WASHINGTON (RNS)—Faced with a request to give an unmarried female patient a prescription for birth control pills, Michele Phillips looked to her conscience for the answer.

“I’m not going to give any kind of medication I see as harmful,” said Phillips, a San Antonio physician. The drugs would not protect her patient from “emotional trauma from multiple partners,” Phillips reasoned, or sexually transmitted diseases. “I could not ethically give that type of medication to a single woman.”

After the evangelical Christian refused to write the prescription, she resigned her position. She now does contract work at a faith-based practice that permits her to “prescribe according to my ethical values.”

Medical technology has surged forward in recent years, leading to many life-saving and life-giving procedures. At the same time, legal and ethical remedies haven’t kept pace, and officials at the state and federal level still are working out how to address the sometimes-competing needs and values of doctors and patients.

For example, the Obama administration announced last February it plans to rescind regulations enacted at the end of President Bush’s term that permit health care workers to abstain from performing procedures they oppose for moral or religious reasons. Eight months later, the administration still has not announced new rules.

Often, experts say, the debate boils down to a question of convenience versus conscience, of personal choices affected by medical personnel.

“Do we really want co-workers deciding if our religious motivations and reasons are correct?” asked Joan Henriksen Hellyer, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

For example, at the recent annual meeting of the American Society for Bioethics & Humanities, a panel including Hellyer discussed the disparate dilemmas facing health care workers today, such as:

• A housekeeper who refuses to clean an embryonic stem cell lab.

• An ultrasound technologist who doesn’t want to work on Saturday.

• A respiratory tech who refuses to turn off a ventilator.

Bioethicist Holly Fernandez Lynch said consistency is crucial to prevent patients from facing discrimination based on race, religion or sexual orientation.

“A consistent objection to a service, I think, is totally appropriate as long as there is someone available to provide that service at a reasonable distance,” said Lynch, author of Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care: An Institutional Compromise.

But, she acknowledged, “the phrase ‘reasonable distance’ is really a difficult one to figure out.”

While larger communities and hospitals have the luxury of a range of practitioners, conscience quandaries are trickier in smaller communities, said Leslie LeBlanc, managing editor of The Journal of Clinical Ethics.

“It’s a very difficult question because you can’t compel someone to do something they think is morally wrong and, by the same token, clinicians make a promise to help people in need,” said LeBlanc, who attended the bioethicists’ meeting.

State legislatures have passed a plethora of legislation on the issue, with most permitting health care providers to shun abortion services, the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute reports. Some states, including Louisiana, have passed broader laws that protect health care workers who object to procedures such as cloning, stem cell research, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

Rob Vischer, associate professor of law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, argues for letting the free market determine access to all health care services.

“I think people want to have a space to live what they believe,” said Vischer, author of the forthcoming Conscience and the Common Good: Reclaiming the Space Between Person and State. “I think that’s more consistent with the common good than everybody grabbing for the reins of state power.”

Luke Vander Bleek, a Morrison, Ill., pharmacist, is fighting in court against an Illinois regulation that requires him to dispense Plan B and other emergency contraception.

“I wanted to be able to practice pharmacy in this small town that I live in where I raised my family and I wanted to be able to do it with a good, clear conscience and sleep well at night,” said Vander Bleek, a Roman Catholic. Other pharmacies within 12 miles could provide those services instead, he stressed.

Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, counters that patients should be able to access drugs if they are legal.

“Putting barriers in their way to access those medications only hurts public health,” she said.

As the arguments continue, David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association, said physicians like Phillips are “a growing reality,” and he worries other physicians might quit permanently. In an April poll, his organization found an overwhelming percentage of faith-based physicians preferred ending their medical practice to violating their conscience.

“This is the most urgent issue for our membership,” he said. “Because they realize that if they lose this battle, they will no longer be practicing medicine.”

Transracial adoption has become chic. Hollywood stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt adopted children from Ethiopia, Cambodia and Vietnam. Pop singer Madonna adopted children from Malawi. And that has brought increased attention, pro and con, to transracial adoption—both international and domestic.

While the issue is hotly debated among sociologists and some theologians, many Baptist families love their “belly-button” children and their “heartstring” children equally.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Admini-stration for Children and Families intercountry—the current term for international—adoptions rose from 5 percent of total adoptions in the United States in 1992 to 15 percent in 2001.

Statistics on the numbers of intercountry adoptions by U.S. citizens are based primarily on U.S. State Department and Homeland Security reports. Total numbers are difficult to pin down because some adoptions take place in the child’s country of origin, while others are handled in the States. Also, procedures for intercountry adoptions vary from state to state.

The State Department reported it issued 19,237 immigrant visas to orphans in 2001, and Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics noted 19,087 orphans actually entered the country that year.

Health and Human Services reported 127,407 total adoptions in 2001 and estimated 124,000 children were waiting to be adopted in the U.S. public system in 2002. Forty-two percent on the waiting list were black and 13 percent were Hispanic. That total does not include those on private agency waiting lists.

Yet some professionals resist placing children with couples of a different race. In a report released in May 2008, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute included recommendations that some groups saw as advocating only same-race adoptions, even though the institute stipulated it was not taking that position. The Child Welfare League of America, the Adoption Exchange Association, the National Association of Black Social Workers, Voice for Adoption and Foster Care Alumni of America endorsed the report.

The report stressed transracially adopted children and their families face different challenges. Additionally, children in the foster-care system have risk factors that make choosing the appropriate home important.

“For these children, research points to the importance of adoptive placements with families who can address their individual issues and maximize their opportunity to develop to their fullest potential,” the institute reported.

That’s where God’s power intervenes, Russell Moore believes. The dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., recently released Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches, a call to Christians to adopt and for churches to consider adoption as a “Great Commission priority.”

In a blog post, Moore criticized the institute’s report shortly after its release. The same-race approach “neatly categorizes persons according to their racial lineages rather than according to their need for love, for acceptance, for families,” he wrote. “Our love for neighbor means we ought to prioritize the need for families for the fatherless—regardless of how their skin colors or languages line up with one another.”

Some professionals resist placing children with couples of a different race.

The church, Moore contends, is partially to blame for the debate. “The family, after all, is constructed around another, deeper reality. It points to the church—that household of God in which Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers,” he wrote.

Race often remains an issue in some churches. Former International Mission Board missionaries Phil and Phyllis Washburn of Dallas experienced some church resistance to their youngest adopted children, a son and daughter from Tanzania.

While most churches they visited during their last stateside assignment accepted the Washburn family, several in Louisiana did not. When some churches learned about the Tanzanian children, they called special business meetings to decide whether to extend speaking engagements to the couple. One church refused to have them speak.

Families for children— rather than children for families—is the philosophy Christian agencies, such as the Missouri Baptist Children's Home, Buckner International and Dillon, follow.

