Super Bowl weekend has now arrived.

Peyton Manning and his AFC champion Indianapolis Colts are 5-point favorites to spoil the ending of the New Orleans football renaissance for Drew Brees and the Saints. The odd twist to this story is that the boy who grew up in the Big Easy rooting for his dad as he quarterbacked the awful Saints, may end up breaking its heart.

WorldMag readers, will the Colts win their second Super Bowl in the Peyton Manning era, or will the Saints prevail and capture the victory for The Big Easy?

Hoosiers or the Who Dats?

Give us your prediction in the comments section, including the final score.

Stunning new research indicates that some vegetative brain-injury patients show signs of awareness, and can even communicate. This research has obvious and immediate bioethical implications.

The new research suggests that standard tests may overlook patients who have some consciousness, and that someday some kind of communication may be possible.

In the strongest example, a 29-year-old patient was able to answer yes-or-no questions by visualizing specific scenes the doctors asked him to imagine. The two visualizations sparked different brain activity viewed through a scanning machine.

“We were stunned when this happened,” said one study author, Martin Monti of Medical Research Council Cognitive and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England. “I find it literally amazing. This was a patient who was believed to be vegetative for five years.”

The article references Terry Schiavo, stating that these communicative patients differ from Schiavo in that there was no oxygen deprivation to the brain.

Of course, it may only be a matter of time before researchers are “stunned” to discover Schiavo-type of patients who also communicate.

The ongoing conversation about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s adultery often seems best suited to tabloid voyeurism.

But now, Jenny Sanford has provided an additional piece of information about her marriage that should provide Christians an opportunity to have important discussions about the parameters of a truly Christian marriage.

In brief, Mark Sanford insisted on leaving out the promise of fidelity when he wed Jenny.

South Carolina’s first lady says her wedding was a “leap of faith” because Gov. Mark Sanford, who famously cheated on her with a woman he described as his soul mate, did not want to include a vow of fidelity in their marriage ceremony.

Jenny Sanford also tells ABC’s Barbara Walters in an interview airing Friday on “20/20″ that the final blow to the marriage was the publication of racy e-mails between Sanford and his Argentine mistress.

The show released excerpts of Sanford’s interview with Walters, which coincides with publication Friday of her memoir, “Staying True.”

Not having a vow of faithfulness “bothered me to some extent, but … we were very young, we were in love,” Jenny Sanford tells Walters. “I questioned it, but I got past it.”

In her memoir, a copy of which The Associated Press obtained Tuesday, Sanford writes that her groom was worried “in some nagging way” that he might not be able to remain true.

“With the benefit of the knowledge I have about Mark now, I could point to this moment as a clear sign of things to come,” she writes. But at the time, she found his honesty “brave and sweet” and thought he just had cold feet.

Sexual fidelity is intrinsic to Christian marriage – with or without spoken vows. “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” is not negated on account of “nagging doubts” about the ability to keep the command.

He who commits adultery lacks sense;
he who does it destroys himself. (Proverbs 6:32)

Should the Bible be taught in public schools? If so, then how? If no, then why not?

The Tennessee Board of Education believes they have the answers, or at least the guidelines (here is the link to the Board of Education PDF):

(AP) The state Board of Education has approved guidelines on how to teach the Bible in public high schools despite concern the curriculum could be challenged in court.  Legislation approved in 2008 authorized a course for a “nonsectarian, nonreligious academic study of the Bible” in public schools.

The course will teach students about the content of the Bible and its historical context. It is an elective, meaning high schools can choose whether to offer it to students as a social studies credit, and students can decide whether to take it.

This is a complicated issue, but if my children were in these schools, I would keep them out of the class.

As even the postmodern philosopher Stanley Fish has argued:

The truth claims of a religion — at least of religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam — are not incidental to its identity; they are its identity.

