As law enforcement agencies around the world continue to round up adults who prey on children, a small group of mental health professionals appears to be trying to facilitate a change in how pedophilia is defined and diagnosed. In fact, as reported by the Daily Caller, just such a group used an August 17 conference in Baltimore to discuss how “pedophiles themselves could play a role in removing pedophilia from the American Psychiatric Association’s bible of mental illnesses — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), set to undergo a significant revision by 2013.”

A recent Gallup poll reveals that many “pro-choice” Americans hold beliefs about abortion that are sharply at odds with the abortion industry — and are, in fact, more closely aligned with pro-life views on a number of crucial issues. According to Gallup senior editor Lydia Saad, the survey found that self-described pro-choice and pro-life Americans “agree about nine major areas of abortion policy,” including requiring informed consent for women (86 percent for pro-choice, 87 percent for pro-life respondents), and banning partial-birth abortion (63 percent for pro-choice, 68 percent for pro-life respondents).

The U.S. Air Force has cancelled a course entitled “Christian Just War Theory” that was required for all nuclear missile launch officers, reported the Associated Press. The course, which has been taught for the past 20 years by military chaplains at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, is being revised following complaints by some participants that Scripture was used by teachers to show that war can be a moral endeavor, explained David Smith, a spokesman for the Air Force Air Education and Training Command. While the Air Force once felt the Bible-based training was necessary “because of the nature of the job” missile officers might be called upon to do, Smith said, it is now considered inappropriate in a society that has become increasingly pluralistic.

A federal appeals court has ruled against a county board in North Carolina over its tradition of opening meetings with mostly Christian prayers. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled in favor of two residents of Forsyth County after the county’s Board of Commissioners allowed an invocation at a December 17, 2007 meeting in which a local pastor “thanked God for allowing the birth of his son to forgive us for our sins and closed by making the prayer in the name of Jesus,” reported the Associated Press.

World renowned evangelical Christian leader John R.W. Stott died July 27 at his home in London. He was 90 years old. “Stott, considered one of the greatest evangelical thinkers of the 20th century, led an evangelical resurgence in England in the 1960s and 1970s,” reported CBN News. “He influenced Christians worldwide through his preaching and writings,” including authoring 50 books on a variety of topics of interest to evangelicals and the church at large.

It’s a few months early, but the ACLU is already beginning its annual attack on America’s beloved Christmas holiday. The Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper reported that the Broward County branch of the ACLU has warned the community of Plantation not to put up its annual display of Christian and Jewish symbols in Liberty Tree Park this holiday season, calling the display “inappropriate.”

As the symbolic World Trade Center Cross (left) was moved to its permanent display site at New York’s 9/11 Memorial Museum on July 23, an atheist group filed a lawsuit to have the inspirational symbol banned from the museum. Discovered by construction worker Frank Silecchia in the rubble of the Trade Center two days after the attack, “the 17-foot-tall cross became an icon of hope and comfort throughout the recovery effort in the wake of the 2001 attacks,” noted a museum press release.

Dolly Parton’s Dollywood theme park has made some unwanted headlines after a lesbian visiting the park with her partner was asked to turn her T-shirt, which included the message “Marriage Is So Gay,” inside out to avoid offending other park patrons.

Willow Creek Community Church, a Chicago-area mega-church that gained fame 20 years ago for its “seeker-sensitive” approach to evangelizing non-Christians, has announced that it will no longer partner with Exodus International, a national ministry that reaches out to individuals wishing to leave the homosexual lifestyle.

One of the nation’s largest denominational social services networks is in danger of a major split over the decision by one of the participants to take a tolerant stance on homosexuality. According to a report by the Associated Press, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (logo, top left), a theologically conservative denomination, has announced “that direct work with its larger and more liberal counterpart, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA, logo, bottom left], has become ‘difficult if not impossible,’ because of doctrinal differences,” including the 2009 decision by the ELCA to allow for the ordination of homosexuals as clergy members.