Missouri Baptist Children’s Home “promotes adoption for all types of children and encourages adoptive families to have wide parameters for the child they would accept into their family,” noted Ramona Conrad-Cooper, vice president of Children & Family Ministries in St. Charles, Mo.

For many families, adopting transracially is more a matter of divine calling.

“One of the things that Kristin and I firmly believe, and something that kept us going in the midst of all of this (adoption process) is that adoption is a calling. It isn’t just a choice,” Blake Killingsworth from the Dallas area said. “Couples are called to adopt, and if you are not called to adopt, then you will never survive the process.”

Blake and Kristin Killingsworth with Chloe before a Dallas Mavericks game.

The Killingsworths, an Anglo couple, completed the adoption of Chloe, a biracial child of Honduran and Nigerian parentage, late in October. Now, “in our home, when we pray, we get to be a small picture of the ultimate scene in Revelation as every tongue from every tribe and nation gather around the throne to worship the one true God. How neat is that?” said Killingsworth, who serves on staff at Dallas Baptist University.

Intercountry adoption for Jerrod and Becky Irick of Lewisville has meant joint ministry. First, they minister to the children themselves—daughter Katy and special-needs son Jack, both adopted from China. “I’ve never quite felt like I was obeying God so much as when I adopted a child, especially one from a poorer part of the world where they’re so much less likely to know Christ growing up in that country,” Irick said.

Second, they are associates for the agency they used, American World Adoption Association, to speak to individuals and groups as a couple. “It’s been an incredible blessing to minister together and incredible for our marriage,” Becky Irick said.

Michael Hickman and wife Barb of St. Louis decided to adopt when their natural son was 12. They joyfully accepted three African-American children into their home—James in 2000, Karen in 2002 and Alyssa in 2004.

“The beautiful thing about our adopted children is that we did not pick any” of them, Hickman said. “God chose each one of our children and placed them into our home. So in essence, God put this family together for us, and we have been given the responsibility to raise each one of them to know, to love, to depend on God and to have a personal relationship with him.”

Phyllis Washburn notes she has a truly international family, with two natural sons, a daughter adopted from Lebanon, and two Tanzanian children. “Each of them (was) uniquely designed by God, and each of them bear(s) characteristics like their parents, whether by birth or learned,” she said. “They are our children,” some “belly button” and some “heartstring” children.

Couples who adopt children of another race—either internationally or domestically—determine what aspects of the child’s culture to incorporate into the family’s life.

Studies show that children who learn about their heritage have higher self-esteem and a positive self-image and become emotionally healthier adults, said Karin Price, director of Dillon International’s adoption education center.

Often, the aspects of a child’s culture their adoptive parents can pass along depend upon where the family lives and whether others of the same nationality live nearby.

Chloe Killingsworth has both Honduran and Nigerian ancestry.

Price’s adopted daughter is from Haiti. “We celebrate our family as a Haitian-American family,” Price said. To deepen that aspect, the family attends Haiti Camp in Minnesota and subscribes to a Miami-based Haitian newspaper. They visited Haiti last year, and they often eat beans, rice and Creole chicken.

Jerrod and Becky Irick believe teaching their children about their Chinese heritage is important. In fact, they took their daughter with them when they went to China to pick up their son in September.

“We were especially grateful for the opportunity to take Katy with us to adopt Jack. This gave her a chance to see China when she’s old enough to remember the trip,” Irick said. “She has a whole new set of photos and keepsakes for that purpose.”

The Iricks’ children have several other adopted children to play with in their circle. The youth minister and his wife at their church, First Baptist Church in Lewisville, also have adopted a Chinese girl. Irick’s brother and sister-in-law adopted a Chinese daughter in August, and several others in their circle of friends have also adopted from China.

Rather than concentrate on culture, Phil and Phyllis Washburn of Dallas concentrate on family. The Washburns served as International Mission Board missionaries in Tanzania 14 years. They adopted a 10-year-old girl from Lebanon and two young children from Tanzania.

Because none was an infant when adopted and family members still are living, the Washburns have helped them maintain communications with their national families.

“We worked closely with our youngest children’s parents and were close to their extended family. Their birth father died three weeks after we received them as foster children and applied for adoption,” Phyllis Washburn explained. “We continue to communicate with their birth mother and share news of our youngest children with her on a regular basis.”

They resigned from the IMB and returned to the United States to raise the children. Washburn currently is pastor of Park Central Baptist Church in Dallas. To help their Lebanese daughter who struggled with her identity, the couple found a Christian Lebanese community near their home. “She maintains some of those relationships to this day,” Phyllis Washburn said.

She has returned to Lebanon once, reuniting with her birth family. “Her meeting with her birth mother did not go quite as she expected, but she stays in touch with her aunts, uncles and cousins,” Phyllis Washburn said.

The Tanzanian children are reminded of their homeland just by walking through their American house. “Our home is a blend of our Tanzania time, which surrounds them with many curios and artifacts from their birth country,” she explained.

But the relationships and family connections are central to their heritage. “We often talk about people we knew or memories we have of working and being close family friends with their parents,” she said.

“As they mature, they remember more and more snippets of their past. We have possession of several family artifacts, a basket that was handmade by their maternal grandfather and grass mats woven by their birth mother, as well as a few other treasures.”

Michael and Barbara Hickman of St. Louis, Mo., have adopted three African-American children. They are grateful for Oak Hill Baptist Church, a multiracial congregation. Their children also attend multiracial schools and have friends from a variety of cultures.

“We take opportunities to teach our children about their African-American heritage through school work, television, books and everyday life,” Hickman said. “For the last two years, my family has presented a program at church to celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

Blake and Kristin Killingsworth have just completed a domestic adoption of a daughter of Honduran and Nigerian descent. “One of the neatest things that I get to do as a parent is (to) introduce Chloe to these cultures and show her what an incredible heritage she has. I get to explore with her the history of these people and discover all about her ethnic tradition,” said Killingsworth, who works for Dallas Baptist University.

Wade and Nellie Paris of Harrisonville, Mo., caution that children need to learn about their national culture at their own pace. The Parises adopted two Korean girls in the 1970s—Susan at 7 months old and Sally when she was 5 years old.

“Sometimes they were more receptive and other times they were not,” Nellie Paris said. “Take advantage of the opportunities when you can. In Sally’s case, she just wanted to shut down that part of her life. But they appreciate it now that they are adults.”

Dillon’s Karin Price recommends families seek whatever resources may be available in their areas, including churches, newspapers and magazines and cultural activities. She also suggests parents can enroll their child in basic language classes and, if possible, travel to the child’s birthplace. Congregations can help families discover local resources and provide financial gifts for travel.

