Cancel the 'Burn a Quran' Day!

A large Florida church, the Dove World Outreach Center, recently announced that it would be hosting a Quran burning event on its church property in commemoration of the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They have termed the event "The International Quran Burning Day" and believe it will help warn Americans about the dangers of Islam.

In a recent interview, the Senior Pastor of the church, Dr. Terry Jones explained, “We only did it because we felt there needed to be an outcry against Islam, because Islam is presenting itself as a religion of peace.”

However, America’s biggest evangelical body is now urging Terry Jones and his church to cancel the event entirely.

The National Association of Evangelicals on Thursday said that the event would show complete “disrespect” for Muslims and only serve to “exacerbate tensions” between the two religions worldwide.

“It sounds like the proposed Quran burning is rooted in revenge,” said NAE President Leith Anderson, in a statement. “Yet the Bible says that Christians should ‘make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else’ (I Thessalonians 5:15).”

“The most powerful statement by the organizers of the planned September 11th bonfire would be to call it off in the name and love of Jesus Christ,” Anderson urged.

The NAE represents more than 45,000 local churches from well over forty denominations. Another NAE representative, Pastor Joel Hunter, said that, “We have to recognize that fighting fire with fire only builds a bigger fire.”

“Love is the water that will eventually quench the destruction,” he said.

The Council on American-Islam Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group, plans to counter “International Burn a Quran Day” with a “Share the Quran” dinner on Sept. 11.

(To read the full article, please go to http://www.christianpost.com).

Google Sponsors Ancient Texts Project

Google has set up a new Digital Humanities Research Program which recently granted funding towards a project that will make ancient texts easier to locate and access online.

The project will be entitled the Google Ancient Places (GAP), and will be led by Leif Isaksen of the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science, Dr. Elton Barker from The Open University and Dr. Eric Kansa of the University of California-Berkeley. This project is one of twelve different projects to share a total of $497,000 in awards from Google.

The GAP project will make possible searching within Google Books to find content related to a geographic location and within a particular timeframe. Search results would then be visible using GoogleMaps or GoogleEarth.

“We are very excited about the potential of this project,” Leif Isaksen said. “Up to now many ancient texts have been accessible only at elite institutions or have been very hard to find; now a much wider range of people will be able to discover them. This work will really help open up the field and lead to many further projects.”

(To read the full article, please go to http://www.bib-arch.org).

Religious Wars Find New Battle Grounds in Bus Ads

The conservative group 'Stop Islamization of America,' which has been in the news previously concerning its militant actions to prevent a mosque from being built near Ground Zero, has hit the headlines again. This time because they are behind a series of bus adverts in major American cities that recommend ways and means of leaving the Islamic faith. This has further heightened public debate about the general role that religion plays in society, and in particular the relationship between the State, Christianity and Islam.

The adverts which are placed on the side of city buses read: "Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!"

The ads seem to be in response to recent bus advert campaigns placed by groups interested in creating a more positive image for Islam in a country where 38 percent of people polled believe Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions.

In New York, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community funded a campaign of adverts which say, "Muslims for Peace. Love for All – Hatred for None." A spokesperson for the group, said that their campaign was part of an ongoing effort to reclaim the public image of Islam, which he says has been "hijacked by extremists."

"It's an effort to have the Muslims, the silent majority, snatch the flag of Islam away from these extremists and hoist it above ourselves," he says.

Pam Geller, who is the executive director of ‘Stop Islamization of America’ and a self-termed "anti-jihadist," says that her bus adverts have been inspired by the real life examples of American Muslims who have converted to Christianity and then had to flee from their family and friends for their own safety. She cites the well-known example of Rifqa Bary, who in 2009 claimed her own father made death threats against her for becoming a Christian. Thus, Geller proclaims the bus ad campaign forms part of their greater “defense of religious freedom,” the aim of which is "to help ex-Muslims who are in trouble" and also "to raise awareness of the threat that apostates live under even in the West."

However, other religious rights organizations believe the campaign is nothing more than an attempt to provoke further apprehensions about a faith that, according to most studies, is still hugely misunderstood by the general public, says The Christian Science Monitor.

(To read this article in full, please go to http://www.csmonitor.com).

UK Hospitals Plan Bible Ban

Religious leaders are up in arms over plans by the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust to ban Bibles from patients' bedside cabinets.

The Bible ban plan is not due to religious or political reasons but because of medical ones. Hospital officials say that the Bibles are difficult to clean and thus notorious germ carriers. It is believed that the ban will help prevent infectious superbugs such as MRSA.

However, religious leaders feel that hospital patients will be deprived of spiritual nourishment at at time when they most sorely need it.

A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, which oversees 300 churches, said: “For many patients Bibles have been a source of comfort and support through uncertainty and illness. It is unsatisfactory that patients may now have to ask a nurse for a Bible to look at.”

She urged the trust to look at alternative solutions such as shrink-wrapping or placing plastic covers on the Bibles.

The Hospital bosses are now going through a stringent consulting process with staff, patients and chaplains before enforcing the ban.

OPINION: How Technology Is Changing, or Should Change, the Way the Gospel Is Shared

(By Dr. Dion Forster)

The German theologian Helmut Thielicke once commented, “The Gospel must be constantly forwarded to a new address because its recipient is repeatedly changing his place of residence.”(1) This is a very challenging yet true observation about the nature of mission and evangelism.

