Creation Museum opens
The Answers in Genesis Ministry opened a $27 million Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., just across the state line from Cincinnati, Memorial Day weekend. The main hall of the 60,000-square-foot building features animatronic dinosaurs and figures of young children playing near each other in a way its owners believe life really occurred some 6,000 years ago. The state-of-the-art museum includes vibrating seats and sprays of water in a theater that depicts Noah's flood, and extensive exhibits that claim the Grand Canyon could have formed around the time of that flood rather than millions of years ago as suggested by most scientists.
Crusade crew reunites for library opening
Song leader Cliff Barrows, 84, and soloist George Beverly Shea, 98, joined their longtime crusade partner Billy Graham in a rare public appearance at the dedication of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C. Graham, 88, also was joined by his son, Franklin, who heads his father's ministry and by three former presidents—George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—who took turns praising the evangelist. The $27 million library and history complex includes a barn-styled building reminiscent of the dairy farm where Graham spent his boyhood years, with a 40-foot glass cross as its entrance.
Lausanne movement to host South Africa conference
The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization has announced it will hold its third International Congress on World Evangelization, Oct. 16-25, 2010, in South Africa. Evangelist Billy Graham convened the first congress in 1974 in Lausanne, Switzerland. It attracted more than 2,700 evangelical leaders from 150 countries. The second, in 1989, brought together 3,600 leaders from 190 countries to Manila, Philippines. The first meeting produced the Lausanne Covenant, which declared a theological basis for collaborative evangelism across the globe. The covenant was reaffirmed at the 1989 meeting.
Worshippers at church in bar don't drink enough, owner says
A Welsh church that meets regularly in a Cardiff nightclub faces difficulties because people attending aren't drinking enough to suit the proprietor. Baptist minister James Karran devised the church, called Solace, as “a church for non-church-goers.” It meets on Sundays from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. in various venues near the city center, including a nightclub called Clwb Ifor Bach. It costs the owners about $1,200 to open the place for the church, and rent is only $100.“The bar is open, and people do buy drinks—but not nearly enough to make up the shortfall,” Karran said.
Episcopal leaders consider Anglican demands
Episcopal Church leaders are meeting this week in New Jersey to confront demands from overseas Anglican archbishops to roll back the church's pro-gay policies and create a structure to oversee breakaway conservatives. Under church rules, the 40-member Executive Council has the ability to make key decisions between the church's triennial General Conventions. It's unclear what—if any—action the Executive Council will take, according to church leaders.
Compiled from Religion News Service