HARRISONVILLE, Mo.—Wade and Nellie Paris of Harrisonville, Mo., know the blessings of adopting children of a different culture. Now they are grandparents to international adoptees.

In 1971, they adopted 7-month-old Susan from Korea. Then in 1975, they adopted another Korean girl, 5-year-old Sally. They also have two natural sons.

When son Scott and daughter-in-law Lori learned they couldn’t have children of their own, they turned to adoption—a son from the Philippines and two Korean daughters.

Being adoptive grandparents has been a joy for the Parises, who saw their own parents as role models. “Our parents didn’t have any fears about our adopting international children. We were older when our children were born. They (their parents) were happy we weren’t having any more of our own,” Nellie Paris said, chuckling.

Although not all agencies require it, the adoption agency their daughter and son-in-law used required a statement from Larry and Carole Zahnd of Kansas City, Mo., during the process. “They require grandparents to state how they felt about it and if we could accept the child as an equal to a natural-born child,” Carole Zahnd explained.

Elizabeth and Tim Bergfeld adopted two Russian children through a South Carolina agency. “They discussed the option with us, and we were all for them doing it,” Zahnd said. And although geography separates the families, the Zahnds try to see them four times each year.

Both sets of grandparents believe they treat their natural and their adopted grandchildren equally and encourage other grandparents to do so as well. They encourage grandparents to avoid using adoption to explain away behavioral issues and to just treat them as children.

“As a practicing lawyer, I handle a lot of adoptions. … You treat them as natural born. … Try not to say, ‘They’re adopted,’ as an excuse for their behavior,” Zahnd said.

“Just love your children and grandchildren,” Carole Zahnd added. “Don’t make any distinction: just nurture them and love them.”

The Parises agree. “We would encourage couples who are considering adoption and their parents,” Nellie Paris said. “What you find out is children are children. Treat them as any other and make no distinction. They have all been a real joy to us.”

It all started with a single word, scrawled into the margins on Cyndi Krawietz’s Bible— “Adoption?” It was written with a question mark.

“I had written it there in January 2004,” she said. “It just seemed so impossible then. I thought there’s no way we could ever afford it.”

But now, when she looks at her three children—Bethany, 15; Kyle, 12, and Mintesinot, 10—she couldn’t imagine life any other way. “Every once in a while I take a step back and look at our family and say, ‘Wow, we could have missed this.’”

The financial needs of being a single-income family raising and home-schooling two children were enough for Cyndi and Luke Krawietz. But when they developed a passion for international mission work through Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, they always found a way to make it work, crediting God for providing what they lacked. And after a year-and-a-half of traveling as a family to Ghana and China, Krawietz added it all up.

“I had always had this number in mind that I thought it would cost to adopt, and when I looked back at all the mission trips we had taken, and the amount of money God had provided, I realized that it was the same amount” to adopt, she said. “It confirmed it for me—God’s will done in God’s way will not lack God’s supply.”

The Krawietzes set out to adopt a baby girl from Africa. They felt connected to the continent, they said.

Minte plays his favorite card game, Uno, with his dad Luke. The Kraweitz family from Rockwall adopted 10-year-old Mintesinot through Buckner International adoption, now affiliated with Dillon International in Tulsa, Okla. (PHOTO/Jenny Pope/Buckner)

The family chose as their agency Buckner International, now affiliated with Dillon International based out of Tulsa, Okla., and they began the home study process to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia. At the first meeting, they received a flyer of waiting older children living at the Buckner Baby Home in Addis Ababa. There were four older boys, and Cyndi Krawietz immediately felt drawn to pray for them.

“We committed to pray for them as a family every night,” she said. They also made color copies of the flyers and hung them all over church, sharing the boys’ stories wherever they went. But nobody seemed interested in adopting them.

A few months later, Krawietz was making the bed when she became overwhelmed with frustration. “We can understand as parents that ache to have a child, but what must it be like to be a child and ache to have a parent?” she thought.

“I started talking to the Lord about it, talking out loud, just asking, ‘Why won’t people adopt these older boys?’ And then it hit me. ‘Why won’t we?’”

That was the turning point, she said. Krawietz immediately went to her prayer journal and pulled out the flyer of the four boys, spreading it out on her bed. “I was just staring at the sheet, the one that had been in my prayer journal this whole time, thinking, ‘Is one of these boys our child?’”

The whole family starting seeing things in a new way, and they all felt drawn to one boy on the page—Minte.

“I don’t want to over-emotionalize it, but there was a point when we felt more strongly drawn to Minte, and I think that’s because the Lord revealed to us that it’s possible he’s ours. Suddenly, it wasn’t just a child; it was our child.” Cindy Krawietz said.

Minte greets another adopted little girl, whom he used to live with at the Buckner Baby Home in Addis Ababa, upon his arrival at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Cyndi Kraweitz)

The Ethiopian adoption process is one of the quickest in terms of international adoption and can take as few as nine months to complete. For the Krawietz family, those nine months couldn’t pass fast enough. The entire family flew to Addis Ababa to meet Minte and attend their embassy appointment, the final step in the process, on Sept. 9, 2008.

“We have some really great memories from that time together,” Luke Krawietz said. “The kids were playing together from the start. With Bethany and Kyle, I knew how their hearts were shaped. I didn’t have any real concerns with them being able to adapt, or welcome, or bond with a new sibling.”

“There was communication between us that transcended language,” Cyndi Krawietz added.

Now that they’ve been home for almost a year, the Krawietz family has adapted well and continue to grow closer as Minte learns more and more English and opens up daily about his life in Ethiopia—his family, traditions and the friends he left behind who still are waiting for their “forever family.”

“There are a lot of neat things about adopting an older child,” Luke Krawietz said. “Sure, there are a lot of years that we didn’t get to be a part of. But little by little, he shares with us memories from earlier in his life. We’re kind of going forward with him, but going backwards as well. It’s all colliding.”

One of the first few days after Minte came home, he lost a tooth. He immediately ran outside to throw it onto the roof as his family watched, stunned. It’s an Ethiopian tradition to throw a tooth where the birds fly so they can carry it away. If a bird picks it up, it means a new, strong white tooth will grow in its place.

“I love that. If we hadn’t adopted an older child, we would never know things like that,” Cyndi Krawietz said.

Minte’s Ethiopian heritage has become an inseparable part of their lives. They regularly cook Ethiopian cuisine—including Minte’s favorite, spicy spaghetti cooked with bere bere spice. And they frequently visit some favorite traditional Ethiopian restaurants in the Dallas area. Ethiopian items are displayed around the Krawietz home, along with a smattering of note cards written in English and Amharic identifying new vocabulary words. Home schooling with his brother and sister also has allowed Minte to learn English at his own pace, Cyndi Krawietz said.