One of the most significant Christian books of our era is Philip Jenkins’ The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity.(2) Jenkins quotes Philip Yancey, who notes that:

"As I travel, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God “moving” geographically from the Middle East to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where he’s wanted."(3)

There is no doubt that the geographical movement of Christianity throughout history has radically changed the manner in which the gospel is shared—from its birth in Israel among disenfranchised Jewish peasants; to a state-sanctioned religion under the emperor Constantine; through Europe and the Reformation; taking a detour via the dominance of media and mega-church-driven North American Christianity of our recent history; to where Christianity seems to be finding its place among African, Asian, and South American believers. Each new context presents challenges and opportunities for the gospel and the faith.

The Next Shift in Global Christianity:

But what if the next shift in Christendom is not merely a geographical shift, but in fact a shift into cyberspace—a movement of a completely different kind?

Let me qualify what I am suggesting. Yancey and Jenkins have suggested that Christianity is dominant where the Christian population is most present (numerically) and most influential. This shift can be traced throughout history as different people in different places (geographical locations) have gathered in communities of influence to develop the theology and strategy for sharing the gospel.

However, what if the next major gathering of believers is not bound to a single geographical location, but rather is characterized as some form of scattered “gathering”—a means of drawing together across geographical boundaries with a common mind and purpose? Up to fairly recently, such a shift was not possible.

The limits of effective communication in order to share ideas, create community, and develop influence were simply not possible via single direction broadcast mediums (written letters, messengers, even faxes and telegraphs). However, with the advent of fast, reliable, and pervasive communication technologies, the possibilities for communication and connection are changing. The globe is smaller!

Consider this amazing little fact—at the time of writing this article, the Internet social media website Facebook had just passed the 400 million user mark. If one were to compare the users of Facebook to the populations of countries across the world, you may be surprised to discover that Facebook has the third largest population in the world (bigger than the United States, Indonesia, and Brazil).(4) If Facebook continues to grow at its current rate, it will soon be one of the most populace communities in the world.

That is significant! How many ministries and churches are taking this “scattered community” seriously? Are we sending the message of the gospel to places from which the recipients have already moved?

The Relationship between Technology, Evangelism, and the Apostles:

For some years I used to teach an introductory course on the New Testament at the University of Pretoria. At the start of the year I would often ask the students, “Who was the most prominent apostle in the New Testament?” Theological critique aside, most of the students would reply, “Paul.” When I asked them why they thought this, their reasoning was most often because Paul wrote two-thirds of the letters and epistles in the New Testament.

Of course, it is historically and theologically more accurate to point out that Peter was the most prominent apostle; after all, it is upon Peter that Christ founded the Church (Matthew 16:18). However, there is little doubt that history has given Paul and his ministry a special place in Christendom.

Simply stated, Paul understood and used the dominant technology of his time (letter writing), and through this, his ministry has left a lasting legacy and impact. What this illustration suggests is that language and the medium of communication are as important as location of those with whom we wish to communicate. If you send a letter written in English to a village in Africa where the only person who can read has moved on, it doesn’t matter how eloquent the letter is, its effect will have been lost!

I would contend that the Internet and social media on the Internet are the most important communication (and community forming) technologies of our time. Not only are new media technologies like Facebook and Twitter giving us some indication of the location of the world’s population, they are also giving us an indication of the language this new location requires.

The New Language for the New Location:

It is important to remember that geography is playing less of a formative role in the identity of emerging generations—for example, in South Africa there are many English-speaking children who have adopted American accents since their primary exposure to the English language comes through American cartoons and sitcoms, and of course YouTube. It is not strange to find African, European, and even Asian teenagers who have more in common with the youth of California than their native context. Media has an increasingly dominant role in the formation of cultural identity—such identity is no longer primarily dictated by geographic boundaries.

Thus, simply knowing the location of the population(5) is not enough for truly effective evangelism and missions. We need to “listen” to the emerging language these platforms are generating. Just as earlier shifts in the gospel (from Jerusalem, to Rome, to England, to America) required a change in language, so this new shift will require the emergence of a new language through which the gospel is communicated. Below are some of the lessons we are learning from social networking tools and platforms.

• Text remains an important form of communication. However, long-form text (books and articles) is much less effective than short-form text. For example, Twitter allows only 140 characters of text to be posted. Status updates on Facebook are seldom longer than one or two short sentences. The intention of textual communication is changing. Whereas text has always been used primarily as a means of communicating facts (i.e., statistics, ideas, findings, experiences), social networking is showing us that text is transformed from a broadcast medium (i.e., communicating facts) to a mechanism to solicit interaction. This leads to the next important linguistic shift that the new online location is showing.

• Community is more important that communication. The average user on Facebook is connected to 130 persons. This allows for a far greater reach than was possible in previous generations. Only one hundred years ago the majority of the world’s population would not have had significant contact with a person in a different city or town, let alone a person on a different continent. Today such contacts are common.

• There is a shift from data to wisdom. According to the “shift happens” team, there are thirty-one billion searches on www.google.com every month. In 2006, there were only 2.7 billion searches. It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times newspaper contains more information than a person would come across in their whole lifetime in the eighteenth century.(6) Data and information are no longer a commodity in a world where persons can find facts on the Internet. This has led to development of knowledge engines such as “Wolfram Alpha,” which takes information and applies complex computational processes to extract knowledge.(7)

In a more organic way, we have seen aggregated search results (such as “trending topics” on Twitter) become a valuable commodity for people to sift through the overabundance of data that is available. Social networking is showing that persons value trusted sources, authoritative voices, and services that can help them find what is necessary and valuable.

Concluding Thoughts:

There are many other important things that can be learned from social media and social networking.(8) However, it is my hope that these few insights would stimulate some thought around the “language” churches and ministry groups use to engage people with the unchanging and ever-powerful gospel of Christ.

