Christianity Today cuts back. Christianity Today International, citing hard times in the publishing industry, is shutting down four publications and laying off 31 workers. Two magazines will fold later this year — Today’s Christian Woman and the Campus Life College Guide, which targets Christian undergrads. CTI will also cease to publish Glimpses, a worship bulletin insert with stories from Christian history, and Church Office Today, a bimonthly newsletter read by church administrators. CTI will continue publishing nine print magazines and newsletters, including its flagship Christianity Today and Leadership Journal.
Home-school numbers up. The number of home-schooled students has nearly doubled in the last eight years, with parents’ desire to provide religious and moral instruction the most oft-cited cause, according to a recent report by the Department of Education. An estimated 1.5 million students — nearly 3 percent of the country’s school-age population — were home-schooled in the spring of 2007; that’s up from 850,000 home-schoolers reported in 1999 and the 1.1 million home-schoolers reported in 2003, according to the report. More than 8 in 10 parents said they home-school their children to provide religious or moral instruction, up from 72 percent in 2003. A plurality of parents — 36 percent — said that was the most important reason they home-school their children, followed by concern about the school environment (21 percent) and dissatisfaction with the academic instruction available at other schools (17 percent).
Scots OKs gay minister. The Church of Scotland has approved a two-year moratorium on issues related to openly gay clergy, but only after approving a gay man to serve as pastor of Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen. The church’s General Assembly voted 326-267 to approve the appointment of Stuart Rennie, who was elected minister of Queen’s Cross last year with the support of 86 percent of the congregation. But delegates also approved a two-year moratorium on same-sex questions. The moratorium was proposed to give breathing room to a nine-member commission scheduled to study the issue and report back in 2011.
Wikipedia to Scientologist editors: Keep your distance. Wikipedia, the user-edited Internet encyclopedia, has banned the Church of Scientology from editing entries about the controversial religion. Internet addresses known to be “owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted, are to be blocked,” according to the decision by Wikipedia’s arbitration committee. The decision comes amid an ongoing battle between admirers and critics of Scientology over more than 400 articles on the topic. While Wikipedia aims to be a site for “neutral” information, Scientology entries have been slanted to fit particular views, and partisans on both sides have “resorted to battlefield editing tactics,” according to the arbitrators. The Internet-based encyclopedia has policed similar efforts by corporations, government offices and colleges.
Compiled from Religion News Service