Take Morocco for example. The Christian Post reports authorities raiding a Bible study and holding 18 Christians for 14 hours.

Here's a quote from a Moroccan government official:

"The fight against Christian proselytizing in accordance with law cannot be considered among  human rights abuses, for it is an action aimed at preventing attempts to undermine the country’s immutable religious values. The freedom of belief does not mean conversion to another religion."

Only a politician could say that with a straight face.

The article goes on to discuss Moroccan women who are being harassed for converting from Islam to Christianity.

If the General Board of Church and Society wants to get the entire church behind them, they should be more involved in helping raise awareness about religious persecution and human rights abuses worldwide. This is an area where the U.S. government needs to apply more pressure, and GBCS could help make that happen.

The latest article discusses the "evils" of heterosexism. (One wonders if there are also such things as asexism, homosexism and bisexism.)

Did you know that if you assume that a little boy will like toy trucks and guns or that little girls will like dolls, you're a heterosexist and a homophobe? You're also a homophobe if you describe families as consisting of "mommies and daddies". Sodom and Gomorrah's big sin was a "failure of hospitality." And yes, you're a homophobe if you don't consider this to be a valid interpretation. That's what Audrey Krumbach says anyway.

Does the average United Methodist know that this kind of nonsense is being propagated by an official church agency? (Have we forgotten that the official view of the UMC is that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching"?) I attend a fairly liberal United Methodist church, but I'm betting that even in my congregation most of the people are in the dark about what's going on.

It's time to shine some light on some of these problems. A lot of shenanigans happen in our denomination because the average United Methodist either doesn't know or doesn't care.

I generally choose the books I want to review for Circuit Rider and then the folks at Cokesbury offer those books for several months at a 30% discount. In this case, they're also offering the companion DVD and book of reflections at the same discount.

Because many churches are reading it for Lent, it may be on backorder at Cokesbury's website. Whether or not that's the case, I encourage you to try to get a copy within the next few weeks for personal reading.

Biblefresh is a movement in Britain to restore confidence in the Bible. The initiative is endorsed by N.T. Wright (or Tom Wright if you want to be less formal.) When the Bishop of Durham gets behind something, you've got to take it seriously.

But Biblefresh? Is that the best they can do? For some reason, I keep thinking of Downy and Doug E. Fresh. When a movement's name conjures up images of a rapper and a fabric softener, it probably isn't having the desired effect.

Or maybe the name just loses something on this side of the pond.

And since the face of GBCS is Jim Winkler, his counterpart at MSNBC would be Keith Olbermann.

Let's see... they both:

• Repackage Democratic Party talking points.
• Wear nifty glasses.
• Have the same grin.
• Dislike Bill O'Reilly. (Okay, I don't know for sure that Winkler doesn't like O'Reilly. Just call it a hunch.)

Things haven't changed much.

In 2005, I wrote about the RCRC's teen recruiting arm, Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom. That's still there, as well as a Latino division, a black church initiative, and a group called Clergy for Choice. (Check out their pledge.)

The youth site has toned down its recruiting ads a bit, but here's a video coaching pro-choice pastors on how to handle "outreach" to youth. (Outreach? So is "reproductive choice" their gospel?)

You have to love the part where the group asks pastors to forward the contact information for teens in their churches. Quite chilling. It embarrasses me that the UMC has ties to this organization. A little more than four years ago on my first blog, I looked forward to General Conference 2008 as an opportunity for us to get out of bed with RCRC. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. However, if 17 votes (out of 800 cast) had gone the other way, we wouldn't be dealing with RCRC any longer. So let's start looking ahead to 2012.

Lately I've been pulling out my Blackberry in the middle of the service and reading Scripture on YouVersion. The problem is, people think I'm texting during the worship service! What do you think? Will electronic Bibles become more accepted in the future or should I just get used to the dirty looks?

Like NBC, the United Methodist Church is an institution whose heyday appears to be long gone. Consider the similarities:

• NBC was a pioneer broadcast network, and is still one of the "big three four." The UMC was "America's church", and grew up with the United States. Circuit riders went wherever there were people in the 18th and 19th centuries, planting communities of believers along the way.
• NBC is losing its audience to hundreds of cable channels, video on demand and the internet. The UMC is losing its "audience" to more innovative, specialized churches that go where the people are and to non-Christian religions and spirituality.
• NBC was once known for top-notch programming. Remember its "Must See" comedy Thursdays and its legendary dramas? Most of those are gone now. Leno was moved to 10PM (9PM here in Texas) to save a buck, but by making that decision, NBC sold its soul. Dramas and comedies helped build NBC. The UMC was built on the foundation of an evangelical gospel with a social edge. We helped the poor and built schools and hospitals, but it all went back to a warmed heart and a pursuit of holiness. Somewhere in the 20th Century, we moved this Gospel out of "prime-time" to make room for a "nice guy" social gospel. (Leno's a good guy too, but he works best outside of prime time. He really messed things up at 10:00. )
• NBC will probably never have the same influence it enjoyed years ago. Neither will mainline denominations like the UMC. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the sooner we realize that, the more likely we will thrive as a movement. You see, NBC isn't just a broadcast network, it's part of a larger company that also owns cable channels, motion picture companies, TV production companies, local stations and theme parks. NBC as a network may be losing market share to cable, but if NBC Universal's cable properties are growing, then the big picture is not so bleak. If the UMC is losing people to nondenominational megachurches and emerging congregations, then we need to plant our own! Ultimately it's about the Kingdom of God anyway, not our particular brand of Christianity.

• UMCOR Partnership Gives Haitians Keys to Clean Water - UMNS
• Pro-Lifers Pray, Protest at Mega Abortion Clinic in Houston - Baptist Press
• New Evangelical Group Calls for Haiti Debt Cancellation - Christian Post
• New Survey Shows Youth Becoming More Pro-Life - EWTN/CNA
• Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill Decried - GBCS
• GBCS Sets 2010 Legislative Priorities -GBCS

Best of the Methodist Blogs:

• What Song Would You Sing? - Bishop Sally Dyck
• The Six Percent Solution - Bishop Will Willimon
• A Heart as Big as God's - Dan R. Dick
• Re-Imagining You: Why Can't You Be Like Jesus? - Don Heatley
• Experimenting with Prayer Beads - Guy Williams

Other Commentary:

• x=x-1 - Iver Larsen
• Rethinking Perfection - David Mathis
• Measure Your Favorite Authors By What the Bible Includes - John Piper
• I Told Mennonites to Go to Hell (and They Liked It!) - Greg Boyd
• 5 Things to Love About the Emerging Church - Bob Hyatt