Christians, and the Church, in every age have to make some necessary shifts in order to effectively communicate the gospel to a moving population. Just as Paul’s letters transformed and built the early Church, and the Guttenberg Press transformed the Church around the time of the Reformation, so I believe the Internet, and particularly social media, is challenging us to transform the way in which we engage the world with the love of Jesus.

__________
(This article was originally written for Lausanne World Pulse and is included here by permission. See www.lausanneworldpulse.com for other excellent articles and mission conversation opportunities. Dr. Dion Angus Forster is a minister and academic. He is the former dean of John Wesley College, the seminary of the Methodist Church of southern Africa, and a research associate and lecturer in systematic theology at the University of Stellenbosch (BUVTON). Forster serves as a chaplain to the Global Day of Prayer and the Power Group of companies in Cape Town, South Africa. His most recent book on Christianity in southern Africa is entitled What Are We Thinking? Reflections on Church and Society).

Endnotes:
1. 2007. In Mission Shaped Youth: Rethinking Young People and the Church. Eds. Tim Sudworth, Graham Cray, and Chris Russell. London: Church House Publishing, 11.
2. 2002. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
3. Ibid, 15.
4. See http://econsultancy.com/blog/5324-20+-mind-blowing-social-media-statistics-revisited for the number of registered users on Facebook as of 9 April 2010. For more up-to-date statistics on registered Facebook users, see www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics. Compare this to the population size of countries across the world at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population; also see this older article on the size of Facebook in relation to population numbers in various countries across the world www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_big_is_facebook.php.
5. Statistics on user numbers for various popular social networking and new media platforms: Facebook (over 400 million users), Twitter (75 million user), and Linkedin (50 million users). See http://econsultancy.com/blog/5324-20+-mind-blowing-social-media-statistics-revisited and www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.
6. http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2009/shift-happens-updated-in-did-you-know-4-0/
7. See www.dionforster.com/blog/2009/7/13/moving-from-information-to-knowledge.html and www.dionforster.com/blog/2009/7/14/sustainable-economies-world-resources-and-wolframalpha.html for a brief discussion on this tool.
8. I have discussed the application of social media and social networking tools for ministry here: www.dionforster.com/blog/2009/10/27/a-superb-video-how-the-world-is-changing-new-media-and-minis.html and here www.dionforster.com/blog/2009/9/6/using-media-in-ministry-redux-facebook-twitter-blogs-youtube.html.

Lady Gaga and the French Nuns

So what does Lady Gaga have in common with a secluded convent of Benedictine nuns from southern France? Well, for one, they have been signed by the same record label, says the Washington Post.

The nuns beat out 70 other convents in a world-wide search to find the best female singers of Gregorian chant. They hail from an order that dates all the way back to the sixth century and are a cloistered order: they live in isolation and can only communicate with guests (even family) through a grill.

"We never sought this, it came looking for us," said Reverend Mother Abbess at the Abbaye de Notre-Dame de l'Annonciation near Avignon. "At first we were worried it would affect our cloistered life, so we asked St. Joseph in prayer. Our prayers were answered."

The record label, Decca Records which is a unit of Universal is set to release the album in November. They also manage contracts for superstar singers such as Elton John, The Rolling Stones and of course Lady Gaga, who was after all, educated at a convent.

Dickon Stainer, the chief of Decca Records, said that it was quite an ordeal to get the contract signed. "I passed the contract through the grill, they signed it and passed it back."

To protect their way of life the nuns will film their own adverts and photograph the album cover.

To keep their privacy the sisters will also film their own television advert and photograph the album cover.

The abbess said the nuns decided to record the album in the hope that it would touch people's lives.

(To read the full story, please go to http://washingtonpost.com).

Solomon’s Temple to be Rebuilt in Brazil

As Jews celebrate Tisha B’av, a day of fasting in remembrance of the destruction of the First and Second Jewish Temples in ancient Jerusalem, a Brazilian megachurch in São Paulo has managed to receive building authorization to begin construction on a 10,000 seat imitation of Solomon’s Temple, according to the New York Times.

The church will cost around $200 million and take four years to complete. Bishop Edir Macedo, the founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, the church behind the building, says that the end construction will be 180 feet high, which is almost twice as high as the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

The Bishop also said that the same type stones as used by Solomon had been ordered from Jerusalem and that the structure would include a sanctuary, Bible schools, television and radio studios and a 1,000 space parking lot. The Bishop also reported that a leader of the city’s Jews was fascinated by their project and felt that it might combat anti-Semitism by educating locals about Israel.

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has been in the news before. In 1998, Alan Riding reported for The Times (U.K.) that the São Paulo police department was looking into charges that the church “pretends to cure people by expelling the Devil from their bodies, using grotesque and humiliating gestures reminiscent of the barbaric sects of the Middle Ages.”

Rape by Deception in Israel: Is this a legitimate conviction or racism?

A thirty year old married father of two confessed in a plea bargain in a Jerusalem court to ‘rape by deception’ and received a sentence of eighteen months. This is despite the fact that he has already experienced two years of house arrest and two months of formal incarceration during the trial, says CNN.com.

Sabour Kashour is an Israeli Palestinian who admitted during his trial to deceiving an Israeli Jewish woman about his ethnic identity before they had sex.

Kashour claims that this sex was totally consensual and it was only when she found out that he was an Arab that she laid a charge against him for rape. However, her claim that she was brutally raped did not stand up in court and she later admitted the sex was consensual.

Israeli law states that if someone has sexual intercourse under false pretenses then that act can be considered as rape. Kashour confessed his total confusion as to how he could possibly face eighteen months in jail over this charge.

