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By Adelle M. Banks
Majorities of young people in America describe modern-day Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical and anti-gay. What's more, many Christians don't even want to call themselves "Christian" because of the baggage that accompanies the label.
A new book based on research by the California-based research firm The Barna Group found that church attitudes about people in general and gays in particular are driving a negative image of the Christian faith among people ages 16-29.
By Kathy Williams
Sherman, TX Witnessing their faith through music, the Harlem Gospel Choir speaks an ancient and joyful blessing through every modern medium. Its mission is to spread the message of love, peace and harmony among all the peoples of the world. The choir’s dynamic performances have graced stages throughout the world, on the Oprah Winfrey stage, on compact discs, digital video discs and You Tube.
Harlem Gospel Choir’s founder is Allen Bailey, a music industry legend in his own right. Bailey has promoted film and music stars like Lionel Richie, Prince and Mr. T and events like the “Rumble in the Jungle” prize fight between Mohammed Ali and George Foreman and the east coast production of “We are the World.” Bailey serves as the group’s front man and master of ceremony.
Bailey got the idea for the choir while attending a celebration in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Cotton Club in Harlem and founded the Harlem Gospel Choir in 1986.
By Les Payne 
At the doorway of what some call the eighth Wonder of the World, the Rev. Calvin Butts choked up speaking to church members accompanying him to the carved rock churches of Lalibela, in Ethiopia. "These magnificent structures were built in the 12th century," he said, "when Europe was in the Dark Ages. We are realizing what Africa has given to the world. And the last ones to know about it are African-Americans."
The pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church is shepherding a 165-member delegation on a two-week fact-finding pilgrimage to this east African country he calls the "holy land" for black Christians.
By JIM HAUG DAYTONA BEACH -- Metropolitan Community Church began in 1968 as an alternative for gays who felt alienated by most churches' condemnation of homosexuality.
After a contentious summer in which the denomination suspended local worship for a month and revoked the credentials of the local pastor, the Rev. Beau McDaniels, Hope Metropolitan Community Church members are doing what many congregations do after a fight with church headquarters.
They are thinking about joining another denomination. The United Church of Christ, a liberal Protestant church that has ordained openly gay clergy and affirmed same-sex marriage, is mentioned as a possible successor to the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.
Vikki Del Fiacco, a former Metropolitan member in Daytona Beach, has already switched over. She is training for the ministry with Port Orange United Church of Christ.
Black churches refuse to host rallies to support Jena 6
by Reverend Jeanette M. Pollard
The Black church isn't what it used to be. Mega-churches preach "prosperity" to their multi-thousand congregations, but often ignore the plight of the larger Black community. In the author's Washington-southern Maryland-northern Virginia region, only two small churches were willing to host rallies to coincide with massive protests in Jena, Louisiana. The social gospel that gave so much aid and succor to a previous Movement is largely depleted in the current era, as preachers harangue congregations to chase dollars rather than justice. This is the legacy of Rev. Ike, not Martin Luther King.
OTTAWA - The synod of the Anglican Church of Canada's Ottawa diocese will take up the issue of blessings for same-sex relationships when it meets Oct. 12-13. Delegates to the regularly scheduled meeting of the synod, the diocese's governing body, are to vote on a motion urging them to request that their bishop grant permission for clergy to bless such unions.
The motion was put forward by Ron Chaplin, a member of the diocese's branch of Integrity, a support group for gay Anglicans, and Canon Garth Bulmer, rector of St. John the Evangelist, according to the Anglican Journal on its website www.anglicanjournal.com.
Anglican leaders from Scotland and Mexico are expected to call for gay people's full inclusion in the church, in a row which has split the Communion. 
Their call is anticipated at a conference in Manchester Cathedral to promote "inclusive theology". It follows last week's undertaking by the US Episcopal Church to modify its liberal approach to homosexuality.
Many African Anglicans threatened to leave the worldwide Communion after the first openly gay bishop was ordained.
