What's New Friday Aug 15, 2008

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 15 Aug 08   Washington, DC

1.  FAITH FORUM: IT’S THE EVANGELICALS, STUPID.
Alright, it was stupid to think the candidates might be willing to debate 
scientific issues just because the survival of civilization is at stake.  
Tomorrow, at the 22,000 member Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA, 
they will appear separately to talk about "values" in a nationally 
televised "Civil Forum on the Presidency" (CNN and MSNBC).  The moderator 
will be famed evangelical mega pastor Rick Warren, author of the 
bestselling The Purpose Driven Life, and a passionate opponent of choice.  
Warren is seen by many as the successor to Billy Graham as the nation’s 
pastor in chief.  Let me put it this way, of those who click on the Civil 
Forum rather than the preseason Jets game with their new old-quarterback, 
Brett Favre, most will do so to see Rick Warren rather than the two 
presidential candidates trying to out-Jesus each other.  The overwhelming 
majority of young (and old) evangelicals have identified with the GOP, but 
a front page story in the Washington Post today says that both sides are 
now courting the young evangelical vote.

2.  FAITH HEALER?  THE END OF THE "OUTPOURING."   
Todd Bentley, 32, is a revival preacher from British Columbia, who for 
several months has been conducting a twice-daily revival he calls the 
Outpouring in Lakeland, Florida.   His gimmick is one of the oldest in the 
revival profession: Todd Bentley is a reformed bad boy.  He looks the part 
with full-body tattoos, facial piercing, and clothes to match.  Are there 
any laws to protect people from faith healers?  There are few laws to 
protect people from any kind of health quack, least of all faith healers 
who wrap themselves in the first amendment.  It’s almost always a question 
of intent.  Bentley says he gets visits from the apostle Paul, but who is 
to say he doesn’t.  Up to 10,000 people a day flock to a baseball stadium 
to be revived.  But this week Bentley’s Fresh Fire Ministries announced 
that he is separating from his wife and will be ending his Florida revival.

3.  DEAD ZONE: HYPOXIA INCREASES IN COASTAL AREAS.                       
To feed a burgeoning population, the world embraced the Green Revolution, 
using science to increase food production beyond anything imagined.  
Norman Borlaug, who is credited with having led the Green Revolution, 
offered a warning in his 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Address.  "We are dealing 
with two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and 
biologic power of human reproduction."  Reproduction always wins.  Runoff 
of phosphorous and nitrogen fertilizers produces algae population 
explosions in coastal waters.  Dead algae sink to bottom where they feed 
masses of oxygen-depleting bacteria.  A global survey of the resulting 
dead zones finds they are doubling every ten years; more evidence that we 
are already past the point of sustainable population.  But science has 
also given us cheap, effective, contraceptives, the easy availability of 
which must be made a part of all humanitarian aid.  It’s not like we have 
a choice; our planet is finite.  

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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