ees. The poll by LifeWay Research, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, also showed that almost two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) believe the coverage should be free even if contraception conflicts with the owner’s religious ethics. Regula- tions in the Affordable Care Act (the 2010 health care reform law) require most employers, including some reli- gious ones like Roman Catholic col- leges and hospitals, to provide birth control coverage.
What, no animals or angels? In this season of displaying, and packing away, the family crèche, Pope Benedict XVI’s book is chal- lenging some long-held Christmas traditions. In Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, the pontiff wrote that in the Gospels there is “no ref- erence” to animals in the Bethlehem stable where Jesus was born. Bene- dict also wrote that the angels who announced Jesus’ birth to the shep- herds probably didn’t actually sing, and that the three wise men could have been inspired by a “theologi- cal idea” rather than by a “historical event.” When the media zeroed in on the absence of animals and angels, the Vatican blasted the press for too narrow of a focus.
Youth on climate change Lutheran young adults gathered in Doha, Qatar, and demanded that world governments commit to reduc- ing greenhouse gases and using clean energy sources as the U.N. began climate change negotiations there on Nov. 26-Dec. 7. The nine young adults, aged 21 to 29, represented Lutheran churches in Argentina, Bra- zil, Canada, Germany, India, Mada- gascar, Norway, Papua New Guinea and Poland. The Doha negotia- tions dealt with a range of concerns, including what will take the place of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in
2015. The Kyoto Protocol commits signatory nations to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Learn more at
http://lwfyouth.org.
Atheists find funding The Atheists, Humanists and Agnos- tics group at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is poised to receive nearly $70,000 in funding from student fees for the 2013-14 academic year. AHA President Chris Calvey told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “religious groups have been receiving this type of funding for years.” At presstime, the finance committee had authorized the fund- ing, which is now awaiting approval from the university’s student council, chancellor and board of regents.
Schuller bid rejected
Crystal Cathedral founder Robert H. COURTESY OF THE ELCA MALARIA CAMPAIGN
Quote What we aspire to as Anglicans is not to be a federation of loosely con- nected and rather distant relatives who sometimes send Christmas cards to each other.
Retiring Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Wil- liams, in his final Advent letter to the leading archbishops of the Anglican Communion.
Schuller failed to get most of the $5 million he requested in a bankruptcy case against the Southern Califor- nia megachurch he started 57 years ago. A judge ruled in November that Schuller, 86, and several fam- ily members didn’t prove many of their claims of breach of contract and copyright infringement against Crys- tal Cathedral Ministries. The family was awarded less than $700,000, The Orange County Register reported. In a fall 2011 bankruptcy proceeding, the cathedral, fraught with debt and fam- ily squabbles, reached a $57.5 million deal with the Roman Catholic Dio-
12 Malaria progress:
$5 million A mother and child in Caia, Mozambique, take home a mosquito net after a malaria workshop sponsored by the Evan- gelical Lutheran Church in Mozambique and the ELCA Malaria Campaign. The campaign seeks to contain the preventable disease, which takes the lives of more than 650,000 people each year. Jessica Nipp Hacker, campaign coordinator, said the effort has surpassed the $5 mil- lion mark on its way to $15 million by 2015. To help, send checks (payable to “ELCA Malaria Campaign”) to ELCA Malaria Cam- paign, P.O. Box 71764, Chi- cago, IL 60694-9300; visit
www.elca.org/malaria or call 800-638-3522.
January 2013 11
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