Court rules against Christian legal student group. A federal appeals court has upheld an “open membership” rule for student organizations at a University of California law school, making a Christian student group ineligible for recognition because the group requires adherence to a faith statement and denies membership to gays. The Christian Legal Society at the university’s Hastings College of the Law had sought official recognition and school funding as a student organization but was denied because of its membership requirements.
‘De-baptism’ forms snapped up in Britain. A secular organization in Britain is producing “certificates of de-baptism” for people wishing to renounce their Christian faith — and claims it is getting thousands of takers. The National Secular Society says more than 100,000 ex-worshippers have downloaded the de-baptism certificates from its Web site, and that thousands of others have ordered parchment versions at about $4 a copy. The Web site advertises the certificates this way: “Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had.”
Study Bible wins publishers’ award. The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association named the ESV Study Bible the “Christian Book of the Year,” marking the first time the honor has been given to a study Bible. The English Standard Version Bible includes study notes from evangelical Christian scholars and other reference materials. Published by Crossway, it also won in the best Bible category. The award was announced at the 2009 Christian Book Expo in Dallas. The Christian Book Awards, which previously were known as the Gold Medallion Book Awards, were established in 1978 to recognize Christian books for excellent content, design and literary quality.
French physicist wins Templeton Prize. Bernard d’Espagnat, a renowned French physicist whose research has centered on hidden realities “beyond our possibilities of description,” has won the 2009 Templeton Prize, valued at $1.42 million. D’Espagnat, 87, becomes the latest in a series of physicists and cosmologists whose work at the intersection of religion and science has won the Templeton Prize, the world’s single largest annual award given to an individual. A professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the University of Paris-Sud, d’Espagnat is perhaps best known for his research into what he terms “veiled reality” — a domain that underlies energy, matter, space and time — and the ways science can help reveal the nature of reality. The Templeton Award honors a living person “who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery or practical works,” according to the John Templeton Foundation, based in West Conshohocken, Pa. Previous winners include evangelist Billy Graham, the late Mother Teresa and the late Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Compiled from Religion News Service