The Obama administration may soften some sanctions against the Sudan government, the Los Angeles Times reports.

President Obama's envoy to Sudan, J. Scott Gration, said that the Khartoum government has shown a willingness to allow aid to be delivered to the region.

The government expelled several humanitarian groups earlier this year after an international court accused Sudan's president of war crimes in Darfur.

"We see that there is a spirit of cooperation and an attitude of wanting to help," Gration said. ... "There's ways that we can roll back these sanctions in a way that allows us to lift the restrictions we need, such that the government continues to be sanctioned and military equipment continues to be sanctioned," he said.

The new approach has sparked fierce debate among Obama's advisors and is causing consternation among some of his strongest supporters, who had expected the president to toughen U.S. policy toward a government that he had sharply criticized as untrustworthy during last year's presidential campaign.

The article states that the International Criminal Court estimates that about 135,000 people have been killed or died from disease and starvation, and more than 2.5 million people remain displaced in Darfur.

Last week, Gration told Congress that he did not think there was any evidence to continually mark Sudan as a sponsor of terrorism. The Washington Times outlines the debate Gration has with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice.

Mr. Gration has taken a softer line than Ms. Rice toward the regime headed by Sudanese President Omar Bashir, going so far last month as to say that the genocide against the people of Darfur was over and that the world was now dealing with the remnants of the killings.

Ms. Rice has continued to call the situation in Darfur genocide, a label first applied to the situation there by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in 2004 at the height of a campaign against farmers in Darfur by Sudan-government backed fighters known as Janjaweed.

Image: President Obama's March 31 remarks after meeting with Sudan special envoy Scott Gration, courtesy of the White House.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at August 4, 2009 | Comments (0)

More than 4,000 people attended John Hagee's Night to Honor Israel dinner in Washington D.C. earlier this week, according to Erick Stakelbeck's report for CBN news. Speakers at the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) event included Senator Joseph Lieberman, Fred Barnes, Gary Bauer, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (via satellite).

This year, CUFI delegates will ask their representatives on the hill to support Israel by respecting the government's decisions, and to support further legislative sanctions against Iran. Another topic of concern to CUFI and its pro-Israel members is America's foreign policy toward Israel undergo under the new administration. Hagee told Dan Gilgoff:

I have some concerns about President Obama's approach to peacemaking. He may believe that by securing concessions from Israel he will get leverage with which to win reciprocal concessions from the Arabs down the road. Yet I do not believe that the history of Arab-Israeli peacemaking to date supports this view.

Conservative Christian organizations that are pro-Israel might wield the political pressure Netanyahu is counting on in ongoing Middle East peace negotiations, Time reports:

Netanyahu will get strong political support within Israel for standing up to Washington on Jerusalem (as he has done by resisting pressure for a settlement freeze), and he expects that the more symbolically powerful issue of the Holy City will win him support in the U.S. from Jewish leaders and Christian conservatives. In introducing Netanyahu via a video link at the annual conference of his Christians United for Israel group, arch-conservative Pastor John Hagee promised the support of 50 million Christians for "Israel's sovereign right to grow and develop the settlements of Israel as you see fit and not yield to the pressure of the United States government."

The problem facing Obama is that pressing for a two-state solution has put him at odds with a reluctant Israeli government that has now chosen the emotive issue of Jerusalem as the test of how far he's willing to go.

Other Christian leaders have taken a different approach to supporting Israel. A 2007 letter to President Bush signed by 34 Evangelical leaders took a different approach to Middle East peace by expressing support of a two-state solution and stated that "both Israelis and Palestinians have legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine."

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at July 24, 2009 | Comments (11)

Indian government officials have denied visas to commissioners of a U.S. religious freedom watchdog panel for the second time since 2001.

Members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) were forced to cancel their plans to assess religious freedom in India. Panelists were scheduled to leave on June 12, and have been trying to obtain Indian visas for the past seven years.

Nina Shea, a commissioner, said it is troublesome that the Indian authorities are so defensive about exposing potential religious violence in the world's largest democracy.

"I believe at the root of this, they want to cover it up," she said. "They have something to hide."

