Church State

The right to pray is still a hot topic in the Sunshine State. The Clay County, Fla., School District has been involved in a religious liberty debate over the legality of prayer on school property since last November.

During their January school board meeting last week, members decided that they would hold a workshop sometime between Feb. 27 and March 2 to discuss adopting a policy on school prayer.

School board member Charlie Van Zant told The Christian Post that he, along with the School Board chairman and School Board attorney, will talk to different law firms in the next few weeks about attending the workshop and presenting different perspectives on the constitutional right of school prayer. more >>

A newly appointed state director of an atheist activist group said that he will fight two national Christian-based organizations for what he alleges to be proselytizing at public schools while "targeting the impressionable minds of our children."

Al Stefanelli, the former president of United Atheist Front and presently the Georgia state director for American Atheists, Inc., said he will take action against the Child Evangelism Fellowship and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes this year. Both groups conduct after-school and break-time activities on school campuses throughout the United States with the approval of school officials.

When asked by The Christian Post as to what actions he would take against these groups, Stefanelli said, "I cannot get into specifics at this time, as we are still in the planning/strategizing stages. You can be confident that we will, as always, operate within the law, using peaceful means." more >>

An after-school Christian club is looking to lift the flier ban placed on their organization by the Dysart Unified School District in Phoenix, Ariz., prohibiting them from distributing invitations and permission slips to attend their meetings.

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit in federal court on Thursday on behalf of the Good News Club, a ministry of the Child Evangelism Fellowship, stating that the district's ban was unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment.

While the district permitted a variety of other organizations to distribute their literature at the schools, including the Boy Scouts, Cesar Chavez Foundation, Interfaith Community Care, Sun City Area Interfaith Services, and the Salvation Army Sun City Corps, it denied CEF Phoenix's request because it purportedly went against their policy to distribute literature of a "religious nature." more >>

A University of Maine professor has concluded that voters whose polling place is either at or near a church tend to be influenced in their electoral decisions.

Psychologist Dr. Jordan LaBouff made his conclusion based on research conducted in a religiously diverse part of the Netherlands. His research paper was published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion on Thursday.

"These data demonstrate that people in religious contexts expressed more conservative attitudes and more negative attitudes toward a variety of non-Christian groups," said LaBouff to The Christian Post. more >>

The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from a North Carolina county government regarding a lower court decision barring sectarian prayer at its meetings.

The Board of Commissioners for Forsyth County, N.C., will not be allowed to appeal a decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals against its prayer policy. Although the decision still allows prayers at the board’s meetings, they must now be nonsectarian.

“I am very disappointed in the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to deny review of our prayer lawsuit,” said Debra L. Conrad, vice chair of the board, to The Christian Post. more >>

Skeptics and atheists in South Africa remain divided over the Advertising Standards Authority’s ruling to remove a church billboard that was deemed “anti-atheist.”

Earlier this month, the ASA ruled that Rivers Church of Johannesburg could not display a billboard at their Sandton campus over what a complainant claimed was content offensive to atheists. The church had erected a billboard of a man holding his fingers against the temples of his face. Above the image is the quote, “An atheist is a man who believes himself to be an accident – Francis Thompson.”

Eugene Gerber had submitted a complaint to the ASA, an independent organization funded by South Africa’s communications marketing industry that oversees “self-regulation” of advertising content. The Advertising Standards Committee, a part of the ASA, ruled on the case. more >>