Religious minorities continue to suffer loss of their rights across the globe, the State Department reported on Monday, with a rise in blasphemy laws and restrictions on faith practices.
Almost half of the world's governments "either abuse religious minorities or did not intervene in cases of societal abuse," said Ambassador-at-Large Suzan Johnson Cook at a State Department briefing on the 2011 International Religious Freedom Report.
"It takes all of us — governments, faith communities, civil society working together to ensure that all people have the right to believe or not to believe," she said.
Christians in Egypt, Tibetan Buddhists in China and Baha'is in Iran are among those without religious rights, the report states.
In Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, people have been killed, imprisoned or detained because they violated or criticized blasphemy laws. In Indonesia, a Christian was sentenced to prison for five years for distributing books that were considered “offensive to Islam.”
These statutes, the U.S. government says, silence people in countries that claim to be “protecting religion.”
It was supposed to be a realistic lesson on the dangers missionaries sometimes face overseas.
But after a mother’s complaint that her teen daughter was injured and terrorized during a mock terrorist kidnapping staged by the Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church in Lower Swatara, Pa. it might be up to a criminal jury to decide whether the church crossed the line.
Almost four months after the fake raid and complaint by the mother of a 14-year-old girl identified only as K.T., police on July 27 charged Youth Pastor Andrew Jordan and, in an unusual move, the church itself.
Jordan and the Glad Tidings church are charged with one count of false imprisonment and one count of simple assault.
While at least one legal expert said charging the church is novel, authorities said they felt they had to act to protect other children.
Arrested Development filming continues --- recap July entirely in charts --- the wonders of a felt-tipped pen --- hairchitecture. See these and more in today's Links of Awesomeness...
A U.S. drone attack on Sunday killed at least seven suspected militants in Pakistan. The Pakistani newspaper DAWN reported that the seven were Uzbek nationals living in the compound that was hit by six missiles.
This latest attack comes just before Pakistan’s head of intelligence is to visit Washington. CBS News reported drones will be a topic of the discussions:
“Pakistan will press the U.S. at a top-level intelligence summit this week to end unilateral drone strikes aimed at suspected militants along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Though the Thursday meeting in Washington between Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam, head of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and CIA chief Gen. David Petraeus is meant to ease the tension between the two allies, Pakistani and Western officials warn the issue of drone strikes may yield little common ground.”
Right now, it’s difficult to voice a call for civility surrounding religious debates without backlash that you’re stomping on rights or stifling someone’s voice. But here’s hoping.
Religious freedom. What does it mean, and what were we promised? In Sunday’s New York Times, Ross Douthat — columnist and author of Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics — points out that we have a guaranteed right not only to religious belief, but to religious exercise. That right to religious exercise, he argues, is violated in cases like the HHS mandate and the Chick-fil-A debacle.
From Douthat’s piece:
“If you want to fine Catholic hospitals for following Catholic teaching, or prevent Jewish parents from circumcising their sons, or ban Chick-fil-A in Boston, then don’t tell religious people that you respect our freedoms. Say what you really think: that the exercise of our religion threatens all that’s good and decent, and that you’re going to use the levers of power to bend us to your will.”
From here, people tend to go to extremes. On one side: boycott everything whose owner you have a philosophical or religious disagreement with on a personal level. But really do it. Sure it’s easy enough to shun fast food, but enough research will likely prove that our American dream to be comfortable far outweighs our attention span. (Please excuse my cynicism, and please let me know if any of you are successful in this endeavor. I’ll tip my hat to you.)
Of course, it cuts both ways. Extremism comes in a variety of political preferences, so I’ll throw this out there as well: No, there is not a “war on religion” in the United States.
If you're following the 2012 Summer Olympics, you probably know that China currently holds the overall team-lead with 14 medals in total.
But if you're looking to see how many medals Djibouti or Bangladesh have won so far, you may find yourself out of luck... that is unless you visit Medal Count.
Dedicated to covering every country at the London games, the site allows you to stay the most up-to-date with whatever country or medal you wish to follow. It even allows you to choose which events or areas you want to follow.
The following is from a letter by Billy Graham posted recently on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website:
"Some years ago, my wife, Ruth, was reading the draft of a book I was writing. When she finished a section describing the terrible downward spiral of our nation’s moral standards and the idolatry of worshiping false gods such as technology and sex, she startled me by exclaiming, “If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
She was probably thinking of a passage in Ezekiel where God tells why He brought those cities to ruin. “Now this was the sin of … Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen” (Ezekiel 16:49–50, NIV).
I wonder what Ruth would think of America if she were alive today. In the years since she made that remark, millions of babies have been aborted and our nation seems largely unconcerned. Self-centered indulgence, pride, and a lack of shame over sin are now emblems of the American lifestyle."
Yes, there are plenty of examples to support the case Graham is making, but is it fair or accurate to suggest that all points indicate a fundamental moral decay?
To coincide with the opening of the 2012 London Olympics on Friday, Christianity Today had an insightful profile of Team USA member and former "Lost Boy" — runner Lopez Lomong, who was abducted from his home in Sudan during the 20-year long civil war.
According to the profile:
That story starts in 1991, when Lomong's home village of Kimotong was attacked by rebels in the second Sudanese civil war. "I was 6 years old when I was abducted at church, which met under a tree," Lomong told Christianity Today at his training base in Portland, Oregon. "They ripped my mother's arm from me, throwing me and other boys into a truck; they blindfolded us, then drove us to a prison camp that trained rebel soldiers."
Lomong and a small group of boys managed to escape from the torturous conditions they found themselves in, and found their way to a refugee camp near the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, where Lomong “remained for 10 years.”
"God gives the desolate a home to live in; [God] leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a parched land." - Psalm 68:6
Eternal God, giver of joy and source of all strength, we pray for those who prepare for and compete in the London Olympic and Paralympic games. In a world where many are rejected and abused, we pray for a spirit of gracious magnimity, humility, and respect and for the health and safety of all people. May we at the last be led toward the love of Christ who is more than gold, today and forever. Amen.
Adapted from a prayer by Rev Christopher Woods, Church of England