The metaphor that theologians use to make the point is the shell and the kernel: ceremonies, parables, traditions, holidays, pilgrimages — these are merely the outward signs of something that is believed to be informing them and giving them significance. That something is the religion’s truth claims. Take them away and all you have is an empty shell, an ancient video game starring a robed superhero who parts the waters of the Red Sea, followed by another who brings people back from the dead. I can see the promo now: more exciting than “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “The Matrix.” That will teach, but you won’t be teaching religion.

Read Al Mohler’s discussion of this topic, “What is Christianity without Truth?”.

As evidence of the continuing demise of the once-ubiquitous movie rental store, Movie Gallery filed for bankruptcy today:

Movie Gallery Inc., owner of the Hollywood Video movie rental chain, has filed for Chapter 11 protection and plans to close 805 stores – about a third of its total.

It’s the second trip through bankruptcy court since 2007 for Movie Gallery. The company is struggling with competition from Netflix Inc.’s mail delivery service and Redbox’s $1-per-night kiosk rentals.

The only surprising fact of this story is that 2,600 locations remain viable. Who still rents movies this way?

For some reason, the image of a Dodo bird keeps popping into my head.

Christians in Egypt seek to have equal rights with Muslims when it comes to constructing church buildings.

Egyptian activists have protested in front of parliament and called for legislation giving Christians equal rights as Muslims to build houses of worship.  …Muslims need a municipal permit to build mosques. But Copts must get their papers signed by the president. Ten percent of Egypt’s 80 million are Copts, who complain of being denied equal citizenship rights.

According to the story, the demonstrators were both Muslim and Christian.

To the extent that it is difficult, or impossible, for Egyptian Christians to construct buildings for worship, this seems like a reverse case scenario of the December decision in Switzerland to ban minarets.

Either way it cuts, such restrictions on basic religious freedoms are misguided.

Vanity Fair, a leading U.S. magazine of pop culture and fashion, devoted a lengthy article in their February 2010 issue to a review of the  Creation Museum (Answers in Genesis).

To sum it up, the author thinks creationism is for idiots:

Just off a motorway, in a barren and uninspiring piece of scrub, the museum is impressively incongruous, a righteously modernist building resting in landscaped gardens filled with dinosaur topiaries. It cost $27 million and was completed in 2007. It answers the famous question about what God could have done if he had had money. This is it. Oddly, it is a conspicuously and emphatically secular construction. There is no religious symbolism. No crosses. No stained glass. No spiral campanile. It has borrowed the empirical vernacular of the enemy to wrap the literal interpretation of Genesis in the façade of a liberal art gallery or library. It is the Lamb dressed in wolf’s clothing.

The next things I noticed were the very illiberally accoutred security guards. They are absurdly over-armed, overdressed, and overweight. Perhaps the museum is concerned that armed radical atheists, maddened by the voices of reason in their confused heads, will storm in waving the periodic table, screaming, “I think, therefore I am!”

The Creation Museum isn’t really a museum at all. It’s an argument. It’s not even an argument. It’s the ammunition for an argument. It is the Word made into bullets. An armory of righteous revisionism. This whole building is devoted to the literal veracity of the first 11 chapters of Genesis: God created the world in six days, and the whole thing is no more than 6,000 years old. Everything came at once, so Tyrannosaurus rex and Noah shared a cabin. That’s an awful lot of explaining to do. This place doesn’t just take on evolution—it squares off with geology, anthropology, paleontology, history, chemistry, astronomy, zoology, biology, and good taste. It directly and boldly contradicts most -onomies and all -ologies, including most theology. (emphasis mine)

What the author finds so shocking — that a Christian worldview carries implications for all those “-onomies” and “-ologies” — is simply a basic understanding that all truth is God’s truth, and that everything in the created world falls under the sovereign rule of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Note: Due to the lack of modesty in fashion, Christian discretion is advised when clicking through to Vanity Fair.

