June (Web-only) 2000

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In the June 15 edition of the ChristianityToday.com Weblog, we quoted The Washington Post as saying the Southern Baptist Convention's new Statement of Faith and Message "drops the concepts of 'the priesthood of the believer' and the 'soul's competency before God.'" The preamble to the proposed Statement of Faith and Message was in fact amended the day of the vote to include the concepts. The preamble says, "We honor the principles of soul competency and the priesthood of believers, affirming together both our liberty in Christ and our accountability to each other under the Word of God."

The bill passed by the House of Representatives yesterday prohibits the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from regulating the content of speech aired by noncommercial educational radio and television stations. The legislation comes after religious leaders attacked the FCC for ruling that some religious programming aired on noncommercial television stations is not sufficiently educational. (The FCC quickly backed down.) Though backers of the bill say it "defend[s] religion on the airwaves," detractors worry that "there will no longer ever again be a requirement that a public TV station must serve the educational needs of a community."

Indonesian police have confirmed that 108 Christians and 8 Muslims died when an estimated 500 Muslims attacked the Christian village of Duma, on the island of Halmahera. Other reports put the number of Christians dead above 150. "It was a very quick attack. They had automatic rifles but the Christians only had homemade weapons," says Father Hadi, ...