"If I told the woman I was a pilot and later she finds out that I was not a pilot, then she goes and says that 'He raped me'? If I told her that I was a millionaire and it turns out that I am a poor man, then she goes and says that 'He raped me'?"
Kashour and his lawyer, Adnan Aladdin, seem to believe that he has been convicted because he is an Arab in Israel and the woman involved was a Jew.

Leah Samael, a lawyer specializing in civil rights and human rights cases agrees with these suspicions. She believes that if a religious Jew, for example, had said he was not religious in order to woo a potential suitor then “"he would not be brought to court," she said.

"And I am not sure that, on this occasion, it is a reason to charge. To have intercourse in daytime in a deserted building in the center of town -- I say the circumstances speak for themselves."

However, Dana Pugach of the Noga Legal Center for Victims of Crime believes that the punishment is a legitimate fit for the crime because the conviction was not centered on his ethnicity but rather on the fact that he is married.

“Criminal law rarely applies to minor lies, like dyed hair or a changed name, but it would apply to the more meaningful lies," she said.

"For example, where a doctor persuades a woman to have sex claiming it would be a part of the medical treatment. As for this particular case, it is not the fact that he was an Arab and claimed to be Jewish. The court emphasized the fact that he claimed to be single while he was married, which would be relevant in the context of a romantic relationship."

Kashour is the second conviction on this particular charge of rape by deception, although the previous case seems far more clear-cut. In 2008, Zvi Sliman was sentenced to ten years for masquerading as an official in the Housing Ministry and promising women help and benefits if they would have intercourse with him.

Kashour will be appealing his sentence.

South African Church's Adverts Are Banned

A South African church which regularly pictured crutches and canes in its adverts has had to can this particular series of ads.

The Solid Rock Church of Miracles believes that its displays of discarded crutches and canes encouraged sick and disabled people to come to their church.

However, there have been numerous complaints about the adverts as being misleading, and after an investigation South Africa’s main advertising complaints body says that it agrees and banned the adverts.

Church’s which promise miracle healings and financial prosperity are flourishing in the more impoverished sections of South Africa.

The Arch to Put Up His Feet

In a televised news conference in Cape Town on Thursday, the Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu announced his intention to retire from public life when he turns 79 in October.

"The time has now come to slow down, to sip rooibos tea with my beloved wife in the afternoons, to watch cricket and rugby and soccer and tennis, to travel to visit my children and grandchildren, rather than to conferences and conventions and university campuses," he said.

Tutu said he would be stepping down from several responbilities but would continue working with a council of statesmen known as The Elders. The Nobel peace laureate winner stressed that he would no longer be available for media interviews.

"As Madiba said on his retirement: 'Don't call me, I'll call you'," he said.

Tutu has had a long and distinguished career as a church cleric and served as the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town between 1986 and 1996. Tutu was a central figure in the fight against apartheid once famously saying:

“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”

Tutu won his Nobel peace prize in 1984 and also chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Tutu has courageously challenged the present ANC led government wherever he has perceived situations of injustice or corruption, which has only served to expand the immense respect in which he is held world-wide.

A Laptop Decodes a “Lost” Biblical Language

A team of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new computer program that could possibly unlock the secrets of ancient texts that are no longer understood, according to the National Geographic (see http://news.nationalgeographic.com).

Working on nothing more than a powerful laptop, the program successfully translated written Ugaritic which was last used around 1200 B.C. in Syria. Ugartic consists of dots and wedge-shaped stylus marks and was first rediscovered in 1928 by archaeologists. It took language experts four years to decode the language and since then it has provided valuable insight into ancient Israelite culture and Biblical texts.
Hebrew is very similar to Ugaritic, and the program managed to connect the Ugaritic symbols to their Hebrew equivalents in less than half a day.

Computers have traditionally been disregarded as effective translating tools for dead scripts since they lack the necessary intuition. This team of scientists from Massachusetts is trying to prove that they can indeed play an useful role.

"Traditionally, decipherment has been viewed as a sort of scholarly detective game, and computers weren't thought to be of much use," wrote study co-author and MIT computer science professor Regina Barzilay.

"Our aim is to bring to bear the full power of modern machine learning and statistics to this problem."

However, critics have voiced doubt over the true effectiveness of this program.
"In the case [of Ugaritic], you're dealing with a small and simple writing system, and there are closely related languages," noted Richard Sproat, an Oregon Health and Science University computational linguist who was not involved in the new work. It's not always going to be the case that there are closely related languages that one can use."

It does seem impossible for the program to translate a dead language that is completely unrelated to other languages we know anything about. Notably, this program translated symbols more than it did language itself and was entirely dependent on the Hebrew ‘sister’ script for reference. Nonetheless, Barzilay believes the decoding program can overcome this hurdle by scanning multiple languages at once and taking contextual information into account — improvements that could uncover unexpected similarities or links to known languages.

City in Pakistan Tense after 'Blaspheming' Christians Assassinated

Two brothers, both of whom were active in their local Christian community, were charged with blasphemy and then shot dead by masked gunmen just outside a court in Faisalabad, Pakistan. The shooting has caused tensions to rise in the the large Christian section of the city and at least ten people were injured as fighting broke out. Police reinforcements have now been called in to manage the situation.

Pastor Rashid Emmanuel, 32, and Sajid, 24, were accused of writing a pamphlet critical of the Prophet Muhammad, but a human rights activist believes that they were framed.

Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law carries the death penalty, and so no one in their right mind would write a pamphlet that is offensive to Muhammad and then include their names and contact details on it says Atif Jameel of the Minorities Democratic Foundation.

He concluded: "This appears to be a conspiracy against peace and religious harmony in Faisalabad."