By Ruth Gledhill
Bishops in the Episcopal Church in the US went as far as they could last night to avoid schism in the Anglican Church with a pledge not to consecrate any more openly gay bishops. They also pledged not to authorise same-sex blessings, even though such services take place regularly on an unofficial basis, as they do in England and elsewhere in the West. The American bishops, meeting in New Orleans, also approved a “flying bishops” proposal for traditionalists unable to accept the liberal agenda of the Church, including the election of a woman as Presiding Bishop and the ordination of the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson.
The head of Kenya's Anglican Church has rejected a compromise over gay bishops by US Episcopal Church leaders. They have said they will halt the ordination of gay bishops and public blessings of same-sex relationships to prevent a split in the Anglican Church.
"That word 'halt' is not enough," said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi.
Many African Anglicans threatened to leave the worldwide Anglican Communion after the ordination of the first openly gay bishop four years ago.
The American Church was told to meet the conditions by 30 September or lose membership of the communion.
by Philip Jenkins
The most important figure today in the Anglican Communion, a worldwide federation of churches with some 75 million adherents, is probably a man few people in the West know anything about : Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola, of Nigeria. An uncompromising traditionalist, Akinola presides over the most vibrant and almost certainly the largest Anglican community in the world-at a time when the Anglican world's true center of gravity has shifted to Africa. It was no small matter, then, when Akinola went public this past summer with blistering denunciations of proposals to consecrate openly gay bishops and to sanctify gay marriage. Commenting on the decision of the Canadian diocese of New Westminster to approve the blessing of gay unions, Akinola declared that the diocese had in practice seceded from the Anglican world. Reacting to a proposal in the Church of England to ordain a gay bishop (a proposal ultimately withdrawn after intense pressure from African and Asian leaders), Akinola thundered, "This is an attack on the Church of God -a Satanic attack on God's Church." And during the buildup to the U.S. Episcopal Church's controversial ordination of Gene Robinson as the bishop of New Hampshire, he announced, "I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don't hear of such things."
Abuja
When the American branch of the Anglican church appointed an openly gay bishop in 2003, conservatives said it could lead to a split in the worldwide denomination. Now African churches are taking the matter into their own hands.
People in Mbarara, a town in south-western Uganda, had long been looking forward to the appointment of their new bishop.
Such an appointment would normally pass without comment. But then the Archbishop of Uganda told them that the consecration ceremony would be for two new bishops, not one - and the second new bishop was a white, American priest.
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has said that homosexuality is not a "disease" on the eve of a crucial decision that could split the Anglican Church worldwide.
Dr Williams's support for gays will fuel anger among conservative Church members who will see his message of support as direct challenge to their deeply held view that homosexuality is a sin.
In his address to a key -gathering of 159 American bishops in New Orleans, the Archbishop insisted: "I do not assume that homosexual inclination is a disease."
Warning that "violence against gay and lesbian people is inexcusable," he added: "Gay and lesbian people have a place in the Church as do all the baptised."
Dr Williams flew to America in a last-minute round of shuttle diplomacy to reconcile the warring camps.
By Susan Jones, CNSNews.com
Organizers of San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair -- sponsored by Miller Brewing Co. -- have portrayed Christ and his disciples as half-naked homosexual sadomasochists in the event's promotional advertisement, and the conservative group Concerned Women for America is complaining about the hypocrisy of it.
"The bread and wine representing Christ's broken body and lifegiving blood are replaced with sadomasochistic sex toys in this twisted version of Da Vinci's The Last Supper," CWA said on its Web site.
"'Gay' activists disingenuously call Christians 'haters' and 'homophobes' for honoring the Bible, but then lash out in this hateful manner toward the very people they accuse," said said Matt Barber, CWA's policy director for cultural issues.
