YOUCEF NADARKHANI WATCH: “From Death Sentence to Rape Charges, Iranian Pastor’s Case Is Rare—and Disputed.”

In response to international condemnation for Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani’s death sentence, the Iranian government has changed its story.

Though Nadarkhani was found guilty and sentenced to death for apostasy in 2010, the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars News reported on September 30 that he will now be executed for Zionism, rape, and extortion. The Iranian Embassy in London also issued a statement, saying the Iranian Court of Appeals had made no official ruling in Nadarkhani’s case. But Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has official documents that prove otherwise, said Khataza Gondwe, CSW team leader in Africa and the Middle East.

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WHAT “FREEDOM” MEANS: “Freedom of Religion includes the Freedom to Proselytize.”

The ability of all religions—Islam, Judaism, Christianity or, for that matter, the Marijuana church—to peacefully persuade people using ethos, pathos, and logic is fundamentally tied to religious freedom.

[Arvind] Sharma is simply wrong to suggest that there is an assymetrical relationship between the right to have religious belief and the right to persuade others of the validity of that belief. If he was correct, individuals would not be free, but would be confined to keeping their most fundamental beliefs private. To say otherwise is to ask people to act without integrity (i.e. to believe one thing in private and another thing in public). Such a conception necessarily bifurcates religion.

The freedom to proselytize should be protected. Strictures on forced conversions? Absolutely. But to suggest that religion is okay only as long as you keep it to yourself? Doesn’t sound like freedom to me.

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THE REAL “DEATH PANEL”: “Secret panel can put Americans on ‘kill list.’”

They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.

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HIPPY-DIPPY THINKING WATCH: “Occupy Wall Street looks like church to me.”

For Christians, the Occupy movement amounts to an invitation from people outside of the church to join them in prophetic witness to the failure of a hyperindividualistic consumerist society. Will Christians find the humility to accept the welcome and join? Or will we fail to recognize The Way in what’s happening in this movement simply because it doesn’t speak Christianese? Could it be that open-hearted participation in this growing experiment in abundant life is exactly what the church needs to recover its own sense of vitality and mission? As Jesus said, “Come and see.”

There’s a tension in this author’s rhetoric. On the one hand, she opposes “the concentration of wealth” in the hands of the top 1 percent of Americans. On the other hand, she avers that “the occupiers don’t want your money or your stuff.” Indeed, she approvingly quotes a friend who says, “I want less.”

Well, if you want less, then why do you protest those who have more? Their having more doesn’t prohibit you from having less, after all. And it’s not even clear—unless you believe that economics is a zero-sum game—that their having more prohibits you from having more. Absent zero-sum-game thinking, it’s hard to imagine what OWS is protesting, or why. Unfortunately, this author’s op-ed doesn’t answer either question.

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RELATED: “Praying for Peace and Looking for Jesus at #OccupyWallStreet.”

There is a lot of speculation as to who the “Occupiers” are and what they might accomplish. There is much I still don’t know about the movement, but undeniably it has caught the imagination of a generation — and that matters.

Here are a few things I do know about the Occupy Wall Street protesters:

When they stand with the poor, they stand with Jesus.

When they stand with the hungry, they stand with Jesus.

When they stand for those without a job or a home, they stand with Jesus.

When they are peaceful, non-violent, and love their neighbors (even the ones they don’t agree with and who don’t agree with them), they are walking as Jesus walked.

When they talk about holding banks and corporations accountable, they sound like Jesus and the biblical prophets before him who all spoke about holding the wealthy and powerful accountable.

Somehow, Jim Wallis forgot to add, “When they criticize government that bails out banks auto manufacturers, loans money to politically connected corporations, spend billions in stimulus to no effect, and run up the national debt at a record pace, they stand with Jesus.”

Oh, and also: “When they criticize President Obama for continuing the same war policies that they criticized President Bush for, they show they’re not hypocrites, and they stand with Jesus.”

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BRAVE NEW WORLD? “Human Cloning Research Breakthrough Is Unethical.”

So, this is what I think: Human  cloning is intrinsically unethical because it creates human beings (or, if you prefer, human organisms) as a method of manufacture.  This process is also, because it creates a human life for the purpose of destroying it in research.

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FULLY INFORMED DECISION-MAKING: “Down Syndrome Awareness Makes a Difference.”

The new research reports the findings of three surveys in which thousands of parents and hundreds of siblings and individuals with DS themselves, were questioned about what it is like to be affected in one way or another by DS. Ninety-nine percent of parents said they loved their child with DS and 97 percent were proud of them; only 4 percent regretted having their child. While 4 percent of siblings would “trade their sibling” with DS, 96 percent indicated that they had affection toward their sibling with DS, with 94 percent of older siblings expressing feelings of pride. Finally, although 4 percent of individuals with DS expressed sadness about their lives, 99 percent said they were happy with their lives and 97 percent liked who they are.

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IS “DIVINE ACCOMMODATION” TOO ACCOMMODATING? “Does the Sun Rise?”

I worry too about the uses to which accommodation can be put. If the Bible adjusts to common beliefs in cosmology, does it do so with regard to history? Are the biblical accounts of the exodus and conquest accommodations to our feeble capacities? Does the Bible narrate these events as it does because ancient primitives liked bright colors and big noises? Are miracle stories accommodated to pre-scientific superstition? Perhaps even Scripture’s theological claims are accommodated: Is the incarnation a piece of mythology that describes something that is in fact not at all incarnational? “Slippery slope fallacy!” comes the rejoinder. And I answer, Modern theology lives on the slippery slope, which many have found quite exhilarating.

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IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES: “What Al Mohler Thinks about the Bible and Evolution (and why I am concerned enough writing about it).”

Driven by his precommitment to biblical literalism, Mohler leaves his audience with an impossible false choice between a Christian faith that must remain in intellectual isolation in order to survive and an intellectual life that has no place for Christian faith.

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WEIRD IDEA WATCH: “Should our bodies become bullets after death?”

When he dies, Clem Parnell expects his soul to ascend heavenward. He wants his ashes to be loaded into a shotgun shell and blasted at a turkey.

“I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that turkey will see is me screaming at him at about 900 feet per second,” says Parnell, 59.

Parnell and his business partner, fellow Alabama state game warden Thad Holmes, believe other hunters have similar hankerings. This July, they launched Holy Smoke LLC, which offers to load the cremains of customers into shotgun shells, rifle cartridges and bullets.

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CHURCH / LAW UPDATE: “Supreme Court: What’s More Important than Church Doctrine?”

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NEOLOGISM WATCH: “Metaphornication.”