The Chinese government announced that it will encourage select Christian groups to distribute Bibles to athletes and visitors at the Olympics next year. The Christian groups will also be asked to act as volunteers to assist foreigners of the same religion while they are in China — this in a nation where smuggling in Bibles is still illegal.

The atheist government’s actions are in response to allegations by some foreign religious and human rights groups that said visitors would not be allowed to bring copies of the Bible or other religious items into the Olympic venue. The government said the only stipulation they set was that only one Bible be allowed per traveler.

Ye Xiaowen, head of China’s state administration for religious affairs, said China “respects and protects the religious freedom of all people.” He pointed to the Amity Foundation, an organization that has printed over 50 million Bibles, as proof that the government allows the distribution of religious texts. Amity Foundation will open the world’s largest Bible-printing factory in a few months.

An American who has worked with Christian ministries in China told WoW, “The whole thing in China is about control. … This way they can say they are meeting a need but still not allow Bibles to spread to the Chinese public.” She said since the Bibles will be given only to foreigners, the government is able to “save face” among religious groups while keeping Bibles out of the hands of their own people.

In regards to the Amity Foundation, she said they do print lots of Bibles and have increased the number of Bibles in the nation greatly, but the number per capita is still “quite low.” She also suspects the opening of the factory in the same year as the Olympics is a government publicity act as well.

USA Today reports that homeschoolers are helping propel Mike Huckabee’s campaign. Since Labor Day, Huckabee has climbed 20 percentage points in Iowa GOP polls, and the article says thousands of home-school activists could make a difference in the race.

FrontPage Magazine publishes an interview with Dave Gaubatz, who is supplying first-hand counter-terrorism intelligence with his Mapping Shari’a Project. The project identifies Islamic Centers in the U.S. and then does research to determine two things: which promote Shari’a law and which promote “violent Jihad and the destruction of the West.” Gaubatz is testing the hypothesis that Shari’a is the “driving doctrinal force” behind Jihad.

Humans are evolving faster, not staying the same, Science Daily says. Humans on different continents are becoming more different, not more alike: “We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity.”

The Chinese government is letting select Christian groups pass out Bibles at the Olympic Games. The allowance comes after human rights groups alleged that Olympic organizers were forbidding Bibles and other religious items. The organizers contended that they only said, “Each traveler is recommended to take no more than one Bible into China.”

Are gifted children “left behind” under U.S. educational law? Some experts argue that “No Child Left Behind” diverts resources from gifted children and focuses teachers’ attention on children who are on the verge of failure. Nancy Green, executive director of the National Association for Gifted Children, said “It’s all about bringing people up to that minimum level of performance.”

In Kansas, pro-lifers have convinced a grand jury to investigate a Planned Parenthood they say performs illegal late-term abortions, provides false information to state officials, fails to comply with parental notice requirements, and participates in illegal trafficking of fetal tissue.

Guatemalan lawmaker Roland Morales says, “Starting Dec. 31, the business of adoptions is over.” On Tuesday, Guatemalan legislators adopted a law that tightens adoption law but allows pending adoptions to proceed with the previous regulations. The law attempts to clean up a system that some say allows birth mothers to sell their children.