c. 2007 Religion News Service

Committee Chooses Haggard’s Successor at Colorado Megachurch

(RNS) New Life Church, the Colorado megachurch that lost its senior pastor Ted Haggard to a sex and drug scandal last fall, expects to have a new leader soon.

Pastor Brady Boyd, an associate senior pastor at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, has been chosen by the pastoral selection committee as their nominee to lead the Colorado Springs church. Boyd, 40, previously was senior pastor of Trinity Fellowship Church in Hereford, Texas.

“After cumulative weeks of discussion and dozens of hours of interviews, we have selected Pastor Brady Boyd, whom we believe is qualified, gifted and anointed to fill that role,” wrote Lance Coles, committee chairman, in a July 31 letter posted on New Life’s Web site.

“He is a man of character, proven experience and good reputation.”

Haggard was dismissed from his church for “sexually immoral conduct” in November. It was alleged that he bought methamphetamine and paid a Denver man for sex. Haggard, who also resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, acknowledged sexual immorality but denied that he used the drug.

Coles said in his letter that a board of overseers has approved Boyd’s selection and he will spend three Sundays, starting Aug. 12, with the congregation, during which time they will have opportunities to learn about him “in a relaxed question-and-answer setting.” Church members will vote on Aug. 27 on whether they will accept Boyd as pastor.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Let’s Get Together and Sing Some Bob Marley Hymns

(RNS) The Anglican Church in Jamaica is adding some head-bopping new tunes by reggae stars Bob Marley and Peter Tosh to its church hymnals, according to international reports.

Marley’s hit “One Love,” and Tosh’s “Psalm 27” will be the first reggae songs to be included in the new hymnbooks, which are usually filled with more traditional chants, chorales and evensongs.

Though both men were Rastafarians and at times expressed frustration with traditional Christianity, the Anglican Church of Jamaica is excited about adding songs produced by native musicians.

“They may have been anti-church, but they were not anti-God or anti-religion,” church spokesman the Rev. Ernle Gordon told The Associated Press.

Anglicanism’s U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church, has lately enlivened its Sundays with U2charist services, which feature the music of Irish supergroup U2.

Tosh and Marley both died in the 1980s after years as top international musicians. Rastafarianism, which they both practiced, is a mix of Old Testament prophecy, Afrocentric social advocacy and the sacramental smoking of marijuana.

_ Daniel Burke

Defunct Charity Sues Over Terrorist Labeling

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) The traces of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc., the Islamic charity shut nearly three years for ties to terrorism, are disappearing.

The camel, once a feature in local parades, died. The prayer house on the outskirts of town was auctioned. The stockpile of religious books now sitting in a storage locker dwindles as a lawyer gives them away. Two of the group’s founders are overseas, fugitives from federal tax and currency charges.

But the fight hasn’t gone out of the defunct charity’s supporters and lawyers, who Monday (Aug. 6) sued to erase the government’s designation of Al-Haramain as terrorist group. The case, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, also seeks an order to turn over the charity’s cash and real estate, frozen in place since early 2004.

Reversing the government’s action would “remove the stain,” said Tom Nelson, one of four lawyers in Portland and Washington, D.C., launching the fight. He said the lawsuit is being financed by donations from Saudi Arabia, where he said there is keen interest in the fate of the Oregon charity.

The foundation, the U.S. branch of a similarly named Saudi Arabian charity, formed in 1999 to distribute religious literature and operate an Islamic prayer house. Treasury Department officials in September 2004 declared the charity was a terrorist organization with direct ties to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The lawsuit maintains the government never produced evidence to back up the terrorist designation. The government has given the charity only its public record in the matter, including newspaper clippings, and has withheld classified information that led to the terrorist designation.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration used the designation to stop what it suspected was the flow of cash, supplies and people from American-based Islamic charities to terrorist groups around the world. Some of the country’s largest charities were put out of business with little revealed about their alleged terrorist ties.

The Ashland charity claims what others have before _ that it’s unconstitutional for the government to shut down an organization based on secret evidence and no hearing. So far, no Islamic charity has succeeded in winning a court order clearing them of the terrorist designation; four have tried using the same arguments.

_ Les Zaitz

Quote of the Day: MennoMeet.com, a dating Web site for Mennonites

(RNS) “No longer will we solely meet at youth conventions, Mennonite colleges or our second cousins’ weddings.”

_ MennoMeet.com, a new dating Web site for Mennonites.

KRE DS END RNS