The Krawietzes continue to pray for the boys living in the Buckner home, one of whom already has been adopted. The other two continue to wait.

“I think more people are called to adopt than they think,” Cyndi Krawietz said. “Of all the people who think about adoption, a very small fraction actually do it. And an even smaller number adopt older children.

“I think, whatever it is you feel comfortable doing, take that next step. … God won’t steer a parked car. But God will take you where you need to be.”

Buckner Adoption now is affiliated with Dillon International and offers domestic adoption options in Texas and international adoption from Russia, Ethiopia, China, Korea and India for families living in all 50 states. For more information call (866) 236-7823.

WILLOW PARK—The Skaggs family see their tale as a love story—but one with some tears at the beginning.

Overjoyed at the birth of their son, Carter, two years earlier, Mike and Libby Skaggs, members of Hulen Street Baptist in Fort Worth, eagerly planned to expand their family. But their dream was sidetracked by devastating news.

“We learned we would not be able to have any more children biologically. That was a season of grieving for us,” Mike Skaggs recalled.

God’s plan for the couple soon became apparent. “We had always thought we would adopt some day, and when we couldn’t have another child by birth, it seemed clear what we were meant to do. God very clearly was telling us to adopt,” Libby Skaggs said.

That decision required research. “We looked at a lot of agencies. Our living room floor was covered with adoption agency packets,” she recalled.

She learned about Dillon International from a volunteer with the agency’s area representative program who shared her positive adoption story and the joy her son from Korea had brought her family. “Next, we attended a pre-adoption workshop and were very impressed with the caring staff. We walked away knowing Dillon was the agency for us.”

Founded in 1972, Dillon International is a licensed, nonprofit international adoption agency, headquartered in Tulsa, Okla., that has placed more than 5,600 children with families in the United States. This year, Dillon joined Buckner through an affiliation that makes it possible to provide adoption and humanitarian aid services to children living in the United States, Russia and Ethiopia, as well as Dillon’s established programs in South Korea, China, India, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

“Once we decided to move forward with plans to adopt, it became a season of hope and excitement for us,” Mike Skaggs said, adding that the adoption process also was a rollercoaster ride of emotions. “Some people compare the wait of an international adoption to a pregnancy. But the emotions are very different because with a pregnancy, you have that child with you all the time. We had no idea what was going on with our little girl or little boy on the other side of the world. Our case manager fielded some very anxious questions from us as we waited.”

After adopting their daughter, Abby, as an infant, the Skaggs decided to adopt a second time from Korea. “We named him Dillon because we loved the name, and Dillon International had become such a big part of our lives,” Mike Skaggs said. The Skaggs have since adopted another son from Korea. They brought Hudson home in September. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Skaggs family)

God’s involvement in their adoption process was demonstrated in some amazing—and amusing—ways, Libby Skaggs remembered. “After we completed our adoption application, I wrote in my prayer journal that I could not stand to wait for the referral of a child longer than six months, or I’d just go insane. It was six months to the day when we received the call about Abby.”

Her first response to her daughter’s referral photo was laughter. “She had such chubby cheeks,” she said. “You immediately feel that across-the-ocean bond.”

Fifteen weeks later, the couple traveled to Korea to meet 7-month-old Abby at Eastern Social Welfare Society, Dillon International’s sister agency in Seoul where she had been cared for since birth. During their time in Korea, the couple experienced the world that had nurtured their daughter by rocking and feeding babies at the babies’ home.

Abby’s homecoming was a special time for her big brother, too. “I remember going to the airport to meet her. They were the last ones to come off the plane. Tons of people were there, and we had a big ‘welcome’ banner,” recalled Carter, who was 5 years old at the time his baby sister came home from Korea. “I gave her a stuffed piglet. It was really cool.”

Although there were some adjustments for Carter as he learned to share the limelight with his baby sister, it was immediately clear Abby was the child God meant for their family, Libby Skaggs said.

Thrilled with Abby’s adoption, adding a little brother to their growing crew seemed like a natural step, so the Skaggs began the process to adopt their son. Mike Skaggs, a Christian school principal, and his wife, a nurse, indicated they were open to adopting a child with medical needs. Thus, they waited only three months for their son’s referral. “He has some medical and developmental special needs, some known prior to coming home and some that were diagnosed later,” Libby Skaggs said. “Dillon is a wonderful addition to our family. He has a great sense of humor and is the most affectionate child. Watching him blossom is a joy to us.” 

“We named him Dillon because we loved the name, and Dillon International had become such a big part of our lives,” Mike Skaggs added.

The active family of five recently decided it was time to grow again. They entered the process to adopt another son from Korea through Dillon International’s Waiting Child program, and 22-month-old Hudson arrived home in September. “He is the perfect fit for our family. We are so glad we stepped out in faith and pursued his adoption,” his new mother said.

The Skaggs family is passionate about honoring Abby and Dillon’s Korean heritage. “When we adopted Abby and Dillon, we became a Korean-American family. We embrace their heritage and celebrate it with Korean art, Korean food, and participation in Dillon International’s heritage activities,” Libby Skaggs said.

Dillon International offers heritage camps and weekends for adopted children and their families to learn more about the culture of their birth country, workshops to educate adoptive parents on questions and concerns they may encounter as their children grow, and birthland tours to provide adoptees with firsthand experience of the country where they were born. “I love the Dillon International philosophy that adoption is a lifelong journey that requires education and support,” Libby Skaggs said.

The family—with Carter now 13, Abby, 8, and Dillon, 6—attends the agency’s Korean Heritage Camp in Tulsa at least every other summer. “It helps us stay in touch with Korean culture and our kids have friends from around the country as a result of the camp,” Mike Skaggs said.

The camps also offer the family an experience that is hard to duplicate elsewhere. “There is not a lot of ethnic diversity in our small suburb. At camp, all the families are like ours. We’re the ‘normal’ family instead of the ‘different’ family,” Libby Skaggs explained.

As her family continues to travel their adoption journey, they do so with joy and a sense of gratitude. “Adoption was God’s plan for our family, not a consolation prize,” she emphasized. “It is a privilege—not a second choice at all.”

‘No more Nazi analogies,’ religious leaders urge. Religious leaders are calling on their colleagues and politicians to keep comparisons to Nazism and the Holocaust out of American public policy debates. The Interfaith Alliance responded to a recent onslaught of references to Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, particularly as an analogy to the current discussion on health care reform. “There is no place in civil debate for the use of these types of metaphors,” 15 religious leaders said in an open letter. “Perpetrators of such language harm rather than help both the integrity of the democratic process and the credibility of religious commentary.” In one instance, Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission , compared the proposed healthcare reforms to “what the Nazis did,” and gave an award to President Obama’s chief health care advisor that was named for a Nazi physician. Land later apologized in a letter to Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Other use of Nazi imagery has come from the Republican National Committee and Fox News Channel personality Glenn Beck.  

