In 1999, Collegiate High School senior Rachel Rosenbaum hit upon the idea of collecting pennies—6 million of them—to try to grasp the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust during World War II. Her grandfather Al Rosenbaum was, with Jay Ipson and Mark Fetter, one of the founders of the Virginia Holocaust Museum, now located in Shockoe Bottom in Richmond. His sculpture of a menorah with six eternal candles stands in the museum and is the center of the museum’s logo. Each candle represents 1 million Jewish dead.

The Greater Lynchburg Transit Company has refused an anti-religious advertisement, citing an internal policy that prohibits ads for political campaigns, special-interest groups and “personal causes.“ In the process, questions were raised about the validity of GLTC’s advertising policy by GLTC itself. Specifically, officials found they were unable to confirm that the regulations were ever formally enacted by the transit system’s board of directors.

This book surprises. A title such as American Babylon suggests a rant against depravity and excess. Many readers would anticipate something from the pen of Pat Robertson on one of his less restrained days. The author, Richard John Neuhaus, delivers something subtle, provocative, and serious instead. The subtitle, Notes of a Christian Exile, should have signalled what lay ahead.

‘God Has a Better Plan’ At Richmond City Jail, the focus turns to God Ashland congregation spreads a message of salvation to the inmates Music poured out of speakers as inmates filed into the dining room of the Richmond City Jail last night. The large room where they take their daily meals transformed into the scene of a revival as members of The Master’s House in Ashland spread the word of God to about 400 male inmates.

A lesson in Passover
At Weinstein JCC in Henrico, students teach seniors Jewish customs at model Seder feast Working at an library, Brooke Spieldenner is used to young folks asking her questions. Yesterday, roles were switched when she learned from seventhand eight-graders from Rudlin Torah Academy, who led the annual intergenerational model Seder at the Weinstein JCC on Monument Avenue in Henrico County.

Faith impelled the Pilgrims across the sea. They came to North America to practice their religion, and envisioned a Christian commonwealth. The Mayflower Compact resembles a covenant. Notable divines in early New England included Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards, whose “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” bears reading especially now. The risen Christ revealed himself to Mary Magdalene, venerated as the Apostle to the Apostles; Anne Hutchinson asserted women’s rights to full discipleship. Salem had witch trials. Roger Williams protested the treatment of the Indians and named his tolerant settlement Providence.

When Sara P. Little became the first female full professor at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond in 1973, she said her appointment was part of the increasing role women were playing in the Presbyterian Church. In a Richmond Times-Dispatch interview at the time, she said the church only recently had begun to accept the idea of women in ministry, partly because women had not pursued Christian higher-education or ministerial positions. But in the previous month, two women had received doctor of ministry degrees from the seminary and 22 women were beginning studies in the program.

A man suspected of killing a pastor with a barrage of shots that ripped through the church leader’s Bible was in serious condition from wounds he sustained in the confrontation, and authorities expect to charge him soon.

Inez Thurston also was a longtime Friendship Force ambassador. The multiracial, nondenominational group Sing Out South was born from Inez Thurston’s suggestion for a dinner and show fundraiser. It would help young people from her Richmond church attend a 1965 Moral Re-Armament conference in Michigan. Some of those youths, from Weatherford Memorial Baptist Church, who went to the religious movement conference helped form the international singing group Up With People.

Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, a tireless advocate for democracy who opposed South Korea’s military dictatorships, died today. He was 86.

So it is going to be that kind of campaign. Over the weekend, former DNC chairman and current gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe fired off an e-mail blast at Bob McDonnell, the fellow he’ll square off against in the general election if he wins the Democratic nod. McAuliffe—a well-heeled and wellconnected former head of the Democratic National Committee—is not exactly playing Cincinnatus, the Roman yeoman pressed into reluctant service. He already has hit the airwaves with TV spots. On Saturday he showed up at Virginia Democrats’ annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner accompanied by a high-school drum line.

Just 10 months ago, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s expletive-filled sermon clips about America almost brought down Barack Obama. Now, the president-elect faces a new round of public ire because he invited the white evangelical Rick Warren to deliver the Inaugural invocation. So, Obama has found trouble for being too close to Jeremiah Wright and for being too close to Rick Warren—two religious leaders who stand far apart from each other.

A lawyer representing a Muslim group denied rezoning for a mosque by the Henrico County Board of Supervisors says the action represents religious discrimination. The suit filed in Henrico Circuit Court says the board’s refusal to rezone 3.6 acres at Impala Place and Impala Drive was “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.“ The complaint doesn’t mention religious discrimination, but attorney Henry L. Marsh III said he plans to bring up that argument in a federal suit.

Douglas A. Hicks, associate professor of leadership studies and religion at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and executive director of the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement at the University of Richmond, will speak about his book “With God on All Sides: How leaders should look at faith and lead diverse and devout communities,“ at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 6 at The Library of Virginia, 800 E. Broad St. in Richmond.

Manger-building project gives fathers tools to teach children about Christmas.