Douglas LeBlanc, of GetReligion, sees Ray Waddle’s four “Dueling Messiahs” (“Free-market Messiah,” “Peace-and-Justice Jesus,” “Silence of the Lamb (of God)” and “Redeemer Revisited”) and raises him a “Cool Older Brother” and “Live Long and Prosper Jesus”…

Foreign Minister of Iraq, Hoshyar Zebari, promises the Pope in a private meeting that Christians will be protected by the Iraqi government. The Catholic News Service also reports that a number of Iraqi Christian leaders have asked their congregations to forgo Christmas parties this year as both a recognition of ongoing suffering, and an act of solidarity with Iraqi Muslims who were unable to celebrate the end of Ramadan with customary feasts.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the A.C.L.U. have filed a lawsuitagainst the Dover, Pennsylvania School Board for its decision to introduce Intelligent Design curriculum to high school biology classes. The groups argue that the board violated the religious rights of parents and students by violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which forbids the government to show preference for one religion over another. Dover’s school board is the first to require an alternative theory to evolution, though a number of other districts are expected to follow suit. The Discovery Institute in Seattle, a major supporter of I.D. curriculum, has called the Dover policy flawed because its language is unclear.

In an alternate ending to Jesus’ life, the son of God escaped the Romans, fled across Asia, and settled in the mountains of Northern Japan, where he married, had kids, and died at the age of 106. The Independent’s David McNeill reports on local legend in the Japanese town of Shingo, that Jesus Christ was really a garlic farmer named Daitenku Taro Jurai…

The political season is over; long live the political season! With yard signs — “We Believe in God. Merry Christmas.” — and expensive church advertising campaigns directing the faithful to shop only in stores that say “Merry Christmas.” Rev. Patrick Wooden Sr., pastor of the Raleigh church that paid $7,600 for a full-page ad urging the “secular-shop” boycott, explained, “‘We’re not going to allow the country to continue this downward spiral to the left.'” The California Committee to Save Merry Christmas, which has organized a boycott of Macy’s and its parent company, cited November’s presidential election as proof that “‘political correctness is offending millions of Americans.'” And John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, said businesses and schools secularizing Christmas was the last straw for Christians. In response, the institute reissued its “12 Rules of Christmas” guide to properly celebrating Jesus’ birth, and maintaining the holy spirit “of, what, peace and freedom, and fun.” Not whatever it is secular people think of, when they think of Christmas.

Egyptian censors have recommended that the country’s government ban a biogaphy of the prophet, The Life of Mohammad, which was written in 1830 by a scholar named George Bush. No reason was given for the ban, but a number of newspaper articles have alluded to, or printed pictures of President George W. Bush, implying the author is the president’s ancestor.