Dissident Anglicans may join Catholics. The Vatican announced plans to open its doors to Anglicans upset with their church’s growing acceptance of homosexuality and women clergy. Citing many requests from Anglicans around the world, the Vatican said Pope Benedict XVI would permit the establishment of new national dioceses in which former Anglicans can join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditional forms of worship. Each diocese will be headed by a former Anglican clergyman, who will exercise an administrative and leadership role equivalent to that of a bishop. Unmarried men in such positions also will be eligible for ordination as Catholic bishops, giving them the power to ordain new priests. Anglican clergy who already are married will be eligible for ordination as Catholic priests—but not bishops—within the new structures.

Vietnam criticized for persecution. Human rights activists are criticizing Vietnam for expelling followers of a renowned Buddhist monk from a monastery, calling it part of a pattern of religious persecution by the Communist government. The criticism, from New York-based Human Rights Watch , echoes concerns raised by the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi about the expulsion of the followers of longtime peace activist and Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hanh. The monk returned to Vietnam in 2005 after 39 years in exile and opened the monastery with the government’s blessing. But the monastery, in the southern Vietnamese province of Lam Dong, has attracted large numbers of followers, apparently fueling fears by authorities. Police cordoned off the monastery, and undercover officers forcibly entered the monastery and forced 150 monks out, the advocacy group said. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has asked the State Department to list Vietnam among its “countries of particular concern” because of violations of human rights and freedom of religion. Vietnam was dropped from the list in 2006.

WASHINGTON (ABP)—Thanks to the Internet, some gullible American Christians can engage in one of their favorite hobbies—digging up the metaphorical corpse of Madalyn Murray O’Hair and rhetorically flogging it—more easily than ever before.

Even though the famous atheist’s body was discovered in 1998 and positively identified in Texas—and even though she apparently has been dead since she disappeared in 1995—patently false rumors about her alleged anti-Christian campaigns continue to spread. Credulous Christians who once forwarded these kinds of rumors in mimeographed chain letters or spread them on talk radio now can broadcast them around the world with the mere click of a mouse.

And, of course, O’Hair is not alone in the annals of perceived enemies of Christ about whom some Christians will spread the most ridiculous stories, not bothering to do the merest hint of fact-checking on them.

From the old Procter & Gamble Satanism libel to tales of more recent vintage about President Obama’s faith and citizenship, Internet-fueled rumors seem to run rampant. And, frighteningly, Christians seem at the very least to be as susceptible as the population at large to spread false stories.

So, why are Christians so willing to believe unsubstantiated rumors? And more troubling, why are Christians, who should hold the highest standards of truth-telling, so eager to spread rumors—and even downright libels?

Christians are not necessarily any more gullible than the population at large—and there’s the rub, said Bill Tillman, a Christian-ethics professor at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary , a Texas Baptist school.

“Their gullibility seems to follow the culture’s levels and channels of gullibility,” Tillman said. “That similarity should give Christians pause to think: If I am no different than the surrounding culture on the treatment of e-mails and communication they carry, with what else am I no different?

“I do think that, like the larger culture, some Christians do follow certain patterns that reflect where their theological ideas parallel their political ideologies.”

The atheist who just won’t die

Historically, O’Hair is the hands-down favorite target of the Christian rumor mill. Some tales tied to her name have been in circulation for more than a quarter century—before fax machines and e-mail made rumor-spreading infinitely easier.

The most pervasive and indestructible O’Hair rumor credits her for a campaign to ban religious broadcasting. It links her to a petition to the Federal Communications Commission the e-mails claim would remove all Sunday worship services from radio and television. O’Hair typically is identified in the e-mail as the atheist “whose effort successfully eliminated the use of the Bible reading and prayer from public schools 15 years ago.”

Some versions of the e-mail link the petition to an effort to remove religiously themed television shows, specifically mentioning Touched by an Angel.

There indeed once was a petition about religious broadcasting filed with the FCC, but that’s the extent of the truth in this rumor. The petition, called RM 2493, was filed nearly 35 years ago—but not by O’Hair, and not to eliminate religious broadcasting.

According to Snopes.com, a website that debunks urban legends, e-mail rumors and other myths, Jeremy Lansman and Lorenzo Milam asked the FCC to prevent religious organizations from obtaining licenses to operate radio and TV channels reserved for education.

The petition was not intended to ban all religious broadcasting, but rather to prevent religious organizations that operate universities and schools from receiving FCC licenses for broadcast frequencies reserved for educational use. The FCC turned down the petition in August 1975. And O’Hair never had anything to do with such a petition.

There are other problems with the latest rumor. O’Hair’s infamous court case—in 1964, not 15 years ago—didn’t eliminate Bible reading and prayer from public schools but rather led to the Supreme Court decision that said government-sanctioned school prayer and school-led devotional Bible study are unconstitutional.

Moreover, the FCC would not have the authority to ban religious broadcasting, since such a rule would blatantly violate the First Amendment’s religion clauses and would be overturned by the Supreme Court.

But the rumor just won’t die. According to Snopes.com , the FCC has received at least 30 million letters, faxes or e-mails expressing opposition to this petition since 1974. The only new element in this later incarnation is the mention of Touched by an Angel. Laying aside any curiosity about why anyone would be bothered by the cancellation of a TV show that’s been off the air six years, there remains the problem of how someone who’s been dead for nearly 15 years could testify before the FCC.

But O’Hair’s posthumous powers really shouldn’t surprise us. Labeled by Life magazine in 1964 as “the most hated woman in America,” O’Hair is considered enough of an enemy by many Christians that they are willing to believe just about anything about her. The advent of the Internet only made the rumors easier to spread and harder to correct. 

Rumors about what people love to hate

Rumors like the ones tied to O’Hair become more powerful when they tap into the hostility and distrust toward government that is widespread among conservative Christians. It’s easy for the average evangelical to believe any rumor that fits this larger political paradigm.

Factor in a contentious presidential election and the stakes go even higher. During the 2000 campaign—the first in the age of widespread Internet access—dutiful Christian culture-warriors worked overtime.

One popular e-mail rumor claimed then-Attorney General Janet Reno had described evangelical Christians as “cultists” in a 1994 60 Minutes interview. The fabricated story received such wide distribution that Religious Right leaders James Dobson and Jerry Falwell had to warn their followers publicly against believing it.

Another e-mail rumor prevalent that year credited then-Vice President Al Gore with a campaign-speech gaffe. To quote the e-mail: “In his typically stiff, condescending and insincere manner, he said his favorite Bible verse is John 16:3. Of course, the speech writer meant (John) 3:16, but wasn’t even familiar enough with this often-quoted and, of course, often-taken-for-granted Scripture to catch the error. Neither was Gore, and how incredibly appropriate it is.”