The brother were arrested earlier this month and since then there has been significant tension between Muslims and Christians, which included a march by Muslims demanding that the brothers receive the death penalty.

No one has yet been executed under Pakistan's blasphemy law, but about 10 accused have been murdered before the completion of their trial, according to a BBC Urdu correspondent in Lahore. Others are living in exile to avoid punishment.

Human rights activists are desperate to repeal the law because it is exploitable by those harbouring personal grudges and by religious extremists.

The Proposed Ground Zero 'Mega Mosque' Continues to Stir Strong Feelings

The Cordoba Initiative’s proposal to build a ‘mega mosque’ near Ground Zero in New York has engendered fierce debate and drawn serious media focus.

“This proposed project is about promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture,” say those behind the project.

“Cordoba House will provide a place where individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, will find a center of learning, art and culture; and most importantly, a center guided by Islamic values in their truest form - compassion, generosity, and respect for all,” they add.

However, those who are opposed to the project claim that the motivation is political not reconciliation.

“Why was this particular site selected? Because the need for a $100 million mosque is so great? Because 45-47 Park Place is the only place left in Manhattan to put a mosque?” posed Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of the bestselling book Son of Hamas.

“No. Because it will make a powerful political and religious statement.”

Other opponents to the initiative speak out even more emotionally against it.

“We feel that it is a cemetery and sacred ground and the dead should be honored,” said Pamela Geller, the conservative leader of a group called Stop the Islamization of America, on CNN’S “America Morning” last week. “To build a 13-story mega mosque on the cemetery, on the largest site in American history, I think, is incredibly insensitive.”

However, other Americans are fully supportive of the project and believe it would do a great deal of good. In an article written on this topic for CNN, John L. Esposito, who is the professor of Religion and International Affairs and director of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal center for Muslim-Christian understanding at Georgetown University, said that:

“Here are the facts: The center is not at Ground Zero but two blocks away, and the Cordoba Initiative seeks to build a center, not a mosque. The center is not designed as a local mosque for a Muslim community but rather to serve the wider community. It is meant to improve interfaith and Muslim-West relations and promote tolerance -- not just to provide services to Muslims. The proposed 15-story community center will include a prayer room, offices, meeting rooms, gym, swimming pool and performing arts center.”

Esposito went onto state his belief that the groundswell of opposition to the project is part of a much bigger problem: Islamophobia. As Muslim populations grow in the States, this problem is becoming more and more marked. To validate his claim, Esposito quotes a 2006 USAToday-Gallup poll which illustrates that ill-feelings towards Muslims are very much present in America. He concludes by writing:

“Islamophobia must be recognized for what it is, a social cancer as unacceptable as anti-Semitism, a threat to the very fabric of our democratic, pluralistic way of life. The line that distinguishes Islam from those who commit violence and terror in the name of Islam --between the majority of mainstream Muslims and the acts of a minority of Muslim terrorists -- must be maintained. Blurring these distinctions risks the adoption of foreign and domestic policies that promote a clash rather than co-existence of cultures and threaten the rights and civil liberties of Muslims.”

(The image is of those involved a few weeks ago in a protest march against the proposed build).

Atheists ‘Debaptise’ People with Hair-Dryers

Armed with nothing but a hair-dryer, a prominent Atheist, Edwin Kagin, conducted a mass ‘de-baptism’ of fellow atheists. The ceremony took place at the annual American Atheists Convention and the hair-dryer was used to symbolically dry up any offending baptism waters that might have been sprinkled on the non-believers foreheads when they were young children.

Edwin Kagin is one of atheism’s most renowned provocateurs and is also American Atheists legal director. He led the service using mock King James language much to the amusement of his audience. Kagin even labeled the hair dryer ‘Reason and Truth’.

Kagin invited people forward to experience the ‘debaptism’ by saying:
"Come forward now and receive the spirit of hot air that taketh away the stigma and taketh away the remnants of the stain of baptismal water."

Kagin said that many people have undergone de-baptism."Many have taken it as somewhat of a joke, but some have found it truly, if you will, a spiritually cleansing experience."

He said that the intention in the ceremony is to poke fun at baptisms, saying that waving a hair-dryer around has about the same spiritual power as does any church led baptismal ceremony. Kagin said that he hopes to shock people enough to begin to ask questions so that they might start “to learn a bit.”

Kagin has made headlines in the past for referring to parents who educate their children with fundamentalist religious teachings as abusing them.

"They are practicing child abuse in teaching that the world operates in ways other than it does," he has said. "And in my opinion, they are engaged in terrorism by weakening our nation and our understanding of science and things with which we can defend ourselves and progress. If it had not been for these fools we could have been at the stars 2,000 years ago."

Interestingly enough, Kagin’s own son is a Christian preacher in Kansas. Kagin says that despite this they have a good relationship although there are some things they just cannot talk about.

When asked whether his ceremony was not just in bad taste and poor manners, Kagin responded by saying that bad manners were a reasonable weapon in what he saw as America’s new civil war – the conflict between atheists and believers.

(To read the article in full, please go to http://abcnews.go.com).

The Catholic Church Declares the Ordination of Women to be a “Grave Crime.”

The Catholic Church cannot seem to stay out of the news lately, and for all the wrong reasons. Yesterday, the Vatican released a document intended to defuse the sex abuse scandals currently rocking it, but they only succeeded in seriously offending both women’s groups and liberal Catholics around the globe. This is because the document included a provision that declared the "attempted ordination" of women as one of the gravest crimes in ecclesiastical law.