Hindu organizations in India are reportedly suspicious of the panel's intentions, according to an Indian news article that was forwarded to USCIRF from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. The panel's visit to India is "an attack on our religious sovereignty," a spokesperson of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, a right-wing Hindu organization, told the Navbharat Times.

Commissioners had planned to travel to Gujarat, Karnataka and Orissa -- all areas of immediate concern for religiously motivated violence directed against minorities.

Shea said commissioners will look to experts and documentation to complete their report, though the trip would have been a chance for the Indian government to participate with preventive strategies at the local and national levels.

The Indian Embassy did not return phone calls.

Posted by Ted Olsen at June 19, 2009 | Comments (9)

Analysts and leading evangelicals are reacting pretty strongly to specific concerns about President Obama's "speech to the Muslim world" in Cairo on Thursday, including his definition of democracy, persecution by Muslims, support of Israel, and use of religion to support his goals.

National Review Online asked religious freedom activist Nina Shea, "Is there an 'Arab world' approach to religious freedom?"

She responded:

None of the Arab countries is ranked as "free" in the Center for Religious Freedom survey, though the degree of repression varies. Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are the worst, while Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, and Oman are relatively better. All restrict minorities in varying degrees, and virtually all officially sponsor anti-Semitism. And all are intolerant of and punish apostates, heretics, blasphemers, and those who "insult" Islam. This has resulted in repressing converts from and critics of Islam as well as writers, scholars, artists, journalists, democracy activists, reformers, women's rights proponents, and others who exercise the right to free speech. This has contributed to the political, intellectual, and economic stagnation of this part of the world, as observed in the U.N.'s Arab Development Report.

Freedom House issued a statement applauding Obama's commitment to democracy. However, American Values President Gary Bauer, writing for Human Events, thought that Obama's stance for universal values was too broad:

Somewhere lost in all of the hype over Obama's outreach to the world is a sense that he stands most proudly as the American President. It's time for the president's soaring rhetoric to be applied in support of this great nation and its Judeo-Christian heritage.

Bauer also criticized Obama for neglecting to mention persecution by Muslims. Prior to the speech, Bauer had hoped that Obama would address the persecution of Christians in many Muslim countries. Bauer noted Obama singled out Saudi Arabia as a good example of "interfaith dialogue" even though last March the State Department placed the country on its list of severe violators of religious freedom. Bauer was disappointed that Obama worked harder to "ingratiate himself to Muslim leaders" than to criticize their faults:

[T]he president could have said so much more. The suppression of basic human rights is a fact of life throughout much of the Islamic world, and Muslim nations make up a large percentage of the State Department's list of the world's most severe violators of religious freedom. That list includes Saudi Arabia, and its dictator, King Abdullah, whose "counsel" Obama sought earlier this week in a trip to Riyadh.

Some in mainline Protestant circles found much to like in the Obama speech.

Reverand Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), specifically praised Obama's use of the phrase "interfaith dialogue." The ECLA press release noted "the president's acknowledgment of the difficulty Palestinians - including Palestinian Christians - face because of the Israeli occupation. He said Obama challenged those who deny the Holocaust and called for Hamas to recognize Israel."

At Israel's Jerusalem Post, David Horovitz analyzed Obama's speech, and the applause he garnered, as a hopeful sign for Obama's goal for "a new beginning," but was less encouraged by Obama's repetition of his goal for peace through a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.

Watching from here, his even-handed attribution of blame for the failure of peace efforts to date was jarring indeed. "For more than 60 years," the president declared, the Palestinian people "have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead."

To which most Israelis, having now witnessed even Ehud Olmert's ultra-generous two-state terms being derisively brushed aside by Mahmoud Abbas, would retort: "And whose fault is that?"

Horovitz also expressed concern regarding the president's "strikingly brief" discussion of Iran. In the speech, Obama repeated the stance he indicated on Tuesday to The Washington Post that Iran has "legitimate" use for nuclear power, so long as it's meant for energy not weapons. The issue is of particular concern for Israelis - who consider Iran's quest for nuclear power an heightened threat to their survival - and Gary Bauer has frequently raised the alarm in the conservative community regarding both Iran's and North Korea's intentions, saying that "it will take more than eloquent words to compel America's enemies to behave." The Christian Science Monitor has questioned whether Obama's hands-off stance toward North Korea's nuclear ambition could embolden Iran.