John 3:16 reads, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But John 16:3 reads, “They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.” The implication was obvious: Gore’s misquote was some sort of Freudian slip that revealed his true un-Christian nature.

Like the others, this story is untrue, according to Urban Legends, another website that investigates e-mail rumors and other folklore—www.urbanlegends.com . The irony of the rumor is its original source.

According to conservative columnist Cal Thomas, the quote is real but Al Gore did not say it—then-President George H.W. Bush did, 20 years ago.

“Bush said it in my presence at a religious broadcasters convention about 1990,” Thomas told Urban Legends. “And I wrote about it in my book, Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America? But somehow it got twisted around and stuck on the Internet and put in Al Gore’s mouth. He (Gore) has got a lot of stuff that he has to defend, but that’s not one of them.’” 

Things only got worse in the 2008 election. With one candidate deeply distrusted by the Religious Right having a background unlike any presidential contender before him—a nominally Muslim father from Kenya, a freethinking American mother who raised him in the United States and, for a time, in Indonesia—the rumor mills worked overtime.

Many of those e-mails seemed marketed directly to fearful Christians. One frequently forwarded message—also debunked by Snopes—identifies Barack Obama as the son of a black Muslim from Kenya and a white atheist from Kansas.

“When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a radical Muslim from Indonesia,” the erroneous e-mail reports. “When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a Muslim school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school. …

“Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. …

“Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. … Also, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he did not use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.”

First of all, while his father was raised a Muslim, he did not practice the faith by the time the younger Obama was born. Obama has described his mother as a religious seeker who was raised a Christian but never has described her as an atheist. His stepfather was an oil executive, and no credible accounts ever said he was a radical Islamist—the “fact” that he married an alleged “atheist” would sort of mitigate against that.

Obama attended a Catholic school and a predominantly Muslim public school in Indonesia in which religion classes were offered. There is no evidence radical Saudi Wahabism was ever taught in that school—although the accusation that Obama attended such an Islamic “madrassah” was so pervasive it made its way into the mainstream media—via Fox News—in 2008.

Obama made a profession of faith in Christ and joined Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in the late 1980s, long before he sought public office. And the Koran swearing-in rumor is patently false. Its originator apparently has Obama confused with Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress in 2006 and raised some controversy when he was sworn in on a historic copy of the Koran that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

Rumors about the living

Political rumors like these are more damaging even than the O’Hair rumors because Obama, Reno and Gore are real, living public figures with careers and reputations on the line.

Of course, rumors can be used to enhance a reputation as well. One e-mail hoax in recent years that received wide circulation was that President George W. Bush, at a thank-you dinner for campaign workers after the 2000 election, took time out of his duties to share the gospel with the son of a volunteer. As the story goes, the boy prayed to receive Christ on the spot, with Bush leading the prayer.

It is, unfortunately, untrue. Bush’s campaign never held any such dinner, and campaign officials said the pressing time commitments of the ongoing Florida recount would not have allowed Bush to deviate so dramatically from his schedule even if he had wanted to.

Those minor details didn’t stop many church newsletters and websites—even the website of Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical publication—from reporting it as fact.

The Bush rumor fits a pattern that folklorists call “cult of personality” myths. They often spring up around new presidents and are most prominent among the president’s core supporters.

Some Christians are so willing to believe rumors that reflect well on their heroes and poorly on their opponents that they abandon even a modest concern for the veracity of the rumors. Yet the Bible clearly prohibits “bearing false witness” and spreading rumors and gossip. Perhaps Christians who spread such rumors think they serve a greater purpose, as if the end justifies the means, some ethicists speculate.

The real truth

Ethicist Tillman called on Christians to examine their biases and prejudices, which he described as “tough exercise,” because it forces Christians to explore the influences that shaped them.

Gullibility may grow out of fear and anxiety, he added. And that directly relates to what people believe.

“I suggest to my students, ‘Tell me something about your fears, and I will tell you something of your theology,’” Tillman said. “Dealing with our fears—an action usually dismissed or ignored—may be one of the keys to understanding just which e-mails we forward and those we don’t.”

David Gushee, a Baptist ethicist at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta, agreed Christians who spread tall tales by e-mail reflect a significant slice of American culture and act out of deep emotion.

“Certainly, many Christians seem attracted to conspiracy theories and urban myths and these mass e-mails that propagate them,” he said. “But I am not sure if that is because they are Christian or because they are just Americans of a certain type—people who feel angry about the way the world is, who feel alienated from ‘elite culture,’ who feel embattled by cultural trends that they cannot control and do not at all like, and who often feel looked down upon by those with more education or higher social status.”

The key to confronting such bad habits among Christians is proper spiritual formation on the ethics of truth-telling, gossip and rumor-spreading, experts said.

“Congregations should nourish true spiritual friendships—relationships in which others will love us enough to instruct and correct us,” said Robert Kruschwitz, director of Baylor University’s Center for Christian Ethics .

“If we are gullible, we need some help to sort out the nonsense we should question from the truth that we should spread… If we are fearful and envious, just too quick to gossip or criticize, we need that deep love that calms our fears and removes the need to impress others. That love comes from God through Christ, but the Holy Spirit often communicates it to us through our good spiritual friends.”

Tillman said Christians should learn the “put off” and “put on” pattern of behavior the Apostle Paul taught in the New Testament.

“He exhorted the early Christians to ‘put on’ virtues—good character traits. … My thought is that Paul intended to educate people to fill their minds with positive things and living the gospel out of those frameworks than if they were loaded down with ungodly traits,” he said.

“With the ‘put off’ side of his guidelines, he told the early Christians to put away vices, one of the primary ones being gossip. … That term, by the way, is understood off the pages of the New Testament as tale-bearing, tattling, slandering—the acts which should not be attached to any Christian.”

Gushee pointed to multiple New Testament principles pertinent to the matter of spreading urban myths—loving one’s neighbor and one’s perceived enemy, not participating in gossip, not judging others and observing the Golden Rule.

“In general, we need to help Christians act like Christians in public life and not just in private life, and not to get sucked into the polarization, partisan idolatry and demonization so common now in media and government,” Gushee said.

Blessed are they who hit the “delete” key instead of “forward” when it comes to mean-spirited e-mails of questionable veracity, several Christian ethicists suggested.

Christians have a responsibility to tell the truth and to tell it in love, they agreed. They suggested several guides:

• Administer the “smell test.” Christians should ask if any e-mail passes the “smell test” before passing it along, said Bill Tillman, holder of the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary . If “something just doesn’t smell right about this,” delete the message, he suggested.

