The current debate over preaching is most commonly explained as an argument about the focus and shape of the sermon. Should the preacher seek to preach a biblical text through an expository sermon? Or, should the preacher direct the sermon to the "felt needs" and perceived concerns of the hearers?

Focusing on so-called "perceived needs" and allowing these needs to set the preaching agenda inevitably leads to a loss of biblical authority and biblical content in the sermon. Yet, this pattern is increasingly the norm in many evangelical pulpits....Shockingly, this is now the approach evident in many evangelical pulpits. The sacred desk has become an advice center and the pew has become the therapist's couch. Psychological and practical concerns have displaced theological exegesis and the preacher directs his sermon to the congregation's perceived needs.

The problem is, of course, that the sinner does not know what his most urgent need is. She is blind to her need for redemption and reconciliation with God, and focuses on potentially real but temporal needs such as personal fulfillment, financial security, family peace, and career advancement. Too many sermons settle for answering these expressed needs and concerns, and fail to proclaim the Word of Truth.

The advocates tell us the skies have not fallen in Massachusetts; nothing has changed, they assure us. Romney points out that small things have already begun to change, foretelling the bigger, sadder changes to come. First, the marriage licenses change so they no longer read husband and wife but "Party A" and "Party B." The Department of Health insists that birth certificates also change. The line for mother and father becomes "Parent A" and "Parent B."...

The transformation of mother and father into "Parent A" and "Parent B" is the model of the paradigm shift now underway in Massachusetts. The distinctive features of the union of male and female are going to have to be removed from our notions of marriage and family. The experience of same-sex couples will become the new norm for family life, because the "unisex" idea that gender has no public significance is the only model that can be construed as "inclusive" of both opposite-sex and same-sex unions. The result is not neutrality but the active promotion of a new unisex ideal, in which the distinctive features of opposite-sex relations will be submerged, marginalized, cast to one side, and redefined as discrimination in order to protect the new court-ordered public moral standard of the equality of same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

The idea that John Kerry is running to uphold the Constitution is -- well, interesting. I guess it depends on what your idea of the Constitution is. But it is amazing that liberals like Kerry cling to this superficial notion that our religious liberties are dependent on a radical separation of church and state.

Even if the First Amendment mandated a strict separation of church and state -- as opposed to prohibiting the establishment of a national church -- it is difficult to see how a reasonable person could interpret the separation principle as requiring office holders not to infuse their governance with their worldview.

Indeed it's hard to imagine how anyone with the slightest grip on reality could believe that any human being, politician or not, could separate who he is from what he does. If our religious moorings, or lack thereof, don't largely define who we are, then nothing does.

I'm taking these God's blueprint for government classes and learning about family government, civil government, self government,and church government, and how, without GOD, none of them work. Nor should one solely do the work of another -- they help each other out. That's God's blueprint laid out for us in the Bible. Why does this play a part in abstinence teaching?

This is my view: obviously, because of the failure of self government and the cloaking over of promiscuity, it has failed. should the family gov't fail, the church must take up the slack -- and in America both are failing, so the gov't must then take up the slack and regulate how to teach it. It's a sad cycle. If the family can't teach the self how to do it -- we need to fix the foundational thing!

Trouble with refering to Christian heritage in the EU constitution is that there is also a distinct Islamic heritage and Jewish heritage in Europe.

This is seen for example in Spain (EU, medieval Islamic and Jewish heritage), Albania (non EU and almost entirely Islamic), Bosnia (non EU with mixed Christian, Jewish and Islamic heritage) and Poland and Lithuania (EU with distinct 18th - 20th century Jewish heritage).

In addition to this, in a number of EU countries there are minority (citizen) populations that are Sikh, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist etc. The EU includes them also.

Abstinence-only education is often "fear-based," reliant on outdated or untrue facts about sexuality, and disallows discussion of contraception, Ms. Kreinin said.

States would benefit youths if they offered "medically accurate" sex education that would delay the onset of sexual activity and increase condom use, she said.

"We know what works," she said.

The 450-page document, which took two years to research, tracks three federal abstinence-funding streams for fiscal year 2003. It details the amount of abstinence funds given to each state and the District, as well as local grantees, sex-education laws and statistics on pregnancy and teen sexual behavior.

In keeping with the times, translator Henson deftly translates "demon possession" as "mental illness" and "Son of Man," the expression Jesus frequently used to describe himself, as "the Complete Person." In addition, parables are rendered as "riddles," baptize is to "dip" in water, salvation becomes "healing" or "completeness" and Heaven becomes "the world beyond time and space."

Here's how Williams, the top Anglican archbishop, describes the new Bible: "Instead of being taken into a specialized religious frame of reference -- as happens even with the most conscientious of formal modern translations -- and being given a gospel addressed to specialized concerns...we have here a vehicle for thinking and worshipping that is fully earthed, recognizably about our humanity."

In the UK abstinence only programmes are non-existent and seen as a very American cultural phenomenen. Hence I suppose, making the documentary in the first place.

There are real issues to consider in the funding of faith based groups in a constitution that requires the separation of church and state. (This is as opposed to funding non-faith based groups advocating the same position). This point is often raised by the ACLU. As this is different to the position in Britain (which does not have separation of Church and state) british viwers may not have been aware of this potential objection. That is a good reason in itself for the BBC including this point in its website and documentary on The Silver Ring Thing which is faith based.

The debate around abstinence only programmes exists in the USA and it would be pretty biased of the BBC not to include this in a documentary.

A radical translation of the New Testament released with the personal backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and aimed at the those disillusioned with institutional religion, has been met by the mainstream media with a focus on a small number of biblical passages that relate to sexual ethics.