Since the document was predominantly dealing with the sexual abuse of minors, this provision seems to place the “offence” of ordaining women on a par with sexual abuse.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said that the document was "one of the most insulting and misogynistic pronouncements that the Vatican has made for a very long time. Why any self-respecting woman would want to remain part of an organisation that regards their full and equal participation as a 'grave sin' is a mystery to me."

Vivienne Hayes, the chief executive of the Women's Resource Centre, said that the document was "appalling".

She added: "This declaration is doubly disempowering for women as it also closes the door on dialogue around women's access to power and decision making, when they are still under-represented in all areas of political, religious and civic life. We would urge the Catholic church to acknowledge that women's rights are not incompatible with religious faith."

Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, stated that: "We are sure that the vast majority of the general public will share in our abject horror at the Vatican's decision to categorise the ordination of women as an 'offence' in the same category as paedophilia – deemed to be one of the "gravest offences a priest can commit".

"This statement follows a series where the Vatican, an institution which yields great influence and power not only in the Catholic community but also wider society, has pitched itself in direct opposition not only to women's rights but to our equal worth and value. We hope this is an issue that the government takes the opportunity to raise if it still feels the impending papal visit is appropriate.”

It is mystifying why a document which was to purportedly help clean up the image of the Catholic Church would be used to make such a controversial and seemingly ill considered statement. What does seem certain is that the protests against this statement have only just begun and that the Vatican PR department has a lot of work ahead of it.

(To read this article in full, please go to http://guardian.co.uk).

Bear Grylls: A Journey of Wild Faith

Bear Grylls, the star of the hugely popular Discovery Channel show ‘Man vs. Wild,’ recently shared his testimony with the Christian magazine ‘Relevant.’

Grylls is a devoted Christian who credits his faith as bringing him much strength and encouragement in the context of a demanding show. Grylls told the magazine how much he feels “held” when he is filming in the wild, and how God lends him strength to take the risks he does.

Grylls has done stunts such as paragliding over the Antarctica, hiking through dangerous jungles and even eating yak eyeballs.

Grylls shares that:

“It’s about being strengthened. It’s about having a backbone run through you from the Person who made you. It’s about being able to climb the biggest mountains in the world with the Person who made them.”

Grylls went onto to affirm that he has always felt that God was like a friend, and also points to his wife and three sons as being a integral part of his faith journey.

Goliath’s Hometown Found

An archaeological excavation in Tel Tzafit has unearthed the ancient city of Gat which was described in the Bible as Goliath’s hometown. Goliath was the fearsome Philistine giant who challenged Saul’s Israelite army and was then defeated in personal combat by David.

The director of the archaeological excavation, Professor Aren Maeir, said the recent findings in the dig are “fascinating”. Gat was occupied during the course of history by the Canaanites, Philistines and Israelites.

Maeir said that: “We are focusing on the Canaanite period, the Philistine period, and the Israelite period, and for now we're primarily in the Philistine period.”

Interestingly enough, writings have been found which contain various Philistine names, some of which are similar to the name “Goliath”.

"We've found a rich variety of artifacts” showing that Gat was a major city at that time, Maeir continued. “We are now discovering remnants from metal craft and bronze, and from the destruction of the city at the hands of King Chazel of Aram as described in the second books of Kings.”

Other findings show that Chazel laid siege to the city until food supplies dwindled and then attacked the city, demolishing whole buildings in the process. At a different stage in history, other buildings appear to have collapsed as a result of an earthquake, possibly the one mentioned in the book of Amos.

There was a complex inter-relationship which existed between Israel and the Philistines, Maeir revealed. “The Philistines... were often more than just enemies. We can see this in the Bible as well, for instance, in the fact that Samson married a Philistine woman,” he said. There appears to have been multifaceted crossovers and intricate interactions between the two cultures – for example, findings from the dig have revealed that aspects of Philistine cooking became part and parcel of Israelite cuisine as well.

(To read this article in full, please go to http://IsraelNationalNews.com).

Vatican Gets Serious About Preventing Abuse

The Catholic Church is soon to release new rules especially formulated to protect children from further abuse by clergy, reports the CNN.

To this end, the Vatican will add the possession of child pornography to its list of most serious crimes, and also declare the abuse of any mentally retarded persons to be in the same category as the abuse of children due to their shared vulnerabilities.

The firming up of these rules are part of the Catholic Churches continued efforts to respond to the abuse scandals which have plagued it over the last couple of years. Essentially, these rules are an effort to formalize the practices and standards which it already practices.

However, it does not seem as if the Vatican’s controversial approach to reporting child abuse to civic authorities is set to change.

Abuse victims, and the organizations which represent them, are already claiming that the changes are not far reaching enough.

"There needs to be massive overhaul, not mere tweaking, of how the church deals with abuse and cover-up," said Barbara Dorris, of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

"As long as bishops can ignore and conceal child sex crimes without punishment, they'll keep ignoring and concealing child sex crimes," she said last week, responding to media reports about what the new guidelines would say. The focus needs to be on catching predators more quickly, involving secular law enforcement, and preventing recklessness and deceit by bishops, who can and should take many steps to protect the vulnerable long before the defrocking process begins," she said.

(To read the article in full, please go to http://religion.blogs.cnn.com).

French Lower House Votes in Favour of Burqa Ban

On Tuesday, France's lower house of parliament nearly unanimously voted for a ban on any veils that cover the face -- including the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women.

The vote was 335 to 1.

However, this vote must still be put before the French Senate before it becomes official legislation.

Amnesty International vociferously opposed this vote.

"A complete ban on the covering of the face would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or the niqab in public as an expression of their identity or beliefs," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's expert on discrimination in Europe.

The French people support this ban by over four to one, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a recent survey.

(To read this article in full, please go to http://edition.cnn.com).

