In Friday’s RNS report, Bruce Nolan reports from New Orleans on the struggles faced by displaced pastors, who lost not only their church buildings and their congregations, but also their chief source of personal income: The rebuilding, such as it is, presents enormous challenges to displaced pastors struggling to find hundreds of church members scattered across the countryâÂ?¦In places such as Baton Rouge, Houston and Atlanta, displaced New Orleans pastors are locating a few scores of their former church members and holding worship services in borrowed churches or university student centers.
We also offer a story out of Harrisburg, Pa., where on Monday U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III will hear a suit to stop the Dover School Board from introducing intelligent design in science class as an alternative to evolution. Mary Warner writes: As the nation watches, a 21st-century courtroom drama will emerge from an old and ongoing cultural divide in America. It’s about evolution. In a nonjury civil trial expected to last until late October, the latest challenge to the teaching of evolution in public schools receives its first courtroom scrutiny.
And in Middletown, Ohio, Bill Sloat considers a giant Jesus statue on the side of the road: Nicknamed “Super Savior,” a 62-foot-tall statue of Jesus dominates a once-deadly stretch of Interstate 75 that slices through southwestern Ohio. The monolith’s upraised hands and arms have been compared to a football referee signaling a score, earning it another nickname, “Touchdown Jesus.” But don’t laugh-not long after a church had the roadside statue erected last summer, the highway suddenly became safe.