The ONE translation aims at a "new, fresh and adventurous" translation of the early Christian scriptures. It is designed both for mature Christians and for those who have limited experience of traditional Christianity or "may have found it a barrier to an appreciation of Jesus."

Saudi Arabia (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia promised Wednesday that terrorists in the kingdom will be safe if they surrender within a month -- but after that they will face forceful consequences.

"We are announcing for the last time that we are opening the door to repentance and for those to return to righteousness," said Crown Prince Abdullah in a televised address.

The move comes days after U.S. engineer Paul Johnson Jr., who was working in the kingdom, was kidnapped and beheaded -- and after months of battles between Saudi forces and al Qaeda terrorists.

Walt Disney Pictures is giving away free Bible study guides as a way to promote a new documentary that tells heartrending stories of several Americans across the nation -- a movie one noted entertainment critic says could spark a new era of films honoring traditional values.

"America's Heart & Soul" presents portraits of people from many walks of life, all of whom have lead uniquely American lives and whose stories together weave what promises to be an uplifting cinematic experience. The film opens nationwide on July 2.

Two recent surveys (by Glasgow University and the University of London) show that far too many -- up to a third -- of those who have sex young regret it soon afterwards.

This is the point that liberals miss. The debate over sex education has become so polarised that it is hard for people on the left to say that education about the advantages of abstinence is important for teenagers. And feminism has become so associated with the right of young women to be sexual that it is often hard for feminists to say that it is vital for girls to remember that they do not need to be having sex to be valued. This does not mean, as in the US abstinence movement, replacing frank sex education with pledges and prayers. But it does mean that the frank sex education which grown-ups give to teenagers has to include talking to them about why they can and should resist the social consensus that only sex will give them status.

If liberals and feminists refuse to see why abstinence movements are appealing, we run the risk of allowing the religious right to hijack the debate....Those US movements encourage teenagers to pledge chastity because they are told they owe it to God. But, in fact, teenagers owe it to themselves not to have sex too early. There is a fatalistic acceptance in our culture that having bad sex is an inevitable part of teenage experience; but there is nothing inevitable about such regret. Even first experiences, especially first experiences, can be full of pleasure and wonder, and are worth waiting for.

Why have the Jews -- always among the weakest and smallest of peoples -- attracted the hatred of the most evil people? Because of what the Jews represented. The civility of the Jews' lives and the values the Jews brought into the world -- especially ethical monotheism, i.e., a standard of right and wrong based on a moral and judging God -- made them loathsome in the eyes of those who led particularly uncivil lives and who celebrated moral chaos and cruelty.

Turning to hatred of America, the same questions and answers apply.

Either America is evil, and hatred of it is merited, or America is a decent country and the haters are evil.

The correct explanation is so obvious that only one who already hates America or who is simply morally confused would choose the first.

In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. Something -- I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now -- has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion.

The truth is that the fate of the phrase "under God" is a symbolic issue. The real issue is the continuing and relentless effort to banish every trace of religion from the public square. "Under God" is in line with "In God We Trust" on our currency and "God save the United States and this honorable court" at the Supreme Court and a similar blessing in the president's annual Thanksgiving message. To defenders of the "under God" phrase, this is the key point: that the reflexive hostility to religion that now guides much of American liberalism will result in the step-by-step elimination of all these references, most of which, as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and others have argued, are harmless expressions of "ceremonial deism."

The antireligious campaign presents itself, of course, as a high-minded concern about church-state separation. But that self-flattering view breaks down quickly under the most casual analysis. The American Civil Liberties Union hilariously argued that a moment of silence in Virginia schools equals "establishment of religion." Recently, under threat of expensive litigation, the ACLU forced the removal of a tiny cross on a tiny building on the seal of Los Angeles County. The cross was included in a welter of symbols and referred to the Spanish missions that founded modern California. Even a semirational analysis might have concluded that this was a straightforward, unthreatening historical reference. But it was enough to send the ACLU into a spasm of church-state concern.

Pundits mocked George W. Bush when, during the 2000 campaign, he told an interviewer that Jesus Christ was the most influential philosopher in his life, though this was not so remarkable to anyone actually conversant with our nation's history.

Time magazine notes in its current cover story, "Faith, God and the Oval Office," that Thomas Jefferson said the same thing 200 years ago. Spirituality and adherence to certain religions (like "sophistication" and "education") can be faked by artists, politicians and the rest of us for all kinds of reasons, but public religious expression seems to make those without faith particularly uncomfortable.

As this election season unfolds, it behooves all of us to be particularly judicious and discriminating in the ways we interpret what a person says about his faith. Those who criticize George W.'s religious talk fear that his faith determines policy. But a person's faith (or lack of it) is inevitably a factor in making important decisions, personal and political.

Stem-cell research and abortion are issues that atheists as well as the faithful can question because profound and complex issues determine how we value life. Not even a saint has all the answers to every question.

The long historical truth is that God, whether He exists or not, is good for summoning national pride, communal bonds and the martial spirit--the qualities most necessary to ensuring the survival of the United States at its current level of pre-eminence. (If the U.S.'s current level of pre-eminence is what galls you most, stop reading.)

When in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance schoolchildren stand and say together that their one, indivisible, just and liberty-loving nation exists under God, they are admitting an organizing force in life other than their cute, little selves.

Arguably, the role of God or religion in the nation's life wouldn't matter very much if the relations among all nations resembled the Garden of Eden. Since that famous, unfortunate Fall, however, men and women have been called upon to die defending their country. That is asking a lot. The willingness to fight for one's nation has been a function of the patriotic impulse, and we summon that impulse, in part, with appeals to a higher purpose.