When churches close their doors, who controls the building? A growing number of local governments, concerned with architectural beauty and community tradition, are applying landmark status to church structures. Religion News Service explores the controversy this is creating in the Catholic church after the Springfield, MA diocese filed suit in January to stop the designation.

Designating church buildings as landmarks over the objection of church leaders is "a serious threat to our ability to control church buildings, including very clear religious symbols—a control which protects our religious freedom and expression," diocesan spokesman Mark Dupont said in a statement.
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The legal dispute represents a new wrinkle in traditional church-state disputes. The designation for Our Lady of Hope includes statues and crosses—and the government has no right telling churches what to do with such religious items, Dupont said.

Today's Wall Street Journal adds to the current round of criticism over President Obama's faith-based office, suggesting the make-up and direction of the Faith-Based Advisory Council to be politically driven.

President Barack Obama's willingness to keep Bush-era policies on government-backed religious charities opposed by many liberals is helping to woo traditionally Republican evangelical leaders who can influence key blocs of voters.
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The approach, according to conservative leaders and liberal critics alike, is part of a broader strategy by Mr. Obama and fellow Democrats to regain credibility with centrist and conservative voters who tend to be more religious and have supported the GOP in recent polls and elections.

See earlier post on the Baptist Joint Committee's call for the White House to reform key elements of the faith-based office.

For the first anniversary of  President Obama's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Joshua Dubois heralded the program's shift "from funding to programmatic impact" compared to the Bush administration's emphasis. A group of religious liberty advocates including the Baptist Joint Committee, however, are calling on the President to overhaul key aspects of the program which have not changed since his inauguration. In a letter to the White House, the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination highlight 3 key areas that remain in need of reform.

1.    Religious organizations should be prohibited from discriminating in hiring on the basis of religion within federally-funded social welfare projects.
2.    The recommendations of the Reform of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Taskforce should be adopted in full.
3.    The Administration should amend existing Executive Orders and make uniform guidance resources for federal agencies on a number of specific issues.

In a press release announcing this message to President Obama, the BJC's Executive Director Brent Walker explains:

“Partnerships between government and faith-based organizations are a given,” said J. Brent Walker,  executive director of the BJC and a member of the task force charged with recommending reforms for the Faith-based Office. “However, the rules of cooperation must be carefully crafted to protect religious liberty.”

Walker applauds Obama’s focus on developing ways to cooperate with organizations helping those in need, and doing it the right way. “But, I do urge the president to ban religious hiring discrimination in government-funded programs.”

One year into the program's new incarnation, it's time to implement needed changes.

[UPDATE: Rev. Barry Lynn, head of Americans United - which also signed on to the letter - adds an opinion piece at Huffington Post charging that President Obama's faith-based office has not made substantial changes to the broken system of the previous administration.]

In a letter today to leaders of the Oregon legislature, the Baptist Joint Committee and other religious liberty advocates called on the state to repeal its outdated law forbidding teachers from  wearing religious clothing.

Oregon has missed several opportunities to repeal ORS 342.650 over the course of several decades and is currently one of only three states in the nation that forbid public school teachers from wearing religious dress in the classroom.
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Supporters of the status quo have argued that allowing public school teachers to wear religious dress will disrupt religious neutrality in the classroom and lead to proselytization of students. Both propositions are factually incorrect. The private act of wearing religious dress in adherence to faith is distinguishable from the public act of asserting a proselytizing message. The Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution affords sufficient protection against state endorsement of religion; banning all forms of religious dress for teachers is a prohibitively overbroad approach to the issue.

Despite urging from government watchdog CREW to skip the event, the NYTimes reports that President Obama as well as some cabinet officials plan to attend the Family's "National Prayer Breakfast" this morning.

The objections are focused on the sponsor of the breakfast, a secretive evangelical Christian network called The Fellowship, also known as The Family, and accusations that it has ties to legislation in Uganda that calls for the imprisonment and execution of homosexuals.

Beyond this Ugandan connection, The Family is known for its desire to use government roles to "open the doors to power" and spread their particular Christian vision around the world. As for the breakfast itself, even the name ("National...") misleadingly suggests it is an official government expression, when it is in fact a decidedly religious event.

You know what's an easy thing to do in the political world? Promise to allow Bible-related classes in public schools. Harder to do in the real world of education and local government? Actually crafting and implementing an acceptable curriculum that teaches about religion without indoctrinating students by promoting religious views.

That's the challenge the Tennessee Education Board recently tackled, laying down guidelines for schools after the legislature required the state to create just such a course that counties will be allowed to offer as an elective.

State officials said they tried to develop principles that are safe from court challenges...
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The guidelines do not recommend a textbook and require that teachers make literature from other religions available to students. The course covers biblical readings, how historical figures such as President Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. used the Bible, and the timeline of biblical events, among other topics.

Principles and guidelines are a start (you can read the recommendations here), but students' religious liberties are violated not in board meetings but in actual classrooms, when school officials or teachers overstep boundaries of neutrality and secular purpose, regardless of the curriculum guidelines.Whether school districts are "safe" or not from court challenges will depend entirely on what happens in individual classrooms around Tennessee, as teachers - who deserve some training at least - try to implement state policy.

Critics are charging President Obama's Faith Advisory Council as being more about politics than about reality. The Washington Post reports:

...as the council prepares to end its first term and issue its report, some faith leaders across the ideological spectrum -- including some Obama allies -- say the operation may be more about window dressing than results.

Critics say that the faith-based office isn't enough of a priority at the White House and that faith leaders who were consulted regularly during the campaign are now simply copied on pro-forma e-mails. They complain that Obama is no longer using the faith language that he employed as a candidate to frame his policy goals, and that before the new faith council convened, some of the most controversial questions, including religious hiring and abortion, were taken off the table.

[UPDATE: A blog post adds to the story with quotes from council members.]

An Oregon couple charged with criminally negligent homicide after their 16-year-old son died from a blocked urinary tract was found guilty today. Their religious beliefs called on faith-healing rather than taking their son - who they believed was suffering only from a cold or the flu - to a doctor. A relatively recent change in state law made such serious charges possible.

Oregon law once allowed parents to avoid homicide charges if they relied solely on spiritual treatment of health issues, but lawmakers changed the rules in 1999 because of the church's long history of children dying from untreated medical conditions.

"They did absolutely nothing," Prosecutor Greg Horner said when the trial began. "Their failure is an outrageous deviation from the standard of care our community expects and demands."

Shockingly - I guess is the word - the convicted couple are the grandparents of another child whose death resulted in a high-profile faith-healing trial. Their daughter - the mother of Ava Worthington who died of pneumonia - was acquitted.

AP reports that Michael Gould, superintendent at the Air Force Academy has made religious tolerance a priority at the facility, including providing a outdoor space for Wiccans, Pagans and other "Earth religions" to worship with nature.

A double circle of stones atop a hill on the campus near Colorado Springs has been designated for the group, which previously met indoors.

"Being with nature and connecting with it is kind of the whole point," said Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, who sponsors the group and describes himself as a Pagan. "It will dramatically improve that atmosphere, the mindset and the actual connection."
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Anyone is welcome to visit the new worship site but it should be treated as a religious structure, he said. A formal dedication is planned in March.