Last Sunday's removal of president Manuel Zelaya by the Honduran military has drawn strong criticism from the international community, uniting such disparate voices as Barack Obama and the United Nations with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. Yet evangelicals in Honduras tell CT that the majority of the Central American nation -- including its Protestants and Catholics -- are in favor of the removal of Zelaya, though not necessarily of the military method.

“It’s sad to see the OAS and the UN forcing Honduras to take back this president,” said Maria Elena Umana-Alvarez, a well-connected Honduran evangelical. “We feel that was has happened is a reply to the fervent prayers of so many Christians. For many of us, it’s not a coup, but the rescue of our country and our democracy.”

Below the jump is an analysis of the situation offered by ASJ, a Christian social justice organization in Honduras.

The events surrounding Zelaya have caused evangelical church leaders, traditionally apolitical, to make initial steps into the realm of political activism. The week before Sunday's ballot box showdown, leaders of the main Honduran evangelical associations, including Oswaldo Canales, Rene Pen’alva, Misael Argen’al, and Evelio Reyes, led peaceful demonstrations calling upon Zelaya to stop his efforts to change the Honduran constitution and focus on more-pressing domestic concerns, such as the aftermath of May's 7.3-magnitude earthquake. Evangelicals were involved with another large rally on Tuesday.

The 'coup' comes during the peak of the summer short-term missions season in Honduras, causing some missions groups and churches to either come home early or cancel planned trips.

Umana-Alvarez, who hosts a number of missions groups each summer, said caution this week is advisable amid the uncertainty of how nations such as Venezuela and Nicaragua will respond to Saturday's expected showdown between the OAS-backed returning Zelaya and the interim Honduran government that refuse to accept him back.

However, she said that canceling trips altogether this year would be an overreaction at the expense of Hondurans in need of the water projects and other works planned by missions groups.

Photo by Eleana Borjas Cuello.

Continue reading "Honduras coup was 'answer to prayer' for many evangelicals"

Posted by Jeremy Weber at  July 3, 2009 6:01PM | Comments (1)

Today, the Michigan-based ministry International Aid announced its decision to cease operations. The news release (posted today, but dated yesterday) reads as follows:

SPRING LAKE, Mich., July 1, 2009 – Spring Lake, Mich. - based International Aid (IA) said today it is ceasing operations effective immediately. Board Chair Roger Spoelman said the board voted this morning to shut down the agency.

“While this was a tough decision for all of us who believe in the mission of the organization, we simply do not have the resources to continue even another day,” said Spoelman. IA acting CEO Dr. Gordon D. Loux informed the agency’s 40 U.S. employees this afternoon. The shutdown also immediately affects 32 employees in Honduras and the Philippines.

Founded in 1980, International Aid provided health care services, technology, training and supplies to the poor in developing countries around the globe in addition to emergency aid for those affected by natural disasters.

Loux said the agency will continue shipments of medical equipment and supplies. He said he will be working with vendors and creditors affected by today’s shut down as well as notifying the agency’s corporate and other partners.

Posted by David Neff at  July 2, 2009 1:32PM | Comments (0)

JUNE 30 UPDATE:
The Bully! Pulpit, a pop culture news blog, reports that rumors that Michael Jackson accepted Christ may have been false. Jackson, who died of cardiac arrest last week at the age of 50, was rumored by some to have become a Christian just weeks before his death.

Gospel singer Andrae Crouch and his twin sister, singer and minister, Sandra, apparently visited Jackson recently at the pop star's request, and they did pray together. But exactly what they prayed depends on whom you ask.

Last Friday, gospel duo Mary Mary blogged on their Facebook page that Jackson "prayed with Sandra and Andre and accepted Christ into his heart. Now he's singing in the heavenly choir! Our hearts rejoice!"

But the Bully! Pulpit reported that that wasn't the full story, or even fully accurate.

Continue reading "Was Michael Jackson a Christian?"

Posted by Mark Moring at  June 29, 2009 6:43PM | Comments (24)

Nearly nine months after it hit the road, Zondervan's hand-written Bible Across America came home Wednesday bearing Scripture verses inscribed by 31,173 people.

Among them: a little girl who guided her blind sister's hand; a father who flew from Baltimore to Los Angeles to write in it with his son; and Antoinette and Jim Barry, a couple from Palos Heights, Ill., where church leaders 44 years ago conceived of the New International Version Bible.

The Barrys' daughter, Maureen "Moe" Girkins, is president of Zondervan, the mega Christian publishing house. Last year, she inscribed the first verse ("In the beginning ...") from Genesis 1:1, and on Wednesday penned the final verse from Revelation 22:21: "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen."

"It was just really impactful to them to know their daughter was involved in something like this, and they got to participate," Girkins said afterward, wiping away tears.

It was one of many powerful moments along the Bible's 22,000-mile journey to mark the 30th anniversary of the NIV, the most popular modern-English Bible translation.

Continue reading "The Gospel According to 31,173 Americans"

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at  June 25, 2009 1:47PM | Comments (1)

The New York Times reports today that Rick Warren's quarterly magazine Purpose Driven Connection, published by Reader's Digest Association and Warren's Saddleback Church, is "the project that signals Reader’s Digest’s future."

“That is the model going forward,” RDA president and CEO Mary Berner tells the paper. Reader's Digest itself will likely have more "spiritual content," and the company may spin off other titles focused on religious leaders.

“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care what the religion is, what the spirituality is, as long as it’s legitimate, there’s a built-in community and it’s global,” Berner told the paper. “We don’t choose our partners to change the world, we choose them because we’re running a business. I guess it sounds cynical if you believe that to run a business to make money is cynical. But that’s what I’m paid to do.”

Times reporter Stephanie Clifford seems skeptical, especially in this paragraph:

“[RDA's titles] are brands that may not be considered cool by the often elitist and self-absorbed standards of New York media,” [Berner] said. She had taken a car from Manhattan that morning, and wore a pink wool shirt-dress, patent leather Manolo Blahnik heels, and diamond hoop earrings.

Update: Never mind?

Posted by Ted Olsen at  June 19, 2009 2:22PM | Comments (2)

In a groundbreaking case, a Paris court will decide for the first time whether to dissolve the Church of Scientology in France, which is facing charges of organized fraud.

The demand was made by French prosecutors on Monday (June 15) as they wrapped up their case against the church's Paris headquarters and bookshop. If found guilty, the institutions may also face a nearly $6 million fine.

Six members of the church are also on trial, and may also face heavy fines along with prison sentences if convicted.

The plaintiffs, two former Scientologists, claim the church conned them into spending tens of thousands of dollars in bogus products in the 1990s, including an "electrometer" that the church says can measure energy levels.

But the church, which claims a membership of 45,000 in France, rejects the accusations and claims it is being persecuted.

The plaintiffs, are "apostates who ... want to criticize their ex-religion," Fabio Amicarelli, a European Scientology representative, told French media recently.

While the charges pose the most serious challenge to the French church to date, they are only the latest clash in a nearly two-decade long battle against Scientology. Several fraud cases have already been judged and several members convicted of embezzlement in France, where Scientology is viewed with deep suspicion.

In one case, the head of the church's Lyons chapter was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1996 for his role in a member's suicide.

Founded in 1954 by late American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the church is considered a religion in the United States with adherents that include Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

The French government, however, lists Scientology as a sect, reflecting an official intolerance of unorthodox religions. Indeed, the government even has an official sect watchdog body -- known as MIVILUDES, the Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combatting Cultic Deviances.

A government report published in May said the number of religious sects had tripled in France over the past 15 years to at least 600 different movements.

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Christianity Today's coverage of Scientology, including a brief explainer of why Christians object to it, dates back to 1969.

Posted by Ted Olsen at  June 19, 2009 2:01PM | Comments (5)

PBS officials voted June 16 to not allow new religious programming at member stations, but allowed select PBS stations to continue broadcasting their current faith-based line-ups.

The PBS Board of Directors took the action Tuesday after concerns were raised that religious programming could violate the organization's nonsectarian status.

The board unanimously elected to grandfather in the handful of existing shows that are directly religious in nature; the ruling does not affect news shows or documentaries.

"The board has basically voted to insure that the religious programming that stations currently provide and that communities have come to rely on are able to stay on air," said PBS spokesperson Jan McNamara.

Only six of over 350 member stations broadcast religious programming, according to McNamara. At stake for at least three of the stations were long-running Sunday Masses, broadcast mostly to the elderly.

Continue reading "PBS Puts Limits on Religious Programming"

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at  June 18, 2009 12:03PM | Comments (4)

The Rev. John Stek considered Bible translation a never-ending work, once noting, "Even the most durable words take on different nuances as culture changes."

Stek attended diligently to those nuances, serving for nearly 45 years on the translation committee for the New International Version -- the most popular modern English-language Bible.

Stek died June 6 following a lengthy illness. He was 84.

His work on the NIV and a related study Bible was widely respected, said the Rev. James De Jong, retired president of Calvin Theological Seminary.

"John was an acknowledged leader among evangelical Bible translators," De Jong said. "He stood head and shoulders above just about everyone else in that crowd."

Stek also was an "unusually careful and precise theologian" as a professor of Old Testament at Calvin Seminary, where he taught for 30 years, said De Jong, a former student.

Continue reading "NIV Translator John Stek Dies at 84"

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at  June 12, 2009 10:06AM | Comments (1)

A few weeks ago, I received a screener copy of Defamation, a documentary about anti-Semitism that was planned for theatrical release in the U.S. in the fall. The film, by Israeli director Yoav Shamir, looked at Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League in the states, and at educational trips for Israeli high-school students to the death camp at Auschwitz in Poland.

Using the confrontational techniques associated with Michael Moore (Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, etc.), Shamir leads the viewer to conclude that while there may be occasional expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment at the street level, anti-Semitism is no longer a serious threat to Jewish well-being in the U.S. or Poland. It seems that Shamir also wants viewers to believe that the educational system in Israel and the ADL in America has a vested interest in maintaining a kind of anti-Semitism industry. These organizations need to work hard to keep the specter of anti-Semitism alive in order to justify their existence.

Yesterday’s fatal shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum seriously undermines the basic thrust of the film.

Continue reading "Holocaust Memorial Shooting Punctures Provocative Film"

Posted by David Neff at  June 11, 2009 11:43AM | Comments (12)

Religious stereotyping was at play at a recent video-game trade show where a game company hired 13 people to protest the upcoming game "Dante's Inferno."

A group of protesters claiming to come from a church held signs such as "Hell is not a Video Game" and "Trade in Your PlayStation for a PrayStation" in front of the nation's biggest video-game trade show last week. They pretended to fight Electronic Arts' new game "Dante's Inferno," loosely based on the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Ben Fritz from the Los Angeles Times originally offered this report:

The protesters, who came from a church in Ventura County, held signs with slogans such as "trade in your playstation for a praystation" and "EA = anti-Christ" as they marched and handed out a homemade brochure that warns, "a video game hero does not have the authority to save and damn... ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE. and he will not judge the sinners who play this game kindly."

Matthew Francis, one of the protesters, said he and his fellow church members were particularly upset that Dante's Inferno features a character who fights his way out of Hell and uses a cross as a weapon against demons.

The Associated Press clears it up by talking to a spokeswoman, who said the stunt was arranged by a viral marketing agency hired by EA.

Granted, it doesn't look like a kid's game. But lest you think Christians shun Dante, check out this Christian History issue.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at  June 8, 2009 4:13PM | Comments (0)

Some headlines are just made for comments threads, even if you feel a little bad about poking fun at a guy's name.

From Catholic News Agency: Bishop George Lucas appointed to Archdiocese of Omaha

"He'd better not take the Yub Yub song out of Revelation."

"I don't care what the archbishop says. Goliath did not shoot first!"

"All excommunications over the creation of Howard the Duck are hereby withdrawn."

"The good news: The archdiocese will no longer collect offerings. The bad news: It's retaining all merchandising rights."

Sorry, archbishop.

Posted by Ted Olsen at  June 3, 2009 3:23PM | Comments (3)

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed the Option of Adoption Act on May 5, making Georgia the first state with an embryo adoption law.

As the new law recognizes the potential of embryos, it is a celebration for pro-life supporters.

Embryo adoptions have existed at least since the 1980s.

When couples undergo in vitro fertilization, multiple embryos are typically created. People who decide not to use all the embryos are given choices:

Keep the embryos frozen until a future time.
Destroy them.
Donate them for medical purposes – such as stem cell research.
Release them for adoption.

In embryo adoptions, embryos are implanted in women so they are allowed to physically give birth to their own adopted child. The problem? This terminology is rather sensitive.

As Reginald Finger explains in Embryo Adoption – A Life-Affirming Parenthood Choice">his article:

“Some medical infertility specialists are uncomfortable saying 'adoption' in this context because children are adopted, and if the embryo comes to be viewed as a child in the eyes of the law, couples might lose the choice of discarding the embryos or donating them to research.

Infertility practices might also come under stricter regulation. Pro-choice activists dislike the term for similar reasons. Legal scholars point out that at least in the U.S., statutes define adoption as the placement of a child after birth. Thus, they reason, use of the term might mislead couples as to what has actually occurred in the eyes of the law when an embryo is transferred.”

Continue reading "A Prolife Victory with Georgia's New Human Embryo Law"

Posted by Tim Morgan at  June 1, 2009 5:10PM | Comments (4)

Many mainline Protestant churches still struggle to fill the pews, as evidenced by a multi-million dollar advertising campaign from the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

People drop away from church attendance. Young people are not interested.

So how can church improve? What can the church do for you? Or maybe it’s not the church’s problem.

Actually, it may be our own fault.

Continue reading "Thou Shalt Not Twitter in Church. Should that be the 11th Commandment?"

Posted by Tim Morgan at  May 29, 2009 11:30AM | Comments (9)

Veteran missiologist Ralph D. Winter passed away.last Wednesday, May 20. (Hat tips to @jhgrantjr and @edstetzer for alerting us via Twitter.)

According to the US Center for World Mission website, Winter died peacefully at home in Pasadena, California, "surrounded by three of his four daughters, his wife Barb, and a few friends."

Winter had been battling cancer and had been weakened by radiation treatments. He was 84.

In 2005, Winter was named by Time magazine as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals. His speech at the 1974 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization is credited with focusing evangelical mission activity on "unreached people groups."

Continue reading "Missiologist Ralph D. Winter (1925-2009)"

Posted by David Neff at  May 23, 2009 6:49AM | Comments (4)

Last Tuesday, the Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka announced the end of a 26-year struggle with the rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Tamil Tiger leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, two of his key associates had been killed, and the formal conflict was now over.

Every war, however, has an aftermath. And in the case of Sri Lanka, that will involve the resettlement of some 280,000 refugees. According to a report in today’s New York Times, aid groups are encountering government resistance as they attempt to bring relief to the refugee camps.

What will be the challenge for Sri Lankan Christians? What special role can they play? At about 7 percent of the Sri Lankan population, Christians are a small minority compared to the majority Sinhalese Buddhists (about 70 percent of the population) and the high-profile Tamil Hindu minority (about 15 percent). The Protestant evangelical component is quite small, but dedicated to service.

We’ve received some initial comments through friends at John Stott Ministries, which sponsors graduate educations for promising majority world scholars. One of their alums, who wishes not to be identified for security reasons, writes that there are

many years of work … to be done to reconstruct and rehabilitate people involved in the conflict. Thousands of Tamil people have to be resettled in their homes who got caught in the conflict. Most of these … are peasant people. I am told many areas of the North have been landmined and all that … has to be cleared before civilians can move back in to their homes and farms.

The government’s big task now is to create harmony and unity between the Sinhala and Tamil people. The war first started because the Tamil people felt discriminated against by successive Sinhala governments. This problem has gone on for the past 50 years. The Tamil, people especially in the north and east, must feel they are part of the nation. There are many thousands of Tamil-speaking people living among Sinhala people in the south. Many fled south due to the war. Thousands have also left the country.

The Christian church was the only place where Sinhala and Tamil people and in fact all ethnic groups, could safely gather each week. It was a place of unity, love, and understanding. The church could engage in rehab work in the post war period. I believe Hospital Christian Fellowship is already up in the North assessing how they could help.

How can we pray for Sri Lanka? Our John Stott Ministries correspondent suggests that we pray

1. for the ongoing rehab. efforts


2. for open doors to go and meet the civilian refugee population and counsel and care for them. They are presently housed in tents. Many families have lost their loved ones, parents are missing children and can’t find them among the many thousands of displaced people. Some 30 elderly people have died due to starvation it was reported.


3. for the many Christians among the civilian refugee population. Worship and prayer services could be held for them to comfort and encourage them in their predicament.

Posted by David Neff at  May 22, 2009 12:13PM | Comments (4)

Yesterday Norwegian scientists unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossil they are touting as a crucial link in the “stem group” from which humans and other mammals came. Jorn Hurum, whose Oslo museum purchased “Ida” in 2007 from a private collector who unearthed it in 1983, has been quick to label the well-preserved, cat-like fossil the “missing link” between mammals and humans, calling it the “Holy Grail” and the “Lost Ark” of science. Following yesterday’s media frenzy, a book on Darwinius masillae is releasing today, and a two-hour History Channel special is airing May 25.

What many media are ignoring, save the Associated Press, is that other paleontologists are skeptical of Ida’s close link to humans. “We are not dealing with our grand- grand- grand- grandmother but perhaps our grand- grand- grand- aunt,” German researcher Jens Franzen said yesterday.

“I actually don't think it's terribly close to the common ancestral line of monkeys, apes and people," said K. Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. “I would say it's about as far away as you can get from that line and still be a primate. . . . I would say it's more like a third cousin twice removed.”

Continue reading "Fossil Ida Touted as Evolution's 'Missing Link'"

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at  May 20, 2009 10:57AM | Comments (44)

Manoj Pradhan, in jail for leading riots against Christians last year in Orissa, seems to have won a seat in the state assembly in India's general elections.

But overall, India's Christians have reason to be happy with the election. Dara Singh, who was convicted of leading Graham Staines' murder, was not permitted to run.

More importantly, most of the election results showed a distaste for right-wing Hinduism and support of the non-religious Congress Party. The BJP, a Hindu nationalist party, was defeated quite solidly. The Washington Post reports that they are re-evaluating their support of candidates who support anti-Christian and anti-Muslim violence.

Manmohan Singh, the incumbent, is set for a second term as prime minister. The New York Times reports that India's stock market surged after the announcement the Congress party won 205 of 543 seats in Parliament. A near-majority means the party no longer has to "rely on India's Communist parties to stay in power." Those Communist parties won about 80 seats, and the BJP, 159.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at  May 18, 2009 3:18PM | Comments (4)

Last week, evangelical creation care entered a new phase as key pastors, scientists, and thought leaders gathered near Atlanta for a "coming out party." That's what Jonathan Merritt called the gathering as he welcomed conferees to Flourish 09, hosted by Cross Pointe Church where Merritt serves on the staff with his father, senior pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention James Merritt.

Like all debutantes, the leaders of Flourish were clearly self-conscious as they tried to forge a new identity in public for the first time. Flourish president and co-founder Rusty Pritchard was the first of many to declare, "I am not an environmentalist." For Pritchard, a natural resources economist who founded the environmental studies program at Emory University, that label is loaded with overtones of judgmentalism and apocalypticism. We don't need environmentalism for us to be perceived as judgmental, said Pritchard. If you want judgmentalism, "just come to my church."

What emerged from Pritchard's keynote talk was not a passion for the environment so much as a passion for people, their health and well-being, and particularly for social justice. If our abuse of the environment raises, for example, the rate of debilitating asthma attacks, then it is a compassion issue for the church.

Continue reading "Creation Care without the Baggage"

Posted by David Neff at  May 17, 2009 6:41PM | Comments (9)

Columnist Michael Gerson says our verbal nastiness is nothing to laugh at.

The first response to the performer on a public stage wishing the death of a stranger for political reasons was discomfort. Wanda Sykes had "crossed a line" at the White House Correspondents Dinner in accusing Rush Limbaugh of terrorism and treason, mocking his past drug addiction and wishing his kidneys would fail. But a counterreaction soon developed: Humor is often transgressive, and if you can't take it, don't dish it, and let's everyone lighten up a bit, and can't anyone take a joke anymore?

The initial reaction was more human.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at  May 15, 2009 2:57PM | Comments (9)

Apple rejected an iPhone application that would allow people to put their own image on Jesus' face. The Me So Holy app would enable someone to take a mug shot and crop it to replace Jesus' face. Apple said no to the app, saying it "contains objectionable material," according to Wired.

"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users," the iPhone SDK agreement states.

Apple may be tightening its restrictions on its iPhone App Store after it approved an iPhone app called Baby Shaker, a game whose objective was to shake a baby to death. Amid parental outrage, Apple subsequently removed the app, saying its approval was a mistake.

Me So Holy iPhone App from Benjamin Margolis on Vimeo.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at  May 12, 2009 9:53AM | Comments (3)