Christian Rumors that Won't Die

Passing along stinky e-mails that fail the test can damage a Christian’s witness. David Gushee, distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University , suggested a couple of pointed questions to ask: “Is this one of those mass e-mail forwards so often shown to be filled with innuendo and half-truths? Do I really want to be one of those people who fills up other people’s in-boxes with forwarded e-mails?”

Obvious warning signs that signal questionable content include inadequate or invisible sources, sourcing in obviously partisan or ideologically agenda-driven sources or readily apparent defamatory speech, he added.

• Don’t just trust. Verify. Christians have a responsibility to ensure the truthfulness of any information they communicate, the ethicists agreed.

Tillman recommended using trusted fact-checking websites such as www.snopes.com, www.truthorfiction.com and www.hoax-slayer.com.

He also suggested checking the original source of information.

“The integrity of the sender—the original sender—can verify the authenticity of the information,” he said.

“So much copy/paste work can be done now that even verification processes won’t always reveal some of the real sources of an e-mail. Notice the amount or lack of details. Embellished e-mails’ content gets deleted last and forwarded more quickly. But check the modifiers, language (and) formatting. Do they scream off the screen? If they do, the e-mail is probably questionable.”

• Consider the “seven deadlies.” Before forwarding an e-mail, Robert Kruschwitz, director of the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University , suggested asking whether the desire to spread the message relates to any of the seven deadly sins—lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

“Is this titillation, preoccupied with our pleasures or financial profit, vain or envious, misguided striking back at our enemies or a time-wasting distraction?” he recommends asking.

• Check motives. First, consider why someone wrote the e-mail in the first place. Gushee suggested asking: “What are the likely motives of those who sent me this e-mail?”

Next, Christians should examine their own motives. Before passing along information—or a juicy story by e-mail—Christians should ask themselves what prompts their desire, Tillman said. Ask: “Just what is it about me that I have to pass along something that may make someone else appear smaller, weaker or dumber?”

Self-examination may reveal “our fear that we are not appreciated and our views are not taken seriously, and thus our desire to make ourselves and our perspective look better by making someone else, or their views, look worse,” Kruschwitz added.

• Measure gossip against the Golden Rule. “If the e-mail is about someone’s character, is the content something I would be willing to say to another’s face? If one passes the content on, will there be any advancement of the values of the kingdom of God?” Tillman suggested asking.

Gushee advised Christians to ask if they have checked the information with the person being attacked or those who represent that person.

When it comes to digitally transmitted gossip, Gushee recommended applying the Golden Rule in terms of “pass on accusations about others as you would want others to pass on accusations about you.”

Poll shows Jewish concern about West Bank policy. The 2009 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion found 54 percent of American Jews approve of President Obama’s Israel policies, but 51 percent disagree with his call for Israel to halt settlement in the West Bank. The survey of 800 Jewish adults, conducted between late August and mid-September, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. But Obama’s overall popularity among Jews remains high, according to a Gallup Poll. While 52 percent of adults in the United States approve of the job the president is doing, 64 percent of Jewish adults voiced approval during September, according to Gallup Daily. The September findings on U.S. adults are based on telephone interviews with 14,407 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 0.5 percentage points. Results for Jews are based on interviews with 379 Jews, with a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

One in four people are Muslim. A new study released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life counted 1.57 billion Muslims worldwide, making Muslims about one out of every four people in world’s estimated population of 6.8 billion. About 2.5 million Muslims live in the United States, comprising 0.2 percent of the world’s Muslim population, according to Pew researchers. “Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population” is based on 1,500 sources—census reports, demographic studies and population surveys—from 232 countries and territories.

Spreading flu in churches? The White House and federal health officials have released guidelines recommending worshippers take precautions against spreading germs to reduce the risk of contracting swine flu. The guide, released by the White House Office for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Department of Health and Human Services, suggests houses of worship encourage members and guests to wash their hands often, use hand sanitizer, avoid crowded situations and interact without physical contact when possible. It also urges religious leaders to keep in contact with local health organizations and closely adhere to their recommendations. The National Association of Evangelicals also e-mailed its member congregations to suggest preparations for flu season by following the White House guide, which can be found online at www.flu.gov.

Worship wars ‘sinful,’ synod declares. Disagreements over worship styles that split churches are “sinful,” the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has warned. “The polarization that is affecting the church concerning the issue of forms, rites and ceremonies is sinful and hinders the proclamation of the gospel,” said the “Theses on Worship” adopted unanimously by the denomination’s Council of Presidents. The document, the result of two years of work, describes worship as a command of God but says the Scriptures and doctrinal statements permit “considerable freedom” in choosing the rites and ceremonies used for worship.

NEW YORK (ABP) — The head of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has apologized for comparing Democratic health-care proposals to Nazi Germany.

ERLC President Richard Land reportedly told a Christian Coalition of Florida banquet in Orlando Sept. 26 — the night before Yom Kippur — that Democratic leaders advocating reform that will result in rationing of health care were driven by the same ideology that fueled the Holocaust.

"I want to put it to you bluntly," Land said, according to the Florida Baptist Witness. "What they are attempting to do in health care, particularly in treating the elderly, is not something like what the Nazis did. It is precisely what the Nazis did."

Land went on to bestow an imaginary "Dr. Josef Mengele Award" on Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the president's chief health-care adviser.

Opponents of the president's plan have accused Emanuel, a medical ethicist and brother of the White House chief of staff, of supporting euthanasia and rationing of health care. Mengele was a mastermind of Nazi genocide whose medical experiments at death camps earned him the nickname "The Angel of Death."

The Anti-Defamation League called on Land to apologize and refrain from similar comments in the future.

"While we understand there are deep convictions and passions regarding the healthcare reform, whatever one's views are, the Nazi comparison is inappropriate, insensitive and unjustified," ADL national director Abraham Foxman told Land in an Oct. 9 letter. "As a Holocaust survivor, I take particular offense."

Foxman, who was born in Poland in 1940 and escaped the Holocaust under protection of his Polish-Catholic nanny, said such comparisons "diminish the history and the memory of the 6 million Jews and 5 million others who died at the hands of the Nazis and insults those who fought bravely against Hitler."

Land responded Oct. 14 saying it was never his intention to "equate the Obama administration's health-care reform proposals with anything related to the Holocaust."

"Now that I have had the opportunity to speak with you personally and reflect on my words, I deeply regret the reference to Dr. Josef Mengele," Land wrote. "I was using hyperbole for effect and never intended to actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele. I will certainly refrain from making such references in the future. I apologize to everyone who found such references hurtful."

Land also voiced strong support for the State of Israel and expressed "grave concerns" about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust.

Foxman welcomed Land's apology in a press release Oct. 15. "We hope that this episode will serve as a teachable moment that will help to improve understanding about Jewish history, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and that the use of Nazi analogies will cease," the Jewish leader said.

