Charisma Magazine

Evangelist Ray Comfort and actor Kirk Cameron joined 1,200 Christians Wednesday in distributing 170,000 copies of Charles Darwin's evolution manifesto The Origin of Species—which features a 50-page introduction refuting Darwin's theory—at 100 universities across the nation.

Comfort initially planned to distribute copies of The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition at college campuses today, but atheists and students had threatened "unilateral resistance," including book burnings and protests, according to Comfort's Living Waters ministry.

The popular Twilight series, which has spawned a film franchise that releases its second installment, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Friday, is getting mixed reactions from Christians who alternately see it as a doorway into Satanism or a tool for evangelism.

Since 2005, Mormon author Stephenie Meyer's four novels about a vampire named Edward Cullen who hunts game rather than humans and falls in love with teenager Bella Swan have sold more than 70 million copies. The film adaptation of the first book, Twilight, generated $384 million.

Two sisters jailed in Iran for more than eight months after refusing to renounce their Christian faith were released Wednesday.

Maryam Rustampoor, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, were arrested March 5 on charges of "acting against state security" and "taking part in illegal gatherings."

Judges and prosecutors in the trial regarding the murder of three Christians in Malatya, Turkey, on Friday renewed their request for help from the Istanbul High Criminal Court as reports mounted linking the slayings to top gendarmerie officials.

The Malatya court judges overseeing hearings on the murders of Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske requested that the Istanbul criminal court establish whether the case was linked to the controversial cabal of military, political and other influential figures, Ergenekon, which has allegedly been trying to overthrow the government by upsetting Turkey's peace.

(Photo: Christians Necati Aydin, Tilmann Geske and Ugur Yuksel were murdered in Turkey in 2007.)

The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics today rejected a petition for a citizens' initiative seeking to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The Stand4MarriageDC Coalition in September filed the Marriage Initiative of 2009, which would have allowed traditional marriage supporters to gather signatures to get an initiative on the district ballot.