1. The rediscovery of the Gospel of Judas, which excited the media and infuriated everyone else- the Orthodoxy, who couldn't understand how anyone could get worked up over a gospel written hundreds of years after the death of Jesus, and the Gnostics, who couldn't understand why dozens of earlier, more important texts were ignored. The public ate it up, however, pushing several Judas-related books into the bestseller lists. Even the Church was heard publicly discussing the rehabilitation of Judas.

2. The Da Vinci Code and its attendant controversies continued to reign, and put the Church(es) into a tailspin. Record tourism, rioting, and a flourishing "anti-DVC" cottage industry continued. As of Dec., 2006, 40% of Americans polled said they believed the early Church covered up details of Jesus' life. Interest in Gnosticism, Mystical Christianity, the Knights Templar, and the Holy Grail is way up.

3. Tom Cruise and Scientology. Sometimes, 'coming out' as a member of a minority sect is a gamble. While proselytising for the Kabbalah Center didn't put any dents in Madonna's career, actor Tom Cruise nearly torpedoed his own with his repeated, not so subtle promotion of his Scientology beliefs, especially his repeated criticisms of Psychiatric medicine and the use of anti-depressants.

4. Pagans fighting for their rights. Until this year, everyone may have had a Wiccan friend, but pagan rights weren't exactly a spotlight issue- but the case of fallen Air Force Sargeant Patrick Stewart brought inequities to the forefront. Stewart, whose helicopter was shot down over Afghanistan, was by any reckoning a war hero- but his memorial plaque remained blank for over a year because the Dept. of Veteran's Affairs refused to approve a Wiccan Symbol for memorial plaques. Sargeant Stewart eventually received his symbol from the State of Nevada, but the VA continues to stonewall other grieving families. Meanwhile, one can list all manner of faiths on a military tomb, from Buddhism to atheism to Eckankar, but the Wiccan pentacle is still verboten.

5. Satanic Panic redux. In the late eighties/early nineties, Satanic Panics were in full swing. One breathless evangelical after another published stories of heart-rending, tragic abuse at the hands of "multi-generational" Satanic covens who had infiltrated every level of society- schools, police agencies, daycares. The stories ignited paranoia across the country and even across the ocean. that the stories made little sense and couldn't be fact-checked didn't matter, and in the aftermath, dozens of innocents were imprisoned, children taken from loving families, and worse. This year saw not only birds coming home to roost in the form of lawsuits and recriminations, but new pockets of hysteria, most notable the case of Father Gerald Robinson, tried and convicted for the decades-old murder of a nun in his own parish. The conviction, won on the flimsiest of evidence, was prosecuted only after bizarre accusations of Satanic ritual abuse, and featured the same sort of skewed "expert" testimony that sent many innocents to prison in the nineties.