Finally, Obama's use of quotes from the Quran, along with his frequent references over the past week - and in the speech itself - to his personal experience with the Muslim faith, has also attracted attention. From the CatholicPRWire, columnist Chris Benguhe observed that compared to the way Obama "unequivocally supported Islam and the Muslim faith" in his speech in Cairo, his support of Christianity at Notre Dame last month was less apparent. Benguhe appreciated that the president acknowledged the importance of religious freedom, and added:

But now I wish our president would show the same respect and consideration for the religious convictions and sensitivities of us Christians here at home in his own country, and I really wish he would acknowledge how important Christianity is to this nation.

Posted by Tim Morgan at June 5, 2009 | Comments (10)

The House Foreign Affairs Committee took a turn today when Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about abortion.

Smith asked why she had recently praised Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, according to Emily Belz at World.

Smith: Sanger was an unapologetic eugenicist and racist who said "the most merciful thing a family does for one of its infant members is to kill it." And said on another occasion, "eugenics is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems."

Clinton didn't respond to the Sanger quotes at first, but later in the hearing when questioned again on the matter, she said in all humans (she used Thomas Jefferson's slave holding as an example) "there are things we admire and there are things we deplore."

Smith asked whether the administration would be promoting abortion in places like Africa, under the umbrella of "reproductive health."

Clinton: We happen to think family planning is an important part of women's health - and that reproductive health includes access to abortion?.We are now an administration that protects the rights of women including the rights to reproductive health care.

Inglis asked Clinton why she didn't condemn forced abortions on her trip to China. "They heard me say it already," she said, referring to a trip 14 years ago.

Inglis: Don't we have to speak with moral authority when we engage countries like China?
Clinton: Yes, we certainly do. It is a broad engagement that we have with large and complex countries. There is always and must be a moral dimension to our foreign policy.
Inglis: When you're in China next, I hope you'll speak to these issues.

Farah Stockman at The Boston Globe reports that Clinton was also asked about torture.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, repeatedly asked Clinton whether the administration would declassify documents that former Vice President Dick Cheney has said paint the CIA interrogators in a more heroic light and show the important information produced from the interrogations.

Clinton said she had no knowledge of such documents. "It won't surprise you that I don't consider him a particularly reliable source," she said, to some laughter.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 22, 2009 | Comments (0)

In recent days, American foreign policy, President Obama, and Cuba have been in the headlines.

But honestly, the mainstream media is too pre-occupied about cell phone markets, tourism, and foreign policy to be thinking much about Jesus in Cuba (which has one of the world's highest concentrations of evangelical house churches).

I guess that's our job. CT has done two cover stories about Cuba in the past 16 years or so. And, we have talked about the three phases for religious freedom since the Cuban Revolution:

1. Persecution of the church and the faithful flock. (a dark and dangerous time)
2. Discrimination against faithful Cubans. (no jobs for open Christians)
3. Tolerance of Christian faith to the extent it does not actively resist rule by fiat from Fidel and Raul. (don't color outside the lines)

Here's the big question:

Do Cuba's Christian leaders fear lifting the embargo?

Recently we have talked with a few Cuban church leaders or those Christian leaders doing ministry in Cuba. To tell the truth, many are quite concerned about a sudden lifting of the embargo.

Those concerns include:

* Look at what happened in the former Soviet states after 1989. The free-for-all had harmful (and beneficial) results.

* Consider how local Cuban churches might be thrown into competition with each other for the flood of new faith-based money and Christian resources coming onto the island.

* Realize that lifting the embargo would introduce much more consumerism. In reality, the failed socialist experiment in Cuba has stimulated Cuban longing for a relationship with Christ.

As much as I might want to have the embargo lifted tomorrow and the Castro regime wiped out, these kinds of sudden changes often have a dark side.

Am I wrong to think that way? What's your point of view?

