DATE: Saturday, June 7, 1997                TAG: 9706070044

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E3   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   46 lines

NEWS AND NOTES

Middle East Television, a station in southern Lebanon owned by Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network, began broadcasting its programming Thursday on satellite over the Middle East.

A ``sign-on'' ceremony, broadcast live on CBN's ``The 700 Club,'' was held at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, where CBN president Michael Little threw a switch enabling MET to broadcast its family programming in English, Hebrew and Arabic to a potential audience of 200 million people in 15 nations, including Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt and Kuwait.

MET has been providing news, sports, family entertainment and religious programming from its station on the border of Israel since 1982.

CBN to host worship

through music seminar

The Christian Broadcasting Network will host a four-day conference June 15-18 designed to enhance the church worship experience through music.

Steve Fry, a recording artist, and Lindell Cooley, minister of music at Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Fla., will lead the program at The Founders Inn and Conference Center on the grounds of CBN in Virginia Beach.

The registration fee is $149 per person, with special group rates available. For more information or to register, call 1-800-677-8117.

Americans still

believe in higher power

Belief in God and an afterlife, as well as commitment to prayer and church attendance, have remained generally consistent in the United States over the past 50 years, says a new report by the Princeton Religion Research Center.

Today, 96 percent of Americans surveyed said they believe in God or a universal spirit. In 1947, 95 percent said they believed in a higher power.

Today, 71 percent believe in an afterlife; 73 percent did then. Ninety percent of Americans say they pray, the same as 50 years ago. And 41 percent attend church or synagogue ``once a week'' or ``almost every week,'' once again the same as in 1947.

Yet despite such apparent theological consistency, Americans have never been more enamored of Eastern philosophies, self-help faith strategies and alternative forms of spirituality, according to sociologists and religious leaders.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu