Why are there fewer refugees settling in Sacramento County? The Bee has an answer:

Religious persecution of Christian evangelicals – Sacramento's largest refugee group – has almost disappeared since the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union in 1989-91, experts say.

Actually, what the expert (a singular Slavic radio show host) said was that religious freedom has improved in some parts of the former Soviet Union, which was a major source of refugees for the Sacramento area in the late 20th century.

"Ukraine now has as much freedom of expression as the U.S.," Michael Lokteff told the paper. "But in Central Asian republics and parts of Russia, there's still some persecution."

To extrapolate that and say that the era of Christian persecution is over is absurd in the extreme.

If you're really wondering what's happening with changes in refugee settlement and ministry to refugees, we've got you covered.

And by the way, according to our July issue article on refugee settlement, 2009 is set to see the highest number of refugee arrivals since 2001.

Posted by Ted Olsen at August 5, 2009 | Comments (2)

A mob in Pakistan went on a murderous rampage after a rumors spread that the Qur'an had been desecrated.

That was late last week. And again today.

Residents of Sheikhupura “attacked a factory and allegedly resorted to firing when words spread that one of its employees tore up a calendar inscribed with verses from the Quran,” Press Trust of India reported today. (PTI says the fighting may have actually been sparked by a salary dispute.)

The incident comes as international attention continues to focus on weekend violence that left between 7 and 14 Christians dead, again the result of a violent mob outraged at rumors of Qur'an desecration.

Officials today said police have questioned over 200 people over the Gojra violence. Police have arrested about 100 people so far, including members of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a banned Sunni militant group. and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an al Qaeda-affiliated group that broke away from Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.

There seems to be a growing consensus among observers that the attacks were not a spontaneous outburst, but were planned.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which is not affiliated with the Pakistan government, said mosques in Gojra had urged local Muslims to gather and “make mincemeat of the Christians.” Police had been informed about the mosque announcements, but reportedly did nothing to stop the violence, the group said, according to summaries from Pakistan Christian Post and the Associated Press.

Punjab province Law Minister Rana Sanaullah also told the Associated Press that there was evidence that the attacks were premeditated, such as the many masks worn by the attackers to avoid identification.

At GetReligion, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway notes that no media coverage has included the perspective of Muslims who were involved in the violence. “If there were 20,000 people involved, surely we can talk to a few of them, no?” she asks.

Global Voices, meanwhile, compiles Pakistani condemnation of the attacks.

Posted by Ted Olsen at August 4, 2009 | Comments (0)

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its lists of countries that egregiously violate religious freedom and those that it's keeping an eye on. The situation in these countries is not just bad; it must show "intent and a pattern of recurrent affirmative acts of abuse on the part of the government."

The annual report, released today, is put together by a bi-partisan group who send their recommendations to the State Department. Theoretically, this could lead to sanctions if the State Department declares them Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs). However, Condoleeza Rice signed off on the official list of CPC's in January - two years late.

USCIRF named 13 countries this year. Since 2008's list, they have added Nigeria (slightly surprising) and Iraq:

? Burma is on the list primarily for its crackdown on monks, although the government also persecutes ethnic Christians and Muslims. "In addition, a new law passed in early 2009 essentially bans independent religious activity in house churches."
? In the Democratic People?s Republic of Korea (North Korea), the National Security Agency runs all legal houses of worship. "Anyone discovered engaging in clandestine religious practice faces official discrimination, arrest imprisonment, and possibly execution."
? Eritrea's religious prisoners often die of "ill treatment, denial of medical care, or torture." Their ban on public religious activity extends to social gatherings in private homes.
? In Iran, "official rhetoric and government policy resulted in a deterioration in conditions for nearly all non-Shi?a religious groups, most notably for Baha?is, as well as Sufi Muslims, Evangelical Christians, and members of the Jewish community."
? Iraqi religious minorities, particularly Christian groups, are subject to targeted violence and other campaigns to get them to move away.
? Nigeria made the list for the communal religious violence that made the news in late 2008 - and the lack of an effective response from the government.
? Pakistan, like Nigeria, tolerates religious violence. It also has anti-blasphemy laws with harsh punishments.
? People?s Republic of China has shown some deterioration in an already bad situation. USCIRF draws attention to their persecution of Uighur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists.
? Saudi Arabia has made some limited reforms, but it continues to be intolerant of all but a narrow form of Islam, and to promote extremism.
? The Islamist government of Sudan supports attacks on its own people, especially the Christians and animists in the country's south.
? Turkmenistan, two years after the death of their dictator, Turkmenbashi, hasn't seen enough reforms to get off the CPC list. Churches are raided, and students are forced to have an education based on Turkmenbashi's spirituality book/autobiography, Ruhnama.
? Uzbekistan's government tries to maintain tight control over religious activity. Most of the victims are Muslims it claims are extremists. Several thousand Muslims are in custody without fair trials in sight.
? USCIRF says that while Vietnam made some improvements in response to being designated a CPC, Protestants and some others haven't been given adequate freedoms.

Currently, eight of those countries (all but Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam) are on the State Department's list of CPCs.

While Christians are persecuted in nearly all these countries (none is majority-Christian, although Nigeria is close), many of them are Muslim countries that persecute Muslims of minority sects.

USCIRF's watch list - a sort of runner's up of offending countries - shows evidence of degenerating rights in NATO nation Turkey and Russia. The commission removed Bangladesh and added Laos, Somalia, Tajikistan, and Venezuela since last year.
? Afghanistan
? Belarus
? Cuba
? Egypt
? Indonesia
? Laos
? Russia
? Somalia
? Tajikistan
? Turkey
? Venezuela

The 274-page report also criticizes the implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, addresses "efforts of some member states at the United Nations to limit free speech and freedom of religion by banning the so-called ?defamation of religions," and comments on the U.S. system of dealing with asylum seekers.

Thomas Farr spoke with CT recently about why America's international religious freedom policy needs reform.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at May 1, 2009 | Comments (4)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled yesterday that a California law school could lawfully bar the school's Christian Legal Society from being recognized as a student group for requiring its members to sign a statement of faith. The ruling could set a precedent for the way Christian organizations can or cannot retain their distinct religious beliefs at public colleges with nondiscrimination policies.

The CLS chapter at the University of California's Hastings College of Law filed a lawsuit in fall 2004 against the college for denying it status as a registered student organization. According to CLS's brief, it was denied official recognition for requiring members to sign a statement of faith, which, among other things, prohibits homosexual conduct. Hastings officials had said CLS's standards violated the school's nondiscrimination policy, which says all student groups "shall not discriminate unlawfully on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation."

CLS's lawsuit claimed that Hastings was practicing viewpoint discrimination and violating CLS's right to expressive association. It claimed that Hastings was applying its policy inconsistently. CLS's brief, page 14?18:

Hastings allows other registered student organizations to require that their leaders and/or members agree with the organization's beliefs and purposes. . . . Outlaw [a pro-gay rights group] is free to remove officers if they fail to support the organization's pro-gay rights purpose; Silenced Right: National Alliance Pro-Life Group may require its members to support its pro-life purposes; . . . Hastings' nondiscrimination policy is viewpoint discriminatory, as it allows a vegetarian club to require that officers and members not eat meat, but prohibits an Orthodox Jewish group for requiring its officers and members to abstain from pork for religious reasons.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals did not interpret Hastings's nondiscrimination policy that way, however. Its two-sentence ruling from yesterday:

The parties stipulate that Hastings imposes an open membership rule on all student groups - all groups must accept all comers as voting members even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group. The conditions on recognition are therefore viewpoint neutral and reasonable.

CLA has not posted a response to its website yet. It is facing similar fights at other colleges, including the University of Iowa, where more than 100 faculty and staff have signed a petition calling for the school to stop funding its CLA chapter. CLA won similar cases in summer 2005 against Arizona State University and Southern Illinois University.

Inside Higher Ed and The San Francisco Chronicle covered the Hastings story.

Listen to the oral arguments here, and check CT's website later for deeper analysis of this case's implications for religious organizations on public college campuses.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at March 18, 2009 | Comments (1)

President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez (right) has proven himself to be no friend of Christians. But it seems the climate for religious freedom is taking a significant turn for the worse. Recently, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom put a spotlight on government-sponsored anti-Semitism.

The Commission sent letters earlier this month to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon Jr. and to U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief Asma Jahangir expressing concern about increasing incidents of anti-Semitism in Venezuela, including the attack on the Tiferet Israel synagogue in Caracas. The Commission is assessing the situation and ways in which the United States can respond to protect religious freedom in Venezuela.

"Over the past several years, the Jewish community has suffered as President Chavez and government-affiliated media publicly made anti-Semitic remarks and published anti-Semitic cartoons and opinions," wrote Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer to Shannon. "Last August (2008), President Chavez said he would work with Brazilian President Lula and Argentina President Cristina Kirchner to end anti-Semitism in Latin America. We urge the State Department to undertake efforts to ensure that President Chavez keeps his promise, and ceases fomenting anti-Semitism in Venezuela."

The letter to Assistant Secretary Shannon calls on the U.S. government to work with countries that may have influence with the Venezuelan government to press the Chavez administration to prohibit the use of anti-Semitism in officially-related media and fully investigate all reported incidents of anti-Semitism in order to bring perpetrators to justice.

In recent years, Chavez has taken an aggressive stance toward missionary activity in tribal areas by Christians. The US State Department reported:

In October 2005 President Chavez accused missionaries from the U.S.-based religious group New Tribes Mission (NTM) of contaminating the cultures of indigenous populations as well as carrying out illicit activities with the group's small aircraft. The Ministry of Interior subsequently rescinded the group's permission, granted in 1953, to conduct its social programs among indigenous tribes. The NTM appealed the order to the Supreme Court, which denied an injunction but admitted the case, which remained pending at the end of the period covered by this report. More than 100 NTM missionaries withdrew from the indigenous areas in compliance with the Government's order, abandoning properties held for decades. The Government reportedly seized some of these properties, without compensation, for its own social programs. Other foreign missionary groups working in the indigenous areas departed voluntarily after government officials warned that all such missionary activity would be stopped. Despite being duly registered religious and civil society groups, at the end of the period covered by this report foreign missionary groups were prohibited from entering indigenous areas.

Last I heard, New Tribes was proceeding with a court appeal.

There is no Easy Button of influence on Chavez. If you are in Venezuela and have an update on the situation for religious freedom, email me here.

Posted by Tim Morgan at February 23, 2009 | Comments (11)

Rainn Wilson, the actor who plays the hilarious Dwight Schrute on The Office, gets serious in an op-ed on CNN.com on religious freedom in Iran.

"Dear readers of CNN, I assure you that what I'm writing about is no joking matter or some hoax perpetrated by a paper-sellin', bear-fearin', Battlestar Galactica-obsessed beet farmer," writes Wilson, who is a member of the Baha'i faith.

Why write about all this now? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see there's a ?trial' going on very soon for seven Baha'i national leaders in Iran.

They've been accused of all manner of things including being "spies for Israel," "insulting religious sanctities" and "propaganda against the Islamic Republic."

... It's bad right now for all the peace-loving Baha'is in Iran who want only to practice their religion and follow their beliefs. It's especially bad for these seven. Here's a link to their bios. They're teachers, and engineers, and optometrists and social workers just like us.

Wilson asks readers to contact their representatives of Congress about a resolution on the situation.

"This thought has become kind of a clich?', but we take our rights for granted here in America," he writes. "Imagine if a group of people were rounded up and imprisoned and then disappeared not for anything they'd done, but because they wanted to worship differently than the majority."

Yes, this is the same person who plays Dwight. He ends by saying, "Thanks for reading. Now back to bears, paper and beets!"

(h/t Mollie)

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at February 17, 2009 | Comments (0)

Open Doors has released its list of countries where Christians are most persecuted. Their 50-question survey asks both about Christians' legal status and what actually happens to them.

North Korea is at the top of the list for the seventh year in a row. It scored a 90.5, putting it in a category by itself, 32.5 points beyond Saudi Arabia and Iran. "The North Korean regime believes that it will collapse if it fails to stop the spreading of Christianity," Open Doors explains.

They list Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Mauritania, Algeria, India, Nigeria (North), Indonesia, Bangladesh and Kazakhstan as countries where Christians' freedom has deteriorated.

Countries that improved include Bhutan, China, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Sudan (North), Zanzibar Islands, Cuba, Turkey, and Colombia.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at February 4, 2009 | Comments (3)

Freedom House, which has been tracking global civil liberties and political rights since 1972, released its 2008 survey (of the world in 2007). For the second year in a row, the news isn't good.

Freedom House puts nations and regions (such as Tibet, Palestine, and Kashmir) into three broad categories: "not free," "partly free," and "free," based on levels of political competition, civil liberties, independent media and civil activities, strife, and corruption. Religious freedom fits under a number of those factors.

46 percent of the world's population lives in "free" countries, while 36 percent lives in "not free" countries.

Of course, there's a wide range within each category. In 2007 only one country dropped down a category, and it would be possible for many countries to improve greatly and not be bumped up - but that didn't happen. Freedom House saw degeneration within the categories. The bad got worse, and so did the okay.

Countries that seemed to be taking steps towards greater freedom - Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Palestine, Lebanon, Nigeria, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia - backed away.

The survey also contains a warning for Westerners: "The flawed response to an upsurge in immigration in Europe and the U.S. has revealed potentially serious imperfections in these countries' democratic systems, especially in Western Europe. Furthermore, they continued to grapple with problems posed by the continued threat of Islamic terrorism."

There are some results that stand out on the map: Mongolia is a "free" island sandwiched between influential, "not free" Russia and China; Afghanistan is more free than Pakistan; Kosovo is the westernmost "not free" nation in Europe.

On a related note, Compass Direct, a news service focusing on international religious persecution, has put out its list of top stories of 2008. Among the annual roundups still to come: the Open Doors list of worst persecuting countries (last issued in February 2008) the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom's annual report (last issued in April 2008) and the U.S. State Department's annual report (which was last issued in September 2008).

Posted by Susan Wunderink at January 16, 2009 | Comments (1)

Hu Jia, who was among those named in our map of pre-Olympic arrests in China, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

The European Parliament gives out the prestigious annual award. Their press release says:

Hu Jia is a prominent human rights activist and dissident in the People's Republic of China. He has embraced a wide range of causes, including environmental issues, HIV/AIDS advocacy and a call for an official enquiry into the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He has also acted as a coordinator of the 'barefoot lawyers movement'.

Having already been arrested several times, he spoke to MEPs in November 2007 from house arrest via conference call during a public meeting of the EP Human Rights Subcommittee on human rights in China in the run-up to the Olympic Games. As a result he was charged by the authorities with "inciting subversion of state power" and sentenced on 3 April 2008 to three-and-a-half years in jail.

The prize puts China - which is reportedly pretty steamed - in the awkward position of having an internationally recognized lawyer in prison.

The U.S. State Department and other organizations are demanding Hu's release: "We are deeply concerned about the imprisonment of human rights activist Hu Jia and have pressed the Chinese authorities for his immediate release on many occasions and at the highest level," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told The Age.

Although the European Parliament statement, the Wikipedia page, and reports by The New York Times, BBC, and others don't mention it, Hu is a Christian and one of many Christian human rights activists fighting for human rights in China.

* * *

While one source listed Hu Jia as a Christian, he is a Buddhist, according to China Aid and others. My apologies.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at October 24, 2008 | Comments (1)

Taliban soldiers killed a Christian aid worker from South Africa in a drive-by motorcycle shooting. Gayle Williams, 34, had been working for the UK ministry SERVE Afghanistan for two years and had recently moved to Kabul for safety. One of her colleagues found her on the pavement at 8 this morning.

Zabiullah Mujahed, a Taliban spokesman, told The Times "The reason that we killed her was because she was spreading Christianity." The Taliban took credit publicly, "saying on its Web site that it killed the ?foreign woman' for preaching Christianity in the country and adding that it had been following the woman for some time," CNN reported.

SERVE Afghanistan's chairman of the board, Mike Lyth, emphasized to The Times that the organization is not involved in evangelism. "We have a policy of not (preaching Christianity), so she certainly wasn't involved in that. She was only doing missionary work, if that means living a Christian life and helping disabled people. She spoke only a little Pashtun and Farsi."

The Times reports 28 killings of aid workers, 72 kidnappings, and 146 security incidents involving NGOs this year (the 2007 count was 135 for the whole of last year, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office).

The Guardian also spoke to Lyth about the future of SERVE Afghanistan:

Lyth said the charity would now have to take a "long, hard look" at its operations.

"I personally have been very concerned about security for a long time, but we have tried to take all possible measures to reduce the threat."

"We train our people really carefully. We are in daily touch with the security authorities to find out which roads we shouldn't be on, which parts of the country we shouldn't go to."

"Each time something like this happens, you wonder: do you go on exposing people to unnecessary risk? Yet at the same time, you have got the cry of many, many of the Afghans saying, 'Please help us'. You're caught between a rock and a hard place."

Posted by Susan Wunderink at October 20, 2008 | Comments (8)

Bolivian television stations are repeatedly playing a clip of a pastor being shot on September 12 by the country's military in the capital of Pando.

In the video (warning: very disturbing - it's 3 minutes of people being shot), it's unclear what is going on. A soldier is shouting into a crowd of civilians, women begin screaming, and then the shooting starts. Some soldiers fired into the air, but some shoot into the crowd. Several people fall to the ground. Some don't get up.

Christian World News (a Christian Broadcasting Network affiliate) reports that soldiers were re-taking the airport from a group of civilians in the terminal. EntreChristianios says evangelical pastor Luis Antonio Rivero Shiguekuni was one of those protesting the presence of troops in their city; CWN describes him as "a visiting Christian evangelist."

After most of the shooting ends, the cameraman focuses on Rivero, who seems to have been shot to death. Two men hold him in a sitting position. He is unresponsive. The clip cuts out as a jeep pulls up beside them.

Rivero's brother has appeared on television to explain the incident and demand justice. He praised the local media, saying they were the reason he knows as much as he does about this murder. A partially translated transcript by CT senior writer Deann Alford reads:

It took 20 hours to return the body of our brother. Now we want justice to be done. We are not political, militant people. Politics doesn't interest us. What we went is that the manner be clarified how our brother was murdered.

We received his body?.He was shot at 6:30 p.m., and the coroner said 8 hours later he was shot with the second bullet. [Rivero] lived 4 more hours after that. What happened to the body of my brother during this time? Why was there a 16-hour delay before the military returned his body?

We don't know why or the reason for the treatment/behavior of the military toward my brother. He was an evangelical pastor, a man of peace.

The only thing we want is justice.

Pando's governor, Leopoldo Fernandez, has been accused of overseeing the shootings, according to the The New York Times, and has been arrested by Pando's army. The Wall Street Journal says he "is being investigated on genocide accusations."

We will continue to update this story as new information comes in.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at September 23, 2008 | Comments (2)

On the final morning of the Muslim-Christian conversation held last week at Yale, Christian participants eagerly anticipated what Christian speakers would have to say. Several Christian speakers had grounded their messages in explicitly Christian teachings, such as the doctrine of the Trinity. But there was a general sense that Muslim speakers had more pointedly articulated their beliefs during the nearly three days of meetings. (See earlier reports here and here.)

Early in the conference, reports circulated that when Regent College theologian John Stackhouse had used the parable of the Good Samaritan to present a clearly Christian viewpoint during the closed-door pre-conference workshop, some Muslim leaders had complained that Stackhouse was trying to evangelize them. Perhaps other Christian speakers were instinctively treading more softly.

During coffee breaks, several Christian participants told me they felt the Muslim speakers had been more carefully chosen to represent Islamic views. A Wednesday morning session which featured two famous preachers intensified this feeling.

The Muslim preacher was Yemenite Al-Habib Ali Al-Jifri, known popularly as Habib Ali. He ranks as one of the ten most popular preachers in the Muslim world (not just the Arab world). He exuded youth and charisma as he winningly invited Christians and Muslims to make religion once again a solution to the world's problems rather than a part of its problems. Al-Jifri called us to form an alliance of virtuous persons.

Winsome though he was, Al-Jifri did not hesitate to stress the absolute transcendence of God and the absolute unity of God, in contrast to the way paradoxical way that Christians affirm these things. (For Christians God is both transcendent and immanent; God is both one and three.)

The Christian preacher was the 81-year-old Dr. Robert Schuller. He is without doubt one of Christianity's most widely heard preachers, and he has possessed popularity and influence for a very long time. Schuller matched Al-Jifri in winsomeness and charisma. There seems to be no limit to Schuller's generosity of spirit. But his presentation fell short of making any distinctions between Islam and Christianity. Instead, he spoke of the need for Christians to "reframe the gospel." He stressed his "profound respect for people who are sincere in their faith" and talked about how at age 81 he knows he doesn't know all the answers and, indeed, wants to know "which of his answers are wrong."

Epistemic humility can be a virtue in some contexts, but when devout moderate Muslims are trying to get to know their Christian counterparts, explicitly Christian affirmations are called for. Instead, Dr. Schuller repeated his long-standing message about the importance of self-esteem.

By Thursday morning, Christian conferees were placing their trust in two symbolic evangelical figures to represent them well: Geoff Tunnicliffe, International Director and CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance, and Leith Anderson, pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

In his brief panel presentation,Tunnicliffe talked about the importance of rebuilding the metaphorical bridges that recent social and political storms have destroyed. In that context, he asked Muslims to stop stereotyping Christians--especially evangelicals.

During this conference we have heard how Muslims feel they have been stereotyped and stigmatized in the media. As evangelical Christians we feel the same stereotyping.

I ... [serve] a global family of over 420 million evangelical Christians. We are a diverse community of Christians, yet we are often portrayed through the media as being tied to one political agenda, one view of eschatology, and intolerant of all others. That is simply not the case. While we have a shared commitment to some core biblical truths, we also have a diversity of views on many issues. The ... vast majority of evangelical Christians live in the Global South and ... that will become even more pronounced in the years to come.

Just as we promise to seek to move beyond the stereotyping of Muslims found in the media, can I ask you, my Muslim friends, to get to know us beyond what is reported in the newspapers and television programs?

If we are ... to build this new bridge, this must be a part of the architecture.

Tunnicliffe also touched on issues of religious freedom, human rights, and "mutual respect for the sharing of our faith."

Leith Anderson gave a plenary address, and thus had a bit more time than Tunifcliffe to develop his evangelical Christian response to the conference. Nevertheless, with so much that he and others felt had been unsaid or underemphasized, Anderson had to pack his message tightly.

Anderson talked about evangelicals as good news people who share classic Christian beliefs, such as the doctrine of the Trinity. In addition, we are characterized by a deep commitment to the authority of the Bible. We stress that we are all sinners in need of reconciliation with God and with each other. Most of all, he said, evangelical Christians are identified as those who experience a personal relationship with God through repentance and turning to God in faith. We are followers of Jesus by personal choice. We are not about politics or money or power. Evangelism, he said, is one of our "pillars" (as important to us as the five pillars of Islam are to Muslim believers). Love of God, he said, begins with God and not us, he said, and God's love is unconditional and unilateral.

* * *

Several speakers stressed the commonalities of commitment and parallels in belief that could allow Muslims and Christians to engage in common action.

Curiously, one topic that went almost unmentioned was the family. Dr. Mohamed Bechari, president of the Federal Society for Muslims in France, mentioned it in passing when he listed areas of common ground: The family is the core of society and the happiness of mankind, he said. He expressed surprise at some Christian clergy who accept "homosexual marriage," but he stopped short of calling for any kind of coordinated Christian and Muslim efforts on family issues.

The general silence on the family and the complete silence on potential common activity to strengthen the family puzzles me. While our traditional family systems and our understandings of gender relations differ (even as they differ within our respective communities), we do believe together that faithful, stable, two-sex marriage is essential to the well-being of society. Are there not ways to work together on family issues?

* * *

What was achieved in New Haven from July 28 to 31?

Christian and Muslim leaders have a better sense of each other as persons. We know whom to call when differences arise. We understand the pain and struggle of Christians in Muslim-dominant societies and of Muslims in Christian-dominant cultures--and if we don't understand, we no longer have any excuse for insensitivity.

Theological gaps which many of us knew only from books were underscored in new ways. The difference between Muslim and Christian understandings of love was significant. Christian love imitates divine love and is unconditional: We love not only our families and our neighbors but our enemies. Muslim love is more discriminating, taking the form of compassion on worthy persons in need (widows and orphans were used as an example). But they are not called to love unworthy persons (someone cited "the arrogant").

In practice, Christians often love only the worthy and fail to love their enemies. But the call to imitate God's love for us "while we were yet sinners" constantly tugs us toward loving more broadly.

I am grateful for the opportunity to meet, eat with, and listen to moderate Muslim leaders from near and far. I look forward to calling some them in order to work for the common good. And the next time I see a negative stereotype of Muslims, I plan to test its validity against some of the individuals I now know.

Posted by David Neff at August 3, 2008 | Comments (7)

Filed: 7:05 AM, July 30, 2008

Senator John Kerry kicked off the "Loving God and Neighbor in Word and Deed" conference (also known as the "Common Word" conference) Monday night with a largely unsurprising, but welcome speech. He was, after all, preaching to the choir: Christian and Muslim leaders from around the world who want to find a way to live together peacefully.

Kerry began by telling his roughly 150 listeners that the meeting they were attending at Yale University "can help change the world," while warning that pessimism about future relationships between the Muslim world and the West hands demagogues who play to pessimism about the inevitable violent clash of cultures and religions. "You have placed yourselves among those who are on the right side of the debate," he told them. "We must love one another or die."

Kerry, who is a direct descendant of Puritan governor John Winthrop, famous for his "city on a hill" sermon, recounted for the benefit of the global audience the way in which early American history was shaped by a series of bitter religious splits. But the fruit of that early experience of division was a commitment to welcoming all faiths, he said.

Kerry balanced his assertion that "we all worship the One God, the same God" with a plea that religious differences not be played down among the Abrahamic faiths. We don't need to succumb to "mush" in order to find tolerance. Nor do we need to remove the influence of faith from our public life, he said. "If we aren't shaped by our faith, we don't have faith."

Our goal should be a politics that seeks the global common good, Kerry said, not just the politics that cares for the people of one nation. He cited Vatican II documents to support this planetary notion of common good politics.

The audience gave Kerry a courteous welcome, but none of his comments drew applause until he called for the US to put Middle East peace back on the mainstream foreign policy agenda, and to do it in a way that would deal with "everyone's grievances."

Most quotable line of the evening: "Faith may be worth dying for, but it cannot be worth killing for."

Kerry has gone back to Washington, but the choir has stayed behind to hear each other sing. The panel discussions today will be less inspirational and motivational and will deal with substantive issues. The dozen or so Muslim and Christian panelists Tuesday include evangelical leaders such as Miroslav Volf (Yale), Peter Kuzmic (Croatia), Tukunboh Adeyemo (Kenya), Martin Accad (Lebanon).

Posted by David Neff at July 30, 2008 | Comments (9)

Tonight at 9pm Eastern, PBS's Frontline/World will air a documentary (a joint project with the Tribune) on Christianity in China.

The Chicago Tribune today published its second cover story in a row on "Jesus in China." Their articles this week hit on many of the recent issues in Chinese Christianity, including the rapid rise in attendance, the compromises of membership in the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (the state church), and the fact that this wave of Christianity is not led by foreign missionaries.

Evan Osnos, the Tribune's Beijing bureau chief, draws a lot of material from Zion church in the first installation, "Jesus in China: Christianity's rapid rise":

Rev. Jin Mingri peered out from the pulpit and delivered an unusual appeal: "Please leave," the 39-year-old pastor commanded his followers, who were packed, standing-room-only on a Sunday afternoon, into a converted office space in China's capital. "We don't have enough seats for the others who want to come, so, please, only stay for one service a day."

A choir in hot-pink robes stood to his left, beside a guitarist and a drum set bristling with cymbals. Children in a playroom beside the sanctuary punctuated the service with squeals and tantrums. It was a busy day at a church that, on paper, does not exist.

The piece also gets into some of the Chinese church's cultural aspirations, such as encouraging basically ethical behavior.

"Jesus in China: Life on the edge" began by showing Christians taking the offensive in claiming religious rights in China. "Christians form a diverse lobby that is rare in a nation split by class, opportunity and geography" and are often inspired by the American Civil Rights movement, Osnos reports. (CT covered this movement - and its admiration for Martin Luther King Jr. - in 2006) One non-Christian rights advocate even called Christianity "China's largest non-governmental organization."

The Tribune also posted videos on church life and China's "Bible Empire."

Our recent coverage of China includes a May cover story on urban Christianity.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at June 24, 2008 | Comments (8)

Today's Wall Street Journal comments on China's inability to control religion. The recent protests in Tibet underscore that the Communist Party's attempts to subdue spiritual structures have little effect.

Bret Stephens writes:

The regime banned religion -- one of the so-called Four Olds -- during the Cultural Revolution. Once it figured out that that didn't work, it sought instead to turn clergy into bureaucrats, and replace the idea of the divine with the mechanics of political control. The results have been, at best, a partial success.

The Party created state sponsored religious groups that do, indeed, have a following. But the official religious groups pale in comparison to the underground ones.

Unofficial Protestants, who attend unsanctioned "house churches," are said to number anywhere between 70 million and 130 million; one prominent Chinese pastor puts the count closer to 300 million. That latter figure is probably exaggerated, but there's no question that Christianity of the unofficial kind is winning Chinese converts in huge numbers. Not only that, it's winning them among every class of Chinese: farmers, urban migrant workers, professionals and intellectuals.

Stephens argues that in "smashing" religion, the country also smashed traditional social structures. That was, of course, the point, as the state was to take over that role. But of course, it couldn't then, and in today's China can do even less.

The Party destroyed the traditional relationships between neighbors, young and old, farmer and villager. But it also destroyed morality. "To a degree that alarms even Chinese rulers, morality and ideology have been replaced by corruption, opportunism and widespread indifference to life's ordinary decencies. Religion offers a corrective to this, too, as it does to the quandaries of 21st century existence."

Ironically, it was this destruction of religion that allowed for the massive growth in Christianity that will be the subject of CT's next cover story. If people's traditional views of religion and society had not been so utterly smashed, Christianity would never have been able to get its foot in the door.

Posted by Rob Moll at March 18, 2008 | Comments (3)

Religion coverage in The Atlantic is typically well done. The magazine's coverage of the neutering of religion from The Golden Compass was interesting for the way it treated both Hollywood and the anti-religious themes of the book on which the movie was based. Though the magazine retains the secular, above the fray, attitude toward faith of its New England founding, it also put Philip Jenkin's article on the New Christendom on the cover in October, 2002, when his book describing the phenomenal growth of non-Western Christianity debuted.

So, the magazine's March cover story (not yet online) on the literal battle between Christianity and Islam in Nigeria is equally well done, despite some mistakes.

Eliza Griswold - daughter of the former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church - writes from the town of Yelwa, where an attack that killed Christians in church in 2004 brought on a more gruesome response against Muslims killing hundreds. Yelwa is in Nigeria's Middle Belt, which, Griswold writes,

marks the fault line between Christianity and Islam not only in Nigeria, but across the entire continent. A satellite image from Google Earth shows the Middle Belt as a gray-green strip between the equator and the 10th parallel, dividing the fawn-colored dry land from the vibrant sub-Saharan jungle canopy. It also separates most of the continents 67 million Muslims to the north from 417 million Christians to the south.

Because of the 20th century explosion of Christianity in Africa, by the year 2050, Griswold writes, the demographic and geographic center of Christianity will be in northern Nigeria, where the country's Muslims live. This fact makes any tensions in the country religious ones. With 140 million people, oil revenues that never seem to help the people (half of whom live on less than a dollar a day) thanks to government corruption, and a changing regional climate that has wiped out many traditional livelihoods, the country has plenty of tensions.

"Every crisis is automatically interpreted as a religious crisis," an Anglican archbishop says. "But we all know that, scratch the surface and it's got nothing to do with religion. It's power."

Power, in this democracy (despite massive corruption) is a numbers game. Christians and Muslims compete for numbers - converts. And to do that, they not only use intimidation (Griswold quotes Archbishop Peter Akinola saying that Muslims do not have a monopoly on violence), Christians and Muslims appeal to want what Nigerians need most - prosperity.

Pentecostalism has brought along American prosperity theology. (Griswold doesn't seem able to separate Pentecostalism from prosperity theology.) And, in the competition for souls, Nigeria's Muslims have come up with an Islamic approach to making people wealthy.

Griswold suggests that, while violence between Christians and Muslims is still a threat, this sort of competition - non-violent pursuit of winning hearts and minds - is growing.

Hopefully she's right. The stories of murder, rape, and intimidation (all justified by either side's scripture) are horrifying. Yet, Griswold doesn't offer much to hang that hope on other than the story of an imam and a pastor who gave up leading militias to work together for peace. It's inspiring, but she gives little evidence of their effectiveness. And Griswold, despite her father's Christian leadership, doesn't seem to fully understand the Christianity she's reporting on, much less Islam. For example, she says Pentecostals "share an experience of the Holy Spirit, or the numinous, that offers the gift of salvation and success in everyday life." (italics are mine. At least she didn't spell it like Rob Bell.) And Muslims have yet to show that they can treat minorities as equals, instead of "protected" classes or worse.

Still, the article, and it's companions by Alan Wolfe (on how religiosity really is decreasing with modernization) and Walter Russell Mead (on American evangelical political moderation) are worth reading.

Posted by Rob Moll at February 10, 2008 | Comments (2)

We reported last November on the raids on Grace Church, a network of Korean Presbyterian church-plants, in Kazakhstan. The country’s secret police (formerly KGB, now KNB) are back at it, Forum 18 reports. Last weekend they raided the Grace Church in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan.

Leaks through the media allege that church members are engaged in spying, appropriating church members' property, failing to file financial information, inciting inter-religious enmity and holding illegal drugs, even though no-one has ever been brought before a criminal court.

Vyacheslav Kalyuzhny, the Deputy Human Rights Ombudsperson, says the Church has not complained to his office. "People are not persecuted on religious grounds in Kazakhstan," he claimed.

The claim, while absurd, has worked in the recent past. In November, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) elected Kazakhstan to be the chair, beginning in 2010:

Minister Tazhin also emphasized that religious tolerance is highly valued in Kazakhstan, and that the country "enthusiastically supports the establishment of the three CiO personal representatives on religious tolerance: for Anti-Semitism, Muslims, and for Christians and Other Religions."

In 2009, Kazakhstan will host the third Congress on World and Traditional Religions in Astana.

Kazakhstanis are wonderfully welcoming and friendly people (I lived there for a couple years), and Central Asia has a long tradition of tolerance going back to the Silk Road. But the government has pretty much scrapped that tradition. It seems far more worried about Borat than the possibility of censure from the international community over degenerating religious rights.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at February 1, 2008 | Comments (1)

Last summer, Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company denied the West Adrian United Church of Christ in Michigan insurance because its denomination supports same-sex marriage and the ordination of practicing homosexuals. Wall Street Journal reporter M. P. McQueen writes,

"Based on national media reports, controversial stances such as those indicated in your application responses have resulted in property damage and the potential for increased litigation among churches that have chosen to publicly endorse these positions," Marci J. Fretz, a regional underwriter for Brotherhood Mutual -- one of the nation's largest insurers of religious institutions -- wrote in a letter to the church last summer.

McQueen writes that churches have sometimes been denied or have had coverage revoked because of specific acts of violence. "Some churches in the South reported cancellations after a wave of arson attacks in the mid-1990s." But this would be the first instance of the denial of a claim due to fears that a controversial stance would provoke a violent backlash.

Founded in 1917 as a mutual-aid organization by evangelical Mennonites, Brotherhood Mutual is now the largest provider of insurance to churches in the country. A spokesperson "didn't have any examples of violence attributable to a church's support for gay clergy or same-sex marriage," McQueen writes. She did note that disputes over gay marriage have led to church splits and resulted in costly lawsuits.

Michigan banned same-sex marriage in 2004. The church has not specifically endorsed the denomination's position on same-sex marriage and ordination of homosexuals. The article says that as long as insurance companies abide by non-discrimination and other laws, they are free to set their own guidelines for accepting or rejecting applications.

A couple of things to note: Brotherhood Mutual rejected the church's application not because of moral or religious opposition to the church's stance, but because the stance might increase risk to the insurer. So this is not precisely a religious freedom issue. One wonders if the company didn't want to do business with supporters of same-sex marriage and risk seemed a better explanation for its refusal. But are churches that support same-sex marriage really more prone to being victims of vandalism? The article says there is no evidence one way or the other. The story doesn't mention any other ways in which Brotherhood Mutual does business with supporters of same-sex marriage. Does it screen its investments of companies that offer benefits to partners of employees? Presumably, if/when same-sex marriage and homosexual ordination became less controversial, Brotherhood Mutual would then accept applications from churches that supported that stance.

Also, there is no lawsuit. West Adrian didn't sue Brotherhood Mutual over the denial, so the situation would set no legal precedent in regards to religious freedom. If same-sex marriage does gain national legal acceptance, there will probably be exceptions for clergy and churches to discriminate according to their religious teaching. The real test, however, will lie with for-profit companies like Brotherhood Mutual.

Posted by Rob Moll at January 8, 2008 | Comments (4)

Hindu nationalists began burning churches and Christian houses in the east Indian state of Orissa on Christmas Eve. The violence continues, although today it seems to have abated somewhat.

Dozens are injured, many buildings have been destroyed, and the death toll is at 4 (three Hindus killed by police as they burned down the police station, and one Christian killed in the riots).

Compass Direct is reporting higher numbers than those confirmed by the police:

Jacob Pradhan, a Christian leader in Kandhamal district, told Compass that at least four Christians have been killed and more than 50 churches and 200 houses razed or damaged.

Telephone outages and VHP roadblocks made confirming reports "extremely difficult."

The Associated Press reported that,

On Thursday a mob of Hindus defied a curfew and burned down the house of Radhakant Nayak, a member of India's upper house of parliament and a Christian leader in the area, Nayak told the CNN-IBN news channel.

Also, 11 churches were ransacked and burned in Kandhamal district of Orissa state, the Press Trust of India quoted unnamed police officials as saying.

Meanwhile, in the village of Brahmangaon, a group of Christians burned down several Hindu homes in an apparent retaliation for the attack on churches. Angry Hindus then burned down the village police station, complaining of a lack of protection, a local police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

At least 25 people - both Christian and Hindu - have been arrested so far, and the federal government has announced that it will send in paramilitary troops.

The perpetrators claim that they were defending a Hindu leader who heads an anti-conversion campaign; Christians in Orissa say the attacks were to prevent a Christmas Eve performance that could have led to conversions; AP says it boils down to controversy over thousands of conversions to Christianity in the past few years, "Hindu groups have long charged Christian missionaries with trying to lure the poor and those who occupy the lowest rungs of Hinduism's complex caste-system away with promises of money and jobs."

The Orissa government has ordered a judicial probe into the attacks, in response to claims that the violence was not spontaneous but sponsored by saffron activists.

Time warns against chalking it all up to religion:

As with most communal violence in India, this latest explosion of hatred is the result not only of religious differences but of a tangled intersection of political power, communal prejudice and the injustices of Hinduism's archaic caste system.

However, in a place where religion permeates everything, it's not helpful to try to separate religion from political power, prejudice, or the caste system - especially as the hard-line Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gaining power. Orissa is currently governed by a BJP ally.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at December 28, 2007 | Comments (8)

The stakes and the rhetoric over last spring's murders of three missionaries in Turkey continue to get higher. While some are suggesting the victims have PKK connections, others are demanding the defendants be tried for genocide.

Five young plaintiffs are being tried for the killings of Tilman Ekkehart Geske, Necati Aydin, and Ugur Yuksel in Malatya, Turkey. Seven others are not in custody but have been charged with aiding in the murders.

The trial itself opened November 23 with quite a crowd in attendance and has already stalled. The Turkish Press reports that:

The prosecutor demanded life imprisonment for five suspects on charges of setting up an armed terrorist organization and killing people. The suspects and their lawyers said they are not ready to defend themselves. Then, the judge adjourned the court till January 14, 2008.

One of the major concerns about the defense is that, in an appeal to anti-missionary sentiments, it will portray Geske, Aydin, and Yuksel as apostates who had it coming to them. Orhan Kemal Cengiz, one of the attorneys for the complainants and a Turkish Daily News columnist, wrote:

There are 31 files in this case and just 15 of them comprise information about the murder and the perpetrators. What about the other 16 files?

The prosecutor retrieved all documents from the computers of the victims and put them in the case file as "evidence." If a prosecutor sees missionary activities as criminal then it is not difficult to understand how some people can become crazy and kill these missionaries!

Furthermore, these files, which are public now, may lead to new murders because they include many details on other Protestants who reside in different parts of Turkey. The addresses, emails, telephones of many other Turkish Protestants are in the files, which have already been in the hands of the murderers. The prosecutor failed to make a thorough investigation and he has also put many other lives in danger.

I would like to give you some specific information, but if I went into all details of the weirdness of the files, this article would turn into a small booklet.

It probably won't be difficult to convince the court that the victims were at least partly to blame, Cengiz says, "From the communications sent to the file we understand that Necati Aydin, one of the victims, had been under constant surveillance and in his police record he has recorded as a former criminal for the ?crime' of ?missionary activity.'"

There has been much hand-wringing in the Turkish press over these murders and what they mean about tolerance and teen violence in their society. But the country - or at least its press - continues to choke on the distinctiveness of people of faith.

Forum 18 published an op-ed that probes the source of the anti-Christian violence. In it, G?zide Ceyhan concludes it's a result of "disinformation about Christianity in statements by public figures and through the media, the rise of Turkish nationalism, and the implicit and explicit approval both of the marginalization of Christians from Turkish society and also of actions - including murders - against them."

Keep a lookout for our January cover story, "Jesus in Turkey."

Posted by Susan Wunderink at November 30, 2007 | Comments (5)

Many news outlets, including CT, have covered the Department of Homeland Security's refusal to grant refugee status to anyone who gave "material support" to terrorists under the 2001 USA Patriot Act.

The law was riddled with problems: many who are seeking refugee status are doing so because they were forced to give ransoms and temporary housing at gunpoint.

And then there's the problem of governments that operate much like terrorist groups, including Myanmar's military junta. Chin Duh Kam, a Burmese pastor in America, told me about government officials forcing Christians in Chin State to make ropes and transport military equipment. The New York Times referred to another UN report that

3,000 villages of the Karen and nearby tribes have been destroyed, and more than 500,000 people have been driven from their homes. Government troops are accused of systematically raping girls and forcing children to join their ranks.

So the law's broad ban on everyone giving "material support" unfortunately includes those who are victims of terrorists.

But there is good news for some refugees: Homeland Security has begun to issue waivers for those who were clearly forced to give material support to terrorists, said Jenny Hwang of World Relief.

The Associated Press reports that the U. S. State Department also "waived provisions of the Patriot Act that barred 9,300 ethnic Karen from entering the U.S. because of their association with Myanmar rebels." These Burmese refugees fled their homeland long ago; they are not among those who participated in the August to September protests.

The AP story says the exponential growth in refugee immigration to U. S. cities such as Utica, St. Paul, and Minneapolis is overwhelming aid groups:

Resettlement agency Exodus Refugee has doubled its Indianapolis staff to eight people over the past 11 months but still can't keep up, job specialist Zach Tennant said recently while handing out envelopes with $25 spending money to each adult refugee arriving at Indianapolis International Airport.

In Utica, the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees has received 300 people over the past 11 weeks, including 109 one week, before the end of the federal fiscal year brought a respite. Director Peter Vogelaar said the biggest challenge is finding them safe, clean homes and jobs. He's finding work for 30 to 40 refugees per month.

"Refugees are survivors and they are incredibly resilient," Vogelaar said.

* * *

I wondered whether "Burma" or "Myanmar" was more proper, so I asked.

Chin Duh Kam prefers "Burma," which he pronounced with great warmth. "I use the old name," he told me. Pastor David says he uses "Myanmar" in the country and "Burma" outside it.

It turns out that as far as Burmese grammar goes, "Burma" is the colloquial name of the country; "Myanmar" is the formal, literary name. But the names took on a political cast when the government decided in 1989 that it wanted the country to be officially known as the Union of Myanmar. The U. S. State Department still calls it the "Union of Burma."

As far as adjectives go, "Burman" is usually the majority ethnic group, and "Burmese" refers to nationality.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at October 16, 2007 | Comments (2)

To celebrate my 60th birthday yesterday, I had dinner with the Secretary General of the United Nations. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank covered the event in his puckish (my wife called it "snarky") style.

Okay, so I had dinner with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and 300 other people. And the Washington Post didn't even mention me. Secretary General Ban and I were only sitting at adjacent tables. But I did get a grip-and-grin photo op with him before the banquet, and after his speech I was one of three evangelical leaders invited to give a brief response.

The banquet itself was a joint effort of the National Association of Evangelicals and the Micah Challenge. It was the closing event of the NAE's semi-annual board meeting and the opening event of the Global Leaders Forum. Organizations involved in the Forum (beyond the NAE and Micah Challenge) included Bread for the World, World Relief, Frontiers, The Salvation Army, Tearfund, the Evangelical Environmental Network, the Korean Church Coalition, and the UN Foundation and the UN Millennium Campaign.

Attendees at the sold-out event got this message loud and clear:

The UN needs evangelicals to help them hold governments to their promised support for the Millennium Development Goals. One hundred ninety-two nations signed on to the MDG's in 2000 and we are now half-way to the target date of 2015, but without the progress we should have seen by this point, especially in sub-Sarahan Africa. Some nations have been slow in paying their share of the costs.

The MDG's are all good: ensuring universal primary education, fighting hunger and poverty, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, empowering women, fighting specific diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS, working for environmental sustainability and a global partnership for development.

Many of these things have already engaged evangelicals, and Secretary General Ban reminded us of that. He also reminded us of the UN's desire to work with faith-based groups. From its beginning in 1945, the UN was engaged with the faith community. Forty-two faith-based non-governmental organizations were involved in founding the organization. Today, 400 religious NGOs are accredited to the UN.

He also quoted Isaiah 58:10 to much applause. "If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday."

In a sense, last night's banquet and today's issue-oriented discussions are really less about evangelicals fighting disease and poverty and more about evangelicals working in partnerships--partnerships between Western evangelicals and those in the developing world and partnerships with non-evangelicals.

We cautiously engaged those of other shades of Christian faith and even other religions in the mid-90s when we threw tremendous weight behind the effort to pass the International Religious Freedom Act and the creation of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. We then enlarged the circle of cooperation to work on legislation to fight sex trafficking and, later, human-rights abuses in North Korea. The circle has expanded yet again as many evangelical leaders are partnering on issues of climate change.

Partnerships give evangelicals a sense of participation and empowerment. It gives us the chance to take on really big issues. That's a strange feeling for a movement whose consciousness is rooted in old-style fundamentalism. Fundamentalism was about being the few and the proud--I mean, the pure. The evangelicalism that emerged in the 1940s hoped for a new engagement with society while maintaining doctrinal and ethical integrity. Its leaders, like first CT editor Carl F. H. Henry and first CT board chair Harold John Ockenga preached a strong social justice message. But the old fundamentalist consciousness still lurks, and these partnerships stretch the evangelical sense of identity.

Despite the uneasiness of some, leaders like Northland Church's Joel Hunter and the NAE's Rich Cizik are plunging ahead with big grins on their faces. I predict we'll see a continuing expansion of these alliances as we move to tackle an increasing number of the really big problems facing God's world.

Posted by David Neff at October 12, 2007 | Comments (8)

A story in today's Chicago Tribune illustrates one of the tensions of living in an increasingly secular society. The article, "Religious-based education on trial: Christian high schools sue University of California, alleging bias in admissions," discusses a lawsuit that an association of Christian schools is suing the University of California because "the admissions policy at the university unconstitutionally discriminates against them because they teach from a religious perspective."

More specifically the plaintiffs claim that "UC follows the policy of rejecting any course in any subject, even if it teaches standard content, if it adds teaching of the school's religious viewpoint."

The University denies it, of course: "That statement simply is not true," said Christopher Patti, counsel for UC. "There is no prohibition on religious content in UC a-g courses," he said. "If the course adequately teaches the subject matter and adequately teaches the skills that students need in that subject, then the fact that it may also make reference to other theories doesn't disqualify it, even religious theories."

Without knowing more the details of the case, on the surface it seems like another battle in the culture wars than in cultural confusion.

The University, for example, refused to give credit for a course called, "Course: Special Providence: Christianity and the American Republic," the text of which was "American Government for Christian Schools" (Bob Jones University Press). The reason rejected was that " Content was not consistent with the "empirical historical knowledge generally accepted in the collegiate community."

Now this could indicate that the University has a narrow, Enlightenment understanding of what constitutes history--it may, for example, rule out miracle a priori as an explanation for an event.

Or it could mean that the textbook and class have not prepared students to participate in classes and conversations that will take place in a modern, secular university on the topic of history. A university has the right and obligation to ensure that when students step on campus, they are familiar with terms, theories, and perspectives that constitute the conversation on campus on any given topic.

Christian schools have an obligation not only to teach from a Christian perspective, but to thoroughly immerse their students in the worldview and perspective of the secular university if they expect them to attend there. This strikes me as a reasonable requirement of the university, but a necessary requirement of those who hope to bring Christ's salt and light to academia. If we demonstrate that we have not listened to or thoroughly understood the point of view of those with whom we disagree, why would they ever give our point of view a hearing?

Posted by Mark Galli at October 8, 2007 | Comments (6)

The federal Bureau of Prisons will return religious materials that were removed from prison chapel libraries to prevent religious extremism, according to the Associated Press.

The purged books that were removed included Christian discipleship materials (see CT's first story).

The material removed since June will be returned to prison chapel libraries unless it is found to be radicalizing or inciting violence. By June 2008, "what comes off the shelves will be a very, very small number, because the vast majority of material will be on the 'that's OK list,'" bureau spokeswoman Judi Simon Garrett told the AP.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., still expresses concern:

"There's probably a limited universe of materials that incite violence, and I understand that perhaps those need to be banned," said Hensarling. "Instead, what the Bureau of Prisons appears to be doing is really censoring religious texts, deciding what is acceptable."

The New York Times' story says that previously, the bureau was not reconsidering the library policy, but it reversed its decision after receiving widespread criticism from lawmakers and religious groups.

But critics of the bureau's program said it appeared that the bureau had bowed to widespread outrage. "Certainly putting the books back on the shelves is a major victory, and it shows the outcry from all over the country was heard," said Moses Silverman, a lawyer for three prisoners who are suing the bureau over the program.

Prison Fellowship President Mark Early told the AP:

"It took years for chaplains, local churches and other religious organizations to build up the holdings of many prison chapel libraries. Prisoners need access to more material to promote rehabilitation, not less. We want to monitor the process."

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at September 28, 2007 | Comments (2)

From reporter Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra:

English Language Institute China (ELIC) denied that any of its English teachers have been expelled from China for illegal religious activity, as reported today by the China Aid Association Inc.

China Aid released a statement accusing the Chinese government of systematically deporting more than 100 suspected foreign missionaries since February 2007. Two of them were English teachers sent to Tibet by ELIC, the statement said. ELIC is a Christian organization that sends English teachers to China.

"We haven't had anyone who was asked to leave," said Gary Lausch, Vice President of Human Resources for ELIC. "We did call China Aid and let them know that was not accurate and they said they would correct it."

The story of government expulsion came as a surprise, Lausch said. He said ELIC has not been feeling any unusual pressure from China lately.

Posted by Ted Olsen at July 10, 2007 | Comments (1)

Christians remain at risk inside Gaza, not to mention the other 1 milion plus Gazans, due to renewed violence between Hamas and Fatah. The situation is being likened to a 'civil war.'

Until recently, it was not clear if militants were targeting Christians or churches. But the Jerusalem Post is reporting that a Roman Catholic church was desecrated and a Catholic school damaged late last week. A Catholic priest is calling for better protection for Gaza's Christians, who number about 3-7,000 people.

Overnight update:

Jerusalem Post has updated their story on the church attack with a report that Hamas has condemned the attack and placed the blame on a local criminal gang.

Christianity Today has heard more from an Egyptian-German Christian leader still inside Gaza. He has been living in Gaza since 2004 for Christian mission and ministry.

Here is his personal account:

On Friday people in the Gaza Strip awoke to a new reality.

Over the previous few days Hamas, an Islamic party had routed the opposition Fatah forces, a secular-nationalist movement, and Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip.

What led to these sudden events?

In February 2006, Hamas was voted into power in democratic elections that were largely imposed by the U.S. and its policy of democratic reform in the Middle East, yet the unexpected outcome seemed to have thrown a monkey wrench in the U.S.’s reform plans.

By March of this year the U.S. and Western countries still had not recognized the Palestinian unity government containing both Fatah and Hamas representatives. An economic embargo stifled not only the government but it also collectively punished the entire people. This economic stranglehold was felt especially in the Gaza Strip, which is enclosed from all sides.

Israel, in one form or another, controls all its borders.

Trade was brought to a slow trickle, after what the World Bank reported to be an economic decline greater than America’s experience during the Great Depression.

Soon Hamas became fed up with not being recognized and being economically crippled despite having come to power through a fair democratic process. Furthermore, with U.S. funding entering Gaza to strengthen Fatah, the election loser, Hamas got impatient and decided to take control of the territory.

The ensuing military takeover of the Gaza Strip that took 80 lives, was bloody and dreadful for many. It took only five days before all opposition headquarters were taken and control was fully in Hamas’ hands.

After the fighting ended I made a trip to the Gaza Baptist Church building with my hosts and the pastor. Minimal damage had been done to the building structure and some equipment, including a laptop used for Sunday worship had been stolen from the building.

A clampdown on lawlessness, which has been widespread in recent months, is one of the few positive prospects of the new political reality in Gaza. With the world not recognizing the Hamas government, the former political power, Fatah, stayed in control in many areas of government. The result had been two parallel government structures in Gaza, one democratically elected by the people, the other voted out by the people and yet only the latter was accepted and recognized by world leaders.

During the past two years I have lived here I have found that it is this meddling of outside powers in Palestinian affairs that has over and over again caused so much suffering for a people so desperately seeking to live a normal life in peace.

Generally people are very concerned about what the near future holds. Despite the Hamas amnesty of Fatah activists, many of them remain scared and are staying home or are in hiding.

By Saturday the streets were relatively back to normal until reports started to spread that Israel was closing the borders and people started scrambling for their basic needs, bread, sugar, flour, and gas. Cars are moving about, people are walking the streets, talking and laughing.

Along the walls of the main hospital in town [Gaza City] I saw old men sitting in the shade playing backgammon. The combination of the normalcy of life and fear of the unknown of the future makes for a strange atmosphere.

Posted by Tim Morgan at June 18, 2007 | Comments (9)

Ever since last October's special series titled "In God's Name," the New York Times has increased its reporting on what it sees as the excessive entanglement of government and religion. The first article in that series complained, for example, that a retirement home near the University of Notre Dame for aging Catholic priests (who, let us be clear, worked for a pittance and never built up equity in a home) receives property-tax breaks that an architecturally similar retirement complex across town doesn't.

Well, the Times is back today, with an article complaining that the Justice Department defends the free exercise of religion too much - and doesn't pursue as many race-related cases as it did in the past.

The increase in the Justice Department's attention to religious-freedom cases is hardly news. On February 20, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez gave a widely reported speech to the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, in which he "unveil[ed] a new Department of Justice initiative aimed at educating Americans about their religious liberties and to ask for the Southern Baptist Convention's help in identifying and reporting abuses of those liberties." (See the Baptist Press account here.)

The same day, Justice released a "Report on Enforcement of Laws Protecting Religious Freedom: Fiscal Years 2001-2006." Clearly, the Justice Department was seeking publicity for its new focus on religious freedom cases.

Nevertheless, the Times manages to completely avoid references to the Justice Department's report and offer only oblique references to speeches by the AG. The paper appears to pretend that it is digging up buried information.

The article's main complaints seem to be that:

* under the Bush Administration, Justice is pursuing fewer race-related and hate-crime cases. (The article offers no quantifiable evidence.)

* new entry-level hires at Justice are increasingly coming from faith-based law schools like Ave Maria and Regent. (An accompanying chart, however, shows more hires of Harvard Law grads in the last three years than there were in the preceding three years. Indeed, of the "liberal" law schools on the chart, only Cal Berkely seems to be suffering.)

* vigorously enforcing existing legislation that protects churches against zoning discrimination.

Efforts to combat sex-trafficking also come in for criticism because it is "a favored issue of the religious right." Sex trafficking - forcing people into sexual slavery - is a civil- and human-rights violation. It is an essential tenet of liberalism that we do not enslave people to do degrading work like this. Even the proponents of the sexual revolution of the sixties built their erotic insurgency around individual autonomy. Why does it matter to the Times that the "religious right" favors this issue?

The story's final insult to the reader's intelligence is it's inclusion of a quote from Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. While Edgar agreed that it was important for Justice to pursue religious freedom and human trafficking cases, there was still a need for race and poverty to get "the highest caliber of attention." His evidence? The "flawed government response to New Orleans and its mostly poor, black population after Hurricane Katrina." Wait a minute. Was that the Justice Department responding to Katrina? Was that Alberto Gonzalez running FEMA?

Posted by David Neff at June 14, 2007 | Comments (1)

The conservative Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, in his latest missive--entitled "Family Values or the Liberal Status Quo?"--weighs in on tomorrow's vote in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on the "hate crimes" bill. Perkins opposes the bill, saying it contradicts the "family values" image many Democrats ran on and won with last year. I agree.

But the following passage from Perkins is curious:

"This bill creates a caste system within American society where those who fit a certain category - ranging from race, disability, gender to sexual orientation and transgendered - would be seen as deserving special legal protection. The bill is most notable for the millions of Americans it leaves out, meaning if you or I are a victim of a violent crime - we matter less." (emphases mine)

Perkins seems to say that those he represents do not belong to "certain" categories, ranging from race to disability, to sex to sexuality. Does he mean the FRC only represents healthy, straight white males? I hope not.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 2, 2007 | Comments (23)

Mexico City's decision to legalize abortion, and the local Roman Catholic reaction to that decision, is getting all kinds of press this week. But don't miss the other big religion story coming out of Mexico, which you're unlikely to see in your local paper. Compass Direct reports, "Local political bosses who had voted to expel 65 Christians from [the Chiapas town of Los Pozos] grudgingly signed an agreement yesterday to let the evangelicals stay in their homes. ... It remains to be seen, he added, whether the Los Pozos town bosses will follow through on the accord’s stipulation that they restore water lines and electricity cut off from some evangelical families since January 30."

Evangelical pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez tells the religion watchdog news service that (in Compass's words) "the signing of the accord could prove to be a watershed moment in Mexican human rights in that it sets a precedent for state authority to head off conflicts before they fester into decades-old, major confrontations."

Posted by Ted Olsen at April 25, 2007 | Comments (2)

AFP goes with "Russia bids farewell to flamboyant Yeltsin." For Reuters, it's "Russians pay respects to flawed hero Yeltsin." The Associated Press (probably wisely) decided not to use an adjective. And it's the Associated Press that hits the religion angle the hardest:

Yeltsin, who died Monday at age 76, sometimes appeared at church services but was not seen as overtly pious. Nevertheless, the Russian Orthodox Church credits him as a key figure in its changed fortunes after decades of the Communist-era's official atheism.

"By his strength, he helped the restoration of the proper role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the life of the country and its people," church spokesman Metropolitan Kirill said in a statement.

That "proper role" is quite a loaded statement. The religion watchdog news service Forum18 and the Russian press agency Interfax have markedly different articles on Yeltsin's legacy on religious freedom. Forum18 summarizes the former president's mixed legacy: "While Yeltsin lifted some state controls over churches following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he eventually signed a controversial Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations."

For more on religious freedom in Russia, see our full coverage area.

Posted by Ted Olsen at April 24, 2007 | Comments (0)