Christianity

In a peeling house on South 32nd Street, five friends came together to stretch their faith. They left comfortable apartments for a communal home within walking distance of a prison, a pawnshop, a derelict trailer park. Exhaust from a sugar beet factory drifted down the streets. Moving in last January, they pledged to spend one year together, learning to become true followers of Christ. They would give generously, love unconditionally.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and if the start of the Lenten season leading to Easter seems early this year, there's a reason: The last time Lent arrived this early was 1913. "Ash Wednesday already?" said the Rev. Ken Fong, senior pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church-L.A. "It just crept up on us." And it did so for many others, too. "It's a real switch," said the Rev. Guillermo Garcia, pastor of St. Gertrude Catholic Church in Bell Gardens, to go from December to Lent in such a compressed time.

Americans are switching religious affiliation in ever-greater numbers or abandoning ties to organized denominations altogether, and Protestants are on the cusp of becoming a minority, according to a survey released Monday. Barely 51% of Americans are Protestants, and among 18- to 29-year-olds, just 43% identify with this branch of Christianity, according to . Protestants have always held a majority status in the United States.

The school board of a small central Ohio community voted unanimously Friday to fire a teacher accused of preaching his Christian beliefs and using a device to burn the image of a cross on students' arms. School board members voted 5 to 0 to fire Mount Vernon Middle School science teacher John Freshwater. Freshwater denies wrongdoing and will request a hearing challenging his dismissal, his attorney told the Mount Vernon News. A family has filed a lawsuit in U.S.

THE National Geographic Society hailed it as one of the most significant archeological discoveries of our time, a 1,700-year-old text that portrayed Judas Iscariot as a hero, not a villain, for betraying Jesus. The portrayal of Judas as a favored apostle who handed Jesus over to the Romans at his master's request made National Geographic's publication of "The Gospel of Judas" -- and the companion TV documentary -- a worldwide media event.

There was a time when scholars of early Christianity labored in anonymity at the bottom of academic pecking orders. Then came Princeton professor Elaine Pagels, whose "The Gnostic Gospels" became a surprise bestseller in the 1970s and ignited international interest in the hidden sayings of a strange band of believers scorned by orthodox Christians. Those gospels were discovered six decades ago in a jar buried in Egypt.

For nearly 2,000 years, each succeeding generation of Christians has tried to puzzle out whether the Book of Revelation's spooky riddles and symbols has meant its own time was the end of time. Over the last six decades alone, the beast with seven heads and 10 horns rising out of the sea at the start of Chapter 13 has been variously pegged as Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and Saddam Hussein, or the nations they represented.

He goes by the name of Pastor Flo. As he stood in the pulpit of the Hip-hop Sanctuary New Generation Church, all eyes were on him. "They say we can't have hip-hop and church," said Flo, a lay preacher whose real name is Roosevelt Sargent. "I say this is real church. It's just presented by and for the hip-hop community, but don't get it wrong, this is a place of praise and worship." In the dimly lighted church, a chorus of agreement rang out. Murals of the Last Supper dangled from the wall.

The books are ready for shipment, fans are waiting breathlessly for the final installment, and tables in bookstores across America will soon be piled high with stacks of the newly published thriller. But we're talking heaven, not Hogwarts. This week, "Kingdom Come," the 16th and last novel in the hugely successful "Left Behind" evangelical series, will be released, and the publication marks the culmination of a sea change in the American book world.

Sunday is Pentecost, the most important day in the Christian calendar after Easter and Christmas. Unlike those two well-known holidays, Pentecost -- commemorating the arrival of the Holy Spirit -- is not widely observed, even by many Christians. "How do you wish anybody a happy Pentecost?" asked the Rev. Eddie Gibbs, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary and an Episcopal priest in Pasadena. "They have Christmas cards galore, Easter cards to some extent. But Pentecost cards?"