West.

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Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, speaking to Southern Baptist Pastors Conference Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, dismisses the claims about Islam's holy book.

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:11 "read it"


Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, speaking to Southern Baptist Pastors Conference Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, says there's a huge difference between Christianity and Islam.

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:10 "fascist today"


Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, speaking to Southern Baptist Pastors Conference Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, says Islamic fascists will kill for their faith.

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:02 "evil incarnate"


Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, speaking to Southern Baptist Pastors Conference Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, says there's a difference between martyrdom and murder.

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Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, speaking to Southern Baptist Pastors Conference Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, says atheist intellectuals have written best-selling books condemning all religions.

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:18 "belief system"


Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, speaking to Southern Baptist Pastors Conference Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, says a vicious new form of atheism has broken out in best-selling books like 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins.

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BAPTIST PASTORS ARE URGED TO RESIST PLURALISM, POST-MODERNISM SAN ANTONIO (AP) Southern Baptist pastors, meeting before their denomination's annual meeting in San Antonio, have been challenged to proclaim and defend the Christian faith in today's culture.

The Reverend Roger Spradlin of Bakersfield, California, urged his colleagues to resist a pluralism that claims that people can get to God apart from faith in Jesus Christ.

He also urged them to proclaim the Bible as God's revelation in a post-modern culture that treats truth as subjective and self-created.

The pastors also heard from two past presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention, Paige Patterson and Jerry Vines, and from Prison Fellowship Ministries founder Charles Colson.

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Reverend Roger Spradlin, senior pastor at Valley Baptist Church of Bakersfield, Calif., speaking at Southern Baptist Pastors Conference The Reverend Roger Spradlin says Southern Baptist pastors must defend the message of salvation through Christ alone.

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Reverend Roger Spradlin, senior pastor at Valley Baptist Church of Bakersfield, Calif., speaking at Southern Baptist Pastors Conference The Reverend Roger Spradlin says Southern Baptist pastors must proclaim the Bible as God's word.

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BROWNBACK QUESTIONS abortion FOR RAPE VICTIMS IN TALK TO CatholicS TAYLORS, South Carolina (AP) Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Roman Catholic convert, has questioned whether rape victims should get abortions.

Campaigning for president before the National Catholic Men's Conference, Brownback said, "Rape is terrible. Rape is awful." But he asked, "Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that's been raped?" He concluded, "We need to protect innocent life, period," bringing the crowd to its feet.

Brownback also talked about keeping marriage between a man and a woman, saying nations that have allowed same-sex marriages were engaging in bad social experiments, with bad results.

BUSH ENDING TRIP THAT INCLUDED MEETING WITH POPE SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) President Bush flies back to Washington today after a European trip that included a weekend meeting at the Vatican with Pope Benedict.

Bush said the pontiff was "deeply concerned" that Christians in Iraq are being mistreated by the Muslim majority, and feared that Iraqi society will no longer "tolerate the Christian religion." Bush said he assured the pope that the United States is "working hard to make sure" that Iraq is living up to its new constitution.

After meeting with Benedict, Bush called it "a moving experience" and said he "was in awe" while "talking to a very smart, loving man."


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Mark Smith, A-P White House correspondent, with President Bush President Bush and Pope Benedict have talked about Iraq during their meeting Saturday at the Vatican. A-P White House correspondent Mark Smith reports.

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Mark Smith, A-P White House correspondent, with President Bush President Bush says he was moved by his meeting Saturday with Pope Benedict. A-P White House correspondent Mark Smith reports.

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President Bush, at news conference President Bush talks about his impression after meeting with Pope Benedict.

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President Bush, at news conference President Bush says being with Pope Benedict was one of the highlights of his presidency.

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President Bush, at news conference President Bush says Pope Benedict was very worried about Christians in Iraq.

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President Bush, at news conference President Bush was asked about the biggest concern Pope Benedict had about the war in Iraq.

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BUSH'S GIFT TO POPE WAS CARVED BY FORMER HOMELESS MAN VATICAN CITY (AP) President Bush has given Pope Benedict a walking stick with the Ten Commandments carved into its smooth surface.

During his weekend visit to the Vatican, Bush told the pope that the wooden stick was "a piece of art by a former homeless man from Texas." The hand-carved walking stick was made by 62-year-old Roosevelt Wilkerson of Dallas.

Wilkerson gathers sticks from the banks of the Trinity River, shears off the bark with a paring knife and sands the wood to a sleek finish. He then inscribes the first five Commandments lengthwise around the top of the stick. The second five are carved on the bottom half.

Wilkerson says of his carving, "God gave me this gift He put the gift in my hand."


CHURCH ACCUSES SONY OF USING ENGLISH CATHEDRAL IN VIOLENT GAME LONDON (AP) The Church of England is calling a popular PlayStation 3 game sacrilegious.

The church is demanding that Sony pull "Resistance: Fall of Man" off the shelves because it uses Manchester cathedral as a backdrop to a violent gun battle. A spokesman says the church will send a letter to Sony today asking for an apology and will consider a lawsuit if its demands are ignored.

The church says Sony did not ask for permission to use the image of the cathedral, which is the staging ground for a virtual shootout that leaves hundreds of people dead.

A Sony spokesman told The London Times that no permission should be necessary because "it is game-created footage, it is not video or photography." But the bishop of Manchester says it's "highly irresponsible" to realistically recreate his city's cathedral "and then encourage people to have gunbattles in the building."


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Charles de Ledesma, correspondent Correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports that the church of England has accused the Sony Corporation of using an English cathedral in a violent computer game.

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Charles de Ledesma, correspondent Correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports there's a disagreement between the Church of England and the Sony Corporation.