Posted by Tim Morgan at April 21, 2009 | Comments (5)

President Obama, according an anonymous source speaking to wire services, expects to name a Special Envoy to Sudan, today, March 18. Here's one report:

US President Barack Obama will on Wednesday name retired Air Force general Scott Gration as his special envoy to Sudan to confront what Washington sees as a "horrendous" situation in Darfur. The President "will be naming Scott Gration as special envoy to Sudan," an Obama administration official said on condition of anonymity. The announcement will come as the United States ratchets up pressure on the government of Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir following his expulsion of international aid groups from Darfur that worsened the humanitarian crisis.

CT news is following this story closely and will update this report soon. Scott Gration, of course, is a fascinating choice from my perspective. He was born in DR Congo and his parents were missionaries.

See this Wikipedia entry for details.

The situation in Sudan continues to go from bad to worse even if that seems impossible to imagine. After President Bashir pledged to kick out 13 agencies for their alleged support for the International Criminal Court, the president has now said he wishes to "Sudanize" all aid coming into the nation.

Posted by Tim Morgan at March 18, 2009 | Comments (8)

Today, there are reports that GOP Rep. Frank Wolf is pushing to have Bill Frist (left), an MD and former Senator Majority Leader, to be named as the Obama administration's special envoy on Darfur.

The Sudan Tribune reports:

There is no special diplomat for Sudan since the former envoy stepped down at the end of George Bush's term. Calls for appointment of a high-level envoy with particular deputies began just after Obama's election win in November last year. In an open letter to Obama issued today, Rep. Frank Wolf called the delay "simply unacceptable." "I've witnessed the nightmare with my own eyes," Wolf wrote of Darfur. "Every day that passes, more men are killed, more women are raped, and more children die of malnutrition. This is simply unacceptable. The time to act is now. John Prendergast, a former White House official and current activist, and Roger Winter, a former diplomat to Sudan, are top contenders, the Associated Press speculated. Activists have signaled that a top envoy with high stature in the US political circles could rally international leverage against Sudan's government, which they accuse of genocide. Wolf, the co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, today recommended former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for the post.

Meanwhile, religious freedom advocates have been questioning who is on the short list to become the next ambassador for international religious freedom. I keep hearing word that Don Argue (right), the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals who has been very close to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, is on the short list of potential nominees.

Of course, the nomination of Argue for this incredibly important post for religious freedom would be a strong break with the way the Bush administration managed religious freedom concerns.

Outgoing ambassador John Hanford, granted did some important work on Vietnam, but honestly, there were many evangelical leaders and policy-makers in Washington who are glad to see him go.

For reasons undisclosed, Hanford was unable or unwilling to make international religious freedom a highly visible and urgent issue. His behind the scenes strategy seems to have accomplished little on the ground. Christians in India, China, Sudan, North Korea, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan are much at risk. The honor roll of modern martyrs is long enough, thank you very much.

The appointment of Don Argue, based on what I am hearing, would be welcome indeed. Email me here if you have an opinion on this.

Update: Thursday, Feb. 26.

Today, CT senior writer Tony Carnes spoke on the record with US Rep. Wolf, R-Virginia, and Wolf had some very hard words for Secretary of State Clinton about her recent visit to China and her comments about the situation in Darfur, the western region of Sudan, where genocide continues.

Wolf told Christianity Today:

What she said on China was unbelievable. She has really created a problem. It has an impact on Darfur and all of the career people are going to be sensitive about what they say. It is bad, very bad. The Chinese government gives her great praise and if you go onto the wire today, you will discover an article "15000 flee southern Darfur." She went over with a tin cup and she didn't want any interference.

The reaction from the Obama administration to my Senator Frist proposal has been very positive. Frist handled the genocide resolution and has been out there in Sudan several times.

Frist's name is known in Khartoum and in Juba. The guy cares. If you had Frist being announced to do this with Secretary Clinton one side and President Obama on the other side, I think it could make a critical difference. President Bashir is somewhat on the ropes and this is the opportune time to really push. You also have the north-south issue and it is unraveling. I think the person appointed should also have the north-south portfolio. Whoever can conclude this conflict would be a Nobel peace prize winner. We need someone out there all the time, hopefully Senator Frist.

I do believe that Bashir has been responsible for atrocities and an International Criminal Court action would be helpful in pressuring him. A very positive thing to send a message to dictators that they can't do bad things indiscriminately. Some of the people in those refugees camps have been there for five years since they were started in 2003.