Everyone in the Bayou state can sleep in peace tonight. The Louisiana government will defend the “Who Dat?” rights of her citizenry:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is getting into the “Who Dat” fray with the NFL, asking the state attorney general to look into a possible lawsuit over the ownership rights to the popular New Orleans Saints phrase.

Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin says the governor’s executive counsel contacted Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s office Saturday.

The call came within hours of the state Democratic Party’s governing body calling on Jindal to defend the rights of Louisiana citizens to use the term “Who Dat.”

Some T-shirt makers have been getting cease-and-desist letters from the NFL demanding they stop selling shirts with the traditional cheer of Saints fans. The NFL claims the shirts infringe on a trademark it owns.

I am not making light of intellectual property, copyrights, trademarks, etc., but can’t the grown-ups in our society ever get together, behind closed doors, and work these things out? A cease-and-desist order? A lawsuit?

But, for the record, I take Louisiana’s side over the NFL.

Should an individual be kept off a City Council board on account of their making a large donation in support of California Proposition 8?

According to the Oakland Tribune, some people in Oakland think so:

A prominent Oakland supporter of the initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California who is president of the board overseeing the Paramount Theatre of the Arts is facing mounting opposition as his reappointment to the board is set for consideration by the City Council on Tuesday.

Lorenzo Hoopes, 96, a former president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Oakland Temple, a retired Safeway executive and longtime member of the theater’s board, donated $26,000 to 2008’s Proposition 8 and was Oakland’s single largest individual donor to the measure, records show.

“I think it’s outrageous that we would appoint anyone who calls for discrimination and works hard to see discrimination written into California’s constitution representing all of Oakland on the Paramount board,” said Sean Sullivan, a West Oakland resident and a founding board member of Oakland’s Rainbow Chamber of Commerce who is helping lead the opposition to Hoopes’ appointment.

“I don’t think the council is going to approve him,” said City Council President Jane Brunner (North Oakland). “I think we were all pretty surprised when we heard about (the donations to Prop. 8). I’m not sure council members think that represents the opinion of a lot of people in Oakland.”

I applaud The San Francisco Chronicle in calling for the reinstatement of Hoopes:

This page has long supported marriage equality – and opposed Proposition 8 as a matter of civil rights. In the political arena, it is a battle for hearts and minds. Petty vengeance is no way to win hearts and minds.

Those who would seek to exclude Hoopes from a community-service job that has nothing to do with marriage equality would do well to remember that tolerance goes both ways.

Ten years ago this month, Kurt Warner and the St. Louis Rams graced the cover of WORLD Magazine. The cover story subhead read: “From the supermarket to the Super Bowl: Kurt Warner and his Rams ride a first-things-first ethic to a national championship.”

Yesterday, Warner stood at a podium in Tempe, Ariz., his wife and seven children alongside him, and announced his retirement from the NFL:

Kurt Warner thanked God, hugged his children and wife and said goodbye to an NFL career that seems the stuff of sports fiction.

The 38-year-old quarterback announced his retirement Friday after a dozen years in a league that at first rejected him, then revered him as he came from nowhere to lead the lowly St. Louis Rams to two Super Bowls.

Then, as if going from stocking groceries to winning NFL MVP awards wasn’t improbable enough, Warner was written off as a has-been and rose again to lead the long-suffering Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl.

A man of deep faith who carried a Bible to each post-game news conference, Warned walked away with a year left on a two-year, $23 million contract, knowing he still had the skills to play at the highest level.

“It’s been an amazing ride,” Warner said. “I don’t think I could have dreamt it would have played out like it has, but I’ve been humbled every day that I woke up the last 12 years and amazed that God would choose to use me to do what he’s given me the opportunity to do.”

…Warner and his wife operate the First Things First Christian charitable foundation. Last year, he was named the NFL’s Man of the Year for his off-field and on-field accomplishments.

As a native of St. Louis who enjoyed watching Warner’s passion for the game and hearing his passion for Christ and family, I’d like to say thanks to Kurt (and his wife, Brenda) for a job well done.