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Charles de Ledesma, correspondent Correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports Sony is defending its product.

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:12 "science fiction"


INMATES SUE OVER REMOVAL OF RELIGIOUS BOOKS FROM PRISON CHAPEL NEW YORK (AP) Inmates at a federal prison in Otisville, New York, say their constitutional rights have been violated by the removal of hundreds of books from the prison chapel.

Religious books have been removed from prisons across the country in response to a federal directive meant to keep radical texts, especially Islamic ones, away from violent inmates.

But the lawsuit filed by three inmates at Otisville says all religions have been affected.

Inmate John Okon, speaking on behalf of the prison's Christian population, told a judge that the Christian books that were taken out have helped inmates turn their lives around.

A government lawyer responded that prison officials need time to examine a long list of books because some prisons have, in his words, "been radicalized by inmates who were practicing or espousing various extreme forms of religion, specifically Islam."


CHARGES DISMISSED IN CAMPUS PREACHING INCIDENT KUTZTOWN, Pa. (AP) A judge in Pennsylvania has dismissed disorderly conduct charges against a Christian activist who was arrested in an April confrontation with Kutztown University students.

But Judge Gail Greth rebuked Michael Marcavage (mar-KAV'-ij) and his group Repent America for conducting a demonstration on the campus without the university's permission.

Marcavage rejected the rebuke, calling it an affront to free speech.

His lawyer argued that even though Marcavage's preaching, during a "Day of Silence" to promote tolerance of gays and lesbians, angered some students, the campus is a public place and the preaching was protected by the U-S and Pennsylvania constitutions.

LAWSUIT AGAINST FAITH-BASED PRISON PROGRAM SETTLED SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) State officials in Pennsylvania have agreed to refrain from using public funds to support religious activities, settling a federal lawsuit over a jailhouse program that allegedly mixed religion with vocational training.

The lawsuit claimed that employees of the Firm Foundation proselytized inmates in a former work-release program and pressured them to pray.

A lawyer for the Firm Foundation notes that the settlement doesn't require state and local officials to do any more than what was already required under federal contracting rules. But he said the lawsuit prevented an "effective program from operating" for two years.

ELDERLY CYCLIST RAISING MONEY FOR FAITH-BASED MISSION YUMA, Ariz. (AP) An 81-year-old Arizona man is on a faith-based mission to raise money for a faith-based mission.

Bill Anderson of Yuma is almost one week into a two-thousand-mile bicycle ride around Arizona's perimeter to raise money for Yuma's Crossroads Mission.

That may sound impossible for a man his age, especially in the June heat, but Anderson says he's "having a blast," seeing new places and taking lots of pictures.

And this isn't his first bike trek for Crossroads a faith-based mission that provides meals, shelter, clothing and counseling to the homeless.

Last year, when he was 80, Anderson rode from the Mexican border to the Canadian border and back again, and in 2004 he rode cross-country from San Diego to Jacksonville, Florida.

ARSON DAMAGES Amish SCHOOL IN PENNSYLVANIA BROWNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) Officials in Pennsylvania say one or more people broke into an Amish schoolhouse over the weekend and set a fire that caused an estimated 20-thousand dollars in damage.

The one-room schoolhouse is attended by Amish and Old Order Mennonite schoolchildren in Lancaster County's Amish community.

Classes there had recently finished for the year.

Police said they did not immediately have any suspects.

The building is less than 20 miles north of Nickel Mines, where a gunman shot ten girls five of them fatally at an Amish school in October; he killed himself as police closed in.

BRAZILIAN CHURCH LEADERS ADMIT SMUGGLING MONEY INTO U-S MIAMI (AP) A husband and wife who lead one of Brazil's biggest Evangelical churches have pleaded guilty to smuggling tens of thousands of dollars into the United States in luggage, a backpack and a Bible.

The couple known as Apostle Estevam and Bishop Sonia to their followers will likely be deported from Florida after their U-S case is resolved. They're also charged in Brazil with stealing millions of dollars from parishioners for luxuries such as mansions and horse farms.

Their church said in a statement that the couple don't expect to go to prison and await their sentencing "with enduring calm and confidence in their acts." The couple's Reborn in Christ Church claims hundreds of thousands of followers in Brazil. Their empire also includes newspapers, T-V and radio stations and a recording company.

WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT NEW YORK (AP) A former U-S ambassador and real estate investor has been elected president of the World Jewish Congress, which has led the campaign to win (m) millions of dollars in restitution from Swiss banks holding the assets of Holocaust victims.

Ronald Lauder succeeds (b) billionaire businessman Edgar Bronfman Senior, who resigned after 28 years in the post.

The World Jewish Congress has been beset by a series of problems, including a bitter internal feud and Bronfman's firing of longtime deputy Israel Singer. A 2006 report by the New York attorney general concluded that Singer had improperly used the group's funds for personal use, although no criminal charges were filed.

SELF-PROCLAIMED ANTI-CHRIST CANCELS DOMINICAN SPEECH SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) A Miami religious leader who calls himself the Antichrist has canceled a conference in the Dominican Republic after failing to find a venue willing to rent him space.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who has been barred from entering several Central American nations, had planned to preach in Santo Domingo, but the capital's Autonomous University withdrew its permission. The Intercontinental Hotel also turned Miranda down.

Miranda, who has the numbers "666" tattooed on his forearm, preaches that sin and the devil do not exist and that the beliefs of his Growing in Grace church supersede the teachings of Jesus.

Miranda founded Growing in Grace in 1986 and now claims to have two (m) million followers in some 35 nations.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APNP 06-11-07 0237CDT | save this article / add to your favorites list