One Small Step for Man, One BIG Step for Women Bishops in the Church of England

As reported earlier in ‘So What,’ the Church of England national assembly met to discuss whether women clergy should be permitted to become bishops. On Monday, they decided that definite steps should be taken forward in this regard, and in the process they made only minor concessions to theological conservatives who were threatening a church split over the issue.

"The decision to consecrate women as bishops has been taken," said church spokesman Lou Henderson. "Everybody recognized the importance of offering safeguards and assurances to those who find it very difficult (to accept women bishops), but in the end Synod as a whole was not prepared to go as far as the traditionalists would have liked."

However, the decision is not final and still faces many obstacles.

Local dioceses will now discuss the draft law, which will allow individual bishops to arrange alternative oversight for those conservatives who object to serving under women bishops. The dioceses will need to report back by 2012 and then the issue will be put to a final vote by the General Synod.

If approved, the first women bishops could be appointed in 2014.

While campaigners in favour of women bishops were celebrating, some of their conservative opponents felt they were slowly being forced out of the Church of England.

"The scope for remaining in the Church of England is getting more and more narrow and the options are rapidly closing," the Rev. David Houlding, a leading member of the Catholic Group on the General Synod, told the Press Association.

"I am staying in the Church of England for the time being until I am driven out. I am not going willingly, I will only go if forced," he said.

(To read the article in full, please go to http://washingtonpost.com).

Foster Parent Who Allowed Muslim Teenager to Convert is Reinstated

A foster parent who was removed from the carer’s register by her local Gateshead Council (U.K.) after a Muslim girl in her care converted to Christianity has been reinstated.

The decision to remove her from the register and revoke her foster parenting status led to a storm of controversy in the north-east of England.

The foster parent had looked after children for over a decade and had an unblemished record but was held responsible for failing to “protect and preserve” a teenage girls Muslim faith when she was baptized, even though the girl was over sixteen years of age at the time and had made up her own mind to officially change her religion.

However, when the case was reported in a local newspaper, the Daily Mail, a swell of public support rose for the carer because it was felt the Gateshead council had treated her unfairly and not taken into account that the teenage girl was old enough to make up her own mind.

The foster parent reported that: “In addition to losing the Muslim teenager, another girl I was looking after was taken back into care. And I lost the farmhouse I rented to look after vulnerable teenagers.”

She added: “Despite my experiences, I still hope to foster again in the future. I simply enjoy helping young people.”

Although the carer is a devout Christian in her 50’s, she said that she had never pressured the girl to convert and the council was made aware that she had begun attending a Christian church, but her foster manager became “incandescent with rage” when she was baptized.

The teenager in question was sent to the foster parent when she was threatened with an arranged marriage and faced violence from her family.

The decision to strike the carer from the foster parent’s register was overturned by a Leeds Court last week. The Children’s Commissioner for England, Maggie Atkinson, said:
“The decision to remove a carer would only be made if it were in the best interests of the children. I am sorry it had such an effect. I hope that the ruling and Gateshead’s move to reassess the situation will go some way to reversing this.”

(Image is of Dr. Maggie Atkinson, the Children's Commissioner of England).

Oldest Written Document Ever Found in Jerusalem

In a press release on Monday, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced that a tiny clay fragment – dating from the 14th century B.C.E. – was found in excavations outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls. The clay fragment (pictured) contains the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem.

The fragment was written by a highly skilled scribe that probably prepared tablets for the royal house of the time, said Wayne Horowitz, a scholar of Assyriology at Hebrew University Institute of Archeology, who helped decipher the script.

Tablets with diplomatic messages were routinely exchanged between kings in the ancient Near East, Horowitz said, and there is a great likelihood, because of its fine script and the fact it was discovered adjacent to in the acropolis area of the ancient city, that the fragment was part of such a “royal missive.”

Examination of the material of the fragment by Prof. Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University, shows that it is from the soil of the Jerusalem area and not similar to materials from other areas, further testifying to the likelihood that it was part of a tablet from a royal archive in Jerusalem.

The leader of the excavation which uncovered the fragment, Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology, said that this new discovery provides solid evidence of the importance of Jerusalem during the Late Bronze Age (the second half of the second century B.C.E.), and acts as a counterpoint to some who have used the lack of substantial archeological findings from that period until now to argue that Jerusalem was not a major center during that period. It also lends weight to the importance that accrued to the city in later times, leading up to its conquest by King David in the 10th century B.C.E., she said.

You can find the press release in full below:
http://www.huji.ac.il/cgi-bin/dovrut/dovrut_search_eng.pl?mesge127893731332688760

Support Grows for Burqa Bans in Europe

Nations right across Western Europe are considering a ban on Muslim women from wearing veils that cover their full faces.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project survey released findings yesterday that show that support for this kind of ban is strengthening right across Europe. Countries with strong majorities are France (82 percent), Germany (71 percent), Britain (62 percent) and Spain (59 percent). The ban would be in the form of legislation that prevents total face veils in schools, hospitals and government offices.

Americans are, however, very much against such legislation (only 28 percent approve) because they see it as a violation of religious freedom. Such a ban could obviously lead to other religious garb such as yarmulkes, clerical collars and Hare Krishna robes also being forbidden in certain public spaces. Legislators claim the reasons behind the veil ban are security based and not religious.

Defenders of the various burqa bands are also attempting to cast themselves as fighting for the rights of women, however various Islamic scholars are questioning the validity of this. Boston University scholar and the author of ‘Sexual Ethics and Islam,’ Professor Kecia Ali views this current European fixation on Muslim women’s clothing” not as “a systematic push for gender equality” but as “a symbolic statement” that “plays into an us-versus-them mentality with brutal real-world consequences.”