The Anti-Defamation League has voiced concern about increasingly common statements comparing efforts to reform health care with Nazi euthanasia programs.

Following criticism from Democrats, the National Republican Congressional Committee recently removed a Twitter feed linking to a video parody dubbing a 2004 Hitler biopic with subtitles in which the Nazi dictator bemoans having been duped by Obama's promise for universal coverage and rants, "At least I still have Pelosi on my side."

In August talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh compared President Obama's health-care logo to a swastika.

Fox News' Glenn Beck has invoked the Holocaust several times, most recently comparing the Obama administration's treatment of the network to Nazi persecution of the Jews.

Holocaust imagery hasn't been confined to one party. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) compared the current U.S. health-care system to a "holocaust" in response to demands that he apologize for summarizing the Republican strategy as, "Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly."

Grayson, who is Jewish, later said he didn't mean to minimize the Holocaust and regretted the choice of words.

David Harris, president of the National Jewish Council, told The Huffington Post there have been roughly 50 instances in the past few months where either a media personality or politician manufactured a Nazi analogy or Holocaust reference to make a point.

The Baptist Center for Ethics' website EthicsDaily.com reported Oct. 7 that it contacted Land for reaction to criticism of his Sept. 26 comment and received an e-mail response saying, "The analogy is apt, and I stand by it."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

SHREVEPORT, La. (ABP) — An Internet-fueled show of support for a 12-year-old girl killed this summer in a church-bus accident is reaching as far away as Africa, bringing clean water to impoverished children in Malawi.

More than 13,000 people have committed to one act of kindness on Oct. 29. That would have been the 13th birthday of Maggie Lee Henson, who died Aug. 2 from injuries she received when the bus carrying youth from First Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., overturnedwhile headed to a church camp. The accident had taken place about three weeks earlier.

Proceeds from sales of a T-shirt and charm necklace designed for the occasion will go to Watering Malawi, a ministry of the Passport youth-camping ministry that provides clean water and irrigation in the drought-plagued country of 13 million. 

Maggie Lee for Good Day is Oct. 29, the day the church-bus accident victim would have turned 13.

Maggie Lee's father, John Henson, an associate pastor at the Shreveport church, heard Colleen Burroughs, Passport's executive vice president, talk about Watering Malawi at a recent event sponsored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Louisiana.

Burroughs, who is based in Birmingham, Ala., said she didn't know the family had chosen to contribute funds to Watering Malawi until she read a website posting about it written by Maggie Lee's mother, Jinny Henson.

"The gift of this water is as though Maggie Lee herself will be sharing cups of clean water with 13-year-old girls in Malawi," Burroughs said. "The thought takes my breath away. It really is Living Water."

The Shreveport youth were on their way to a Passport camp in Georgia July 12 when their bus blew a tire and overturned several times on an interstate highway near the Mississippi-Alabama state line. One youth, 14-year-old Jason Ugarte, died almost immediately.

Maggie Lee was taken to Batson Memorial Children's Hospital in Jackson, Miss., Her parents provided prayer updates on CaringBridge, a non-profit Internet service that connects family and friends during serious medical events. That developed into an intensely personal journal written from Maggie Lee's bedside describing her final days.

Kelli Alamond, a mother of teenagers from Texarkana, Texas, did not know the Hensons personally, but she was moved enough by the story to start a Facebook group to build prayer support. It went viral, and after Maggie Lee's death Alamond suggested keeping her memory alive by doing something good on her birthday.

Jinny Henson started a Maggie Lee for Good Facebook group with a goal of trying to get 1,300 people to perform a demonstration of Christ's love on Oct. 29, in honor of her daughter's 13th birthday. The goal was surpassed in less than 24 hours, and she upped it to 13,000. On Oct. 12 she announced that more than 13,600 people had signed up either through Facebook or a separate Maggie Lee for Good website.

Henson said her daughter was a caring Christian who would give her allowance and money she received at Christmas to children the family sponsored through World Vision.

"She just really had a passion for helping other people and just being Jesus to them and loving them in very creative ways," said in an interview that aired Oct. 12 on K-LOVE radio. "If she saw someone hungry on the side of the road, then she would say, 'Let's pull over and give them a hamburger.'"

"We feel like we are to carry on her generosity and the love that she had for God and other people in tangible ways since she is no longer here to do that," she said.

Erin Anderson, a wedding photographer in Houston who several years ago attended the Hensons' former church in Brownwood, designed a Maggie Lee for Good logo.

Christine McAlister-Gray of Mesa, Ariz., one of the thousands of people touched by Maggie Lee's story, approached Snider Sports and Apparel in Gilbert, Ariz., about designing a T-shirt for the occasion. It sells for $15, with proceeds donated to Watering Malawi.

Amy Peters, a jewelry designer in Avila Beach, Calif., created a $5 Maggie Lee for Good necklace, with 100 percent of profits also going to Watering Malawi. 

Peters is the designer of a ring engraved with "Dream, Fly, Dance, Sing." that Maggie Lee was wearing when emergency personnel found her. John Henson wrote about discovering the ring his wife had recently purchased for their daughter in his computer bag in a CaringBridge post July 21.

Burroughs said providing access to clean water "extends Maggie Lee's goodness in ways most people in the States cannot comprehend."

"If a young girl spends most of her day walking miles for water, she cannot attend school or learn to read," Burroughs said. "If you give the same girl a 5th-grade education, her babies are 85 percent more likely to live past the age of 5."

"I will be wearing my MLFG [Maggie Lee for Good] shirt on October 29," Burroughs said.

Jinny Henson said acts of kindness had already begun. She received an e-mail message from one woman who will be out of town Oct. 29, so she did her "Maggie Lee" a few days early by taking a bag of groceries to a homebound neighbor. She watched from a window as the neighbor got his groceries, read the card and blew a kiss toward the sky.

Later in the day the man told her about how the groceries had mysteriously appeared. "I don't know who she was," he said, "but Maggie Lee must truly have been an angel among us all if she was able to inspire such an act of human kindness, especially in today's world."

"I cried right along with him," the e-mail reported.

Henson said in the radio interview that birthdays and anniversaries are the most difficult days for someone grieving the loss of a loved one. "While it will be difficult, I'm just so thankful that so many people want to honor her and really want to see good have the last say," she said.

The Maggie Lee for Good website offers several ideas for the day sent in from across the country.

"One of my ideas is just to pick up the phone and put a grudge aside, because you really don't know how much time you have," Henson said. "We all take for granted that we are going to have the next year or the next decade with our kids and with our friends and family, but really we don't…. Time is short and the time to love and forgive is now."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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'Maggie Lee for Good' project honors memory of girl killed in bus crash