By RACHEL ZOLL 
Trying to escape the shadow of Southern Baptists, moderate, liberal Baptists plan joint ministries They're America's other Baptists - the ones who appoint women pastors, work with theological liberals and line up more closely with President Carter than with President George W. Bush.
During the last 25 years, they have watched with growing concern as their conservative Southern Baptist brethren came to define the religious tradition for the general public.
Now, these other Baptists, who are spread among many different denominations, are slowly pooling resources on humanitarian work and evangelism, hoping they can have a bigger impact.
This Friday in Washington, two of the larger groups - the American Baptist Churches and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship - will worship together for the first time. They plan to commission two missionary couples who will represent both groups, and will organize a national Islamic-Baptist dialogue to improve relations with Muslims.
The LDS Church has faced criticism for its opposition to government-sanctioned, same-sex marriage and for earlier statements by Mormon leaders about the sinfulness of homosexuality. In recent years, the church has sought to refine and clarify its doctrinal positions and encourage members to be kinder and more compassionate to their gay and lesbian co-believers.By Peggy Fletcher Stack
Just days after this week's Evergreen International conference ends, the LDS Church will publish another look at same-sex attraction. Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, in the October issue of Ensign, the church's official magazine, will discuss the church's perspective on several topics to be explored Friday and Saturday at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building by members of Evergreen, an outreach organization for Mormons dealing with homosexuality.
"If We Were Alone" is a straightforward love-and-lust song, but "Masks" is about a preacher who's torn up over his own homosexuality. "Being gay and believing in God shouldn't be a conflict," he says. "It's about taking off the artificial vibe and letting other people know the real you." By THOR CHRISTENSEN
Singer Keite Young is an ordained minister with deep roots in gospel music. But most of all, he's a free thinker. "A lot of times, gospel music comes off as propaganda," says Mr. Young, an ex-member of Kirk Franklin's band.
"They're always talking about 'Try God.' But what does that mean? God doesn't mean the same thing to everybody."
And don't even get him started on organized religion.
"I love God, but more people are being killed over organized religion than anything else. Anything that tells you 'This decision is the only right decision' is inherently messed up."
By Christopher Quinn 
DAVID WARDELL no longer cares what the American Episcopal bishops do when they meet in New Orleans today. The bishops face a deadline from world church leaders to stop approving gay bishops and blessing gay unions, or deal with possible breaks in communion with the larger church.
That no longer bothers Mr Wardell and more than 100 other former members of St Andrew's in the Pines, in Peachtree City, Georgia, because they left the church in February and aligned themselves with a Nigerian bishop. Their new congregation is called All Saints Anglican Church. Three other metropolitan Atlanta congregations operate under the authority of a Bolivian bishop.
Metropolitan Community Churches, the world's largest predominantly gay Christian denomination, and The Fellowship, a cross-denominational African-American church group, announce plans to promote "radical inclusivity," a movement to make all churches and denominations open and welcoming to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trasngender people of faith. 
The political disputes over The Episcopal Church’s place within the Anglican Communion have spilled over into Central Africa, leading to the replacement of the provincial dean, the Rt. Rev. Trevor Mwamba, Bishop of Botswana. The Rt. Rev. Albert Chama, Bishop of Northern Zambia, was appointed to replace Bishop Mwamba as dean by the church’s General Synod, which began meeting on Sept. 6 in Mangochi, Malawi.
The government-backed Harare Herald reported Bishop Mwamba was “relieved of his duties” due to his “pro-gay” and pro-American lobbying, and because he misrepresented “the province’s position on the issue of homosexuals.”
By Ian Dunt 
Uganda's Anglican Church consecrated an American priest as bishop , in order for him to lead his own congregation in Virginia against homosexuality. It is the latest move in the struggle for gay recognition in the Anglican community, following the consecration of two American bishops to the Church of the Province of Kenya .
Reverend John Guernsey will now look after the 33 parishes in the US which have agreed to come under the rule of the Province of the Church of Uganda.