Ali has been further quoted as saying that the proposed burqa ban: "distracts from real issues of class injustice, racial oppression, and continued discrimination and violence against women, Muslim and non-Muslim."

Boston University religion scholar, author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World," and regular CNN contributor Stephen Prothero writes that:

“Anti-burqa legislation in Belgium, France, the UK and beyond raises all sorts of questions about immigration and assimilation, church and state. But lurking around each of these questions is the overarching matter of what the veil means. Is it a symbol of Islamic identity? A rejection of the hyper-sexualization of the female body? Or is it, in the words of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, ‘a sign of debasement’–a stiff-arm to country and community, and a symbol of sexism and misogyny?”

Prothero goes on to state that in his opinion this issue challenges any notions of Europe as being justly and properly tolerant of its multi-cultural society.

What do you think of these proposed Burqa bans? You can tell us your thoughts in our feedback section.

(To read the full article, please go to http://religion.blogs.cnn.com).

Could the BP Spill End Life As We Know It?

251 million years ago a gargantuan undersea methane bubble caused immense explosions that poisoned the atmosphere and ultimately caused the extinction of over 96 percent of all life on earth. This mass extinction event is now called the Permian extinction and experts believe it was possibly the most devastating in our world’s history.

Over the course of history, other methane bubbles have exploded resulting in further mass extinctions that lasted for tens of thousands of years and virtually reshaped our planet. One of these occurred 195 million years ago and created what is now called the Gulf of Mexico.

Some scientists fear that the BP drilling operation in a geologically unstable region may have set in motion a chain of events that will cause a premature release of another methane mega-bubble. The problem is, if this is true, there is no known technology that can prevent it from occurring.

Scientists have documented the warning signs of just such a catastrophic event:

1. The appearance of large fissures or rifts splitting open the ocean floor.
2. A rise in the elevation of the seabed.
3. A massive venting of methane and other gases into the surrounding water.

Apparently, all three of these warning signs are presently occurring in the Gulf. In the midst of a total press blackout from the area (the US government will impose a $40,000 fine for any infractions) it is difficult to tell what is really going on.

However, what is known is that methane is pouring through the seabed at unprecedented levels. Workers at the epicenter now are forced to wear advanced protection gear. A scientist at the Texas A&M University has calculated that the ruptured well is discharging about 40 percent methane while the normal release of methane from a compromised well is around 5 percent.

Furthermore, a NOAA research ship, the Thomas Jefferson has reported sighting a huge gash hundreds of metres long on the ocean floor. These fissures are about 15 kilometres away from the BP epicenter but are also spewing methane. Disturbingly enough, methane levels in the surrounding water are now being calculated as being almost one million times higher than normal.

If the worst fears of these scientists are confirmed, then within the next 6 months the entire globe will be rocked by a disaster that could potentially wipe life out.
Other scientists argue that the globe is safe from just such a disaster because the bulk of the methane is being frozen into crystalline form, but others point out that the underground methane sea is being melted because of the nearby surging oil which is believed to be as hot as 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Whether this potential disaster is just yet another scare-mongering conspiracy theory, or indeed based on solid facts is difficult to tell because of the media blackout and government vetoed press releases. What is certain is that humanity needs to learn it lessons about how we so casually and arrogantly treat the environment, because one day it may be too late to for us to change our habits.

(To read this article in full, and to see the scientific references quoted in detail, please go to http://helium.com).

Jesus in Playboy Magazine Generates Controversy

Playboy Magazine International is to terminate its relationship with its Portuguese contractors after they ran a photo shoot that included Jesus Christ among topless models.

The photo shoot was a tribute to Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago’s ‘The Gospel According to Jesus Christ’ but it has not been favourably received by Playboy HQ.

The pictures depict Christ watching two models in a lesbian embrace while standing next to a prostitute and looking over the shoulder of a woman reading a book. Another heavily tattooed woman appears to have died in his arms.

Theresa Hennessy, Playboy Enterprises vice president of public relations told the Mail Online:

"We did not see or approve the cover and pictorial in the July issue of Playboy Portugal. It is a shocking breach of our standards and we would have not allowed it to be published if we had seen it in advance. We are in the process of terminating our agreement with the Portuguese publisher."

Saramago's novel was a fictional re-telling of Christ's life that showed him as very human and flawed character. It created heated controversy among the Roman Catholic Church, who accused Saramago of depicting a “substantially anti-religious vision.”

Pray as you Go: Will Mobile Phones Change Religion?

A recent article in Livescience.com recently asked the question whether mobile devices will enhance or detract religious practice. Advances in technology have almost always been readily embraced by religions: from the printing press to radio to TV to the internet. However, the incredible proliferation of mobile handsets is leading experts to query whether they will be a greater help or hindrance to religious practice.

Cell phones are so pervasive that they have incredible potential to strengthen communities, especially in areas and situations where they are the only digital option available. Already, hundreds of apps exist that assist Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists in their various spiritual journeys. Apps even exist that seek to empower Atheists in religious discussions.

However, some religious leaders believe that mobile phones will isolate people from true community in the sense of face to face relationships.

Others disagree with such notions. Instead, leaders such as James Clement van Pelt, program coordinator of Yale University’s initiative in religion, science and technology, see the broad appeal of mobile devices is their ability to unite religious communities beyond even barriers such as geography.

Darleen Pryds, an associate professor of Christian spirituality and medieval history at Franciscan School of Theology agrees with this.

“Even if I haven't participated in real time with the prayer service, the series of prayers are there in my newsfeed as a reminder. When I do pray in real time with them, I