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SPRINGMAID BEACH, S.C. (UMNS)-The United Methodist Church “must face an inconvenient truth” to reverse its 40-year decline in U.S. membership, worship attendance and church school attendance, its bishops agree.

“There are many roles to be played in facing the truth of our church in the United States,” said Iowa Bishop Gregory Palmer, chairman of the internal Council of Bishops Episcopacy Study Task Force.

In a May 3 task force report to the denomination’s Council of Bishops, Palmer told colleagues that retooling its leadership processes for lay members, clergy and bishops “is essential to reversing this decline.”

Since 1964, United Methodist membership in the United States has decreased 27 percent, despite the nation’s population growth by 54 percent. The percentage of youth members declined from one in seven in 1964 to one in 21 in 2005. Also in 2005, approximately 41 percent of its U.S. churches received no members on profession of faith.

The bishops are responding – beginning with themselves – by looking internally and asking “what is the role of episcopal leadership in making disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?”

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FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — Several female students at Framingham State College are accused of stealing about one-thousand copies of the student newspaper, apparently because they thought they looked fat in a front page picture.

A school official says the women face possible disciplinary action.

The color photo in “The Gatepost” shows seven female students at a women’s lacrosse game wearing tank tops and shorts with the name of a player spelled out on their bare bellies.

Soon after the paper was distributed around campus, about half its two-thousand-copy press run disappeared.

Desmond McCarthy, an English professor and the paper’s faculty adviser, says he was told by other students that the women in the photo thought they looked fat.

And my favorite part …

McCarthy says editions of the newspaper have been swiped a few times in past years, but this — in his words — “is the most stupid reason the paper has been stolen.”

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It was a warm Saturday night in New York City as a mixed crowd of atheists and Christians converged on Calvary Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan for the first “Nightline Face-Off.” And it wasn’t long before temperatures began to rise inside the auditorium.

The question for our debate was “Does God Exist?” and both sides went at the issue with a series of passionate declarations and critical attacks on the arguments of their opponents. It was a clean but unflinching contest.

Former child star Kirk Cameron and his evangelist colleague Ray Comfort had pledged to prove the existence of God, scientifically.

Cameron opened the debate by addressing the crowd:

Hi, I’m Kirk Cameron and my partner and I Ray Comfort come to you tonight not as molecular biologists or rocket scientists, but simply as an author and an actor, and we want to do two things that fly in the face of convention. One, we’d like to show you that the existence of God can be proven, 100 percent, absolutely, without the use of faith. And secondly, as a former atheist myself — an evolutionist — I want to pull back the curtain and show that the number one reason that people don’t believe in God is not a lack in evidence, but because of a theory that many scientists today believe to be a fairytale for grownups.

You can watch the debate Thursday, May 10 at 1 p.m. on ABCNews.com and 2 p.m. on ABC News Now.

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Kool-Aid pickles violate tradition, maybe even propriety. Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated.

The pickles have been spotted as far afield as Dallas and St. Louis, but their cult is thickest in the Delta region, among the black majority population. In the Delta, where they fetch between 50 cents and a dollar, Kool-Aid pickles have earned valued space next to such beloved snacks as pickled eggs and pigs’ feet at community fairs, convenience stores and filling stations. And as their appeal has widened, some people have seen a good business opportunity.

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