WASHINGTON - A federal advisory panel created to promote religious rights declared today that China should be denied permanent normal trade status until it makes ''substantial improvement'' in allowing its people the freedom to worship.

WASHINGTON - If China gains permanent normal trading status with the United States, it could come at a price for Beijing: closer scrutiny of its human rights record.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Two of the nation's largest Protestant churches have denounced the House vote for permanent, normalized trade status with China.

It was in 1976 - the "year of the evangelical," according to Newsweek - that conservative Christians burst upon the political landscape. Critics have been warning about the theocratic takeover of America ever since. Thus the plaintive cry of a Cabinet member in the Carter administration: "I am beginning to fear that we could have an Ayatollah Khomeini in this country, but that he will not have a beard ... he will have a television program."

WASHINGTON - A federal advisory panel on religious freedom overseas is hoping its findings of mass murder and rape of black Christians in Sudan will prompt the Bush administration to impose tougher sanctions on the East African nation.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has named Richard Land, a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, to a panel on religious liberty.