Posted by Tim Morgan at February 26, 2009 | Comments (2)

Fired New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias will be a prosecutor with the Office of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba when terror trials resume there, Ben Smith at Politico reports.

The move has doubly powerful symbolism: Iglesias is recently famous for being fired for refusing to compromise his political independence, but he knows Guantanamo Bay well: He was the Navy defense lawyer played by Tom Cruise in the film, "A Few Good Men," one of three who defended marines at the naval base.

Iglesias, a Naval reservist, said he'd been activated as a Judge Advocate General "prosecuting terror cases out of Guantanamo."

Iglesias is an evangelical who believes he was caught in the middle of a politicization of the Justice department. I interviewed Iglesias last summer about his book, which tells his side of the story about why he was fired by the Bush administration.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at January 22, 2009 | Comments (7)

John McCain and Barack Obama argued over foreign policy and the economy during tonight's first presidential debate. You can read a transcript here and watch the first part on CNN.

Torture came up briefly towards the end. (Update: Below are full quotes from the transcript)

McCain: "And we've got to -- to make sure that we have people who are trained interrogators so that we don't ever torture a prisoner ever again."

Obama: "But because of some of the mistakes that have been made -- and I give Senator McCain great credit on the torture issue, for having identified that as something that undermines our long-term security -- because of those things, we, I think, are going to have a lot of work to do in the next administration to restore that sense that America is that shining beacon on a hill."

A recent poll released by Mercer University found that 57 percent of Southern Baptists said torture can be often or sometimes justified to gain important information from suspected terrorists. Thirty-eight percent said it was never or rarely justified.

David Gushee previously wrote a piece for CT on torture, and the magazine has a special section on the issue.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at September 26, 2008 | Comments (10)

McCain had some criticism earlier this week among some religion-and-politics bloggers when he noted that Georgia is "one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion."

The criticism earlier focused on the church-state aspects of the comment.

"First of all, a nation cannot 'convert' to Christianity -- only individuals can choose to follow Jesus Christ," Wake Forest University's Melissa Rogers wrote on her blog. "Second, while some nations do establish an official religion, I find it disturbing that an American presidential candidate would seem to describe that as a good thing."

Steve Waldman thought the line was political, communicating:

1) I think having Christianity as an official religion is a fine idea in general
2) This is just like the Cold War when the forces of Christianity are at war with the forces of Atheism
3) I view the protection of Christians from attack worldwide as an important goal

Mark Silk just thought McCain's comment was weird.

But tonight, after McCain repeated the line, recent Eastern Orthodox convert Rod Dreher just got mad. "Total and shameless pandering to Evangelicals," he blogged. "As if Russia isn't a Christian nation. As if Russia hasn't been Christian for over a thousand years. As if Christianity had anything to do with this conflict."

Seriously, though, if you're looking for a good religion angle on the conflict, check out George Pitcher's Telegraph article on church responses.

This is cross-posted from CT's liveblog.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at August 16, 2008 | Comments (0)

Conservative evangelicals have raised John McCain's support of embryonic stem-cell research in opposition to his candidacy.

McCain addressed it briefly in his response to Rick Warren's "worldview questions." "For those of us in the pro-life community, this is a great struggle. … I’ve come down on the side of stem cell research, but I’m wildly optimistic that skin cell research … will make this debate an academic one."

Rick Warren: At what point is baby is entitled to human rights?
John McCain's answer: At the moment of conception. I have a 25 year pro-life record in congress, in the senate. This presidency will have pro-life policies. That’s my commitment to you.
Warren's answer: We won’t go longer on that one.

Warren: Define marriage.
McCain: A union between man and woman, between one man and one woman. The court overturned the definition of marriage. I believe they were wrong. I’m a federalist. I believe states should make that decision. That doesn’t mean that people can’t enter into legal agreements, that they don’t’ have the rights of all citizens.

When asked a question on evil, McCain said, "If I have to go to gates and hell and back, I will get Osama Bin Laden."

This is cross-posted from CT's liveblog.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at August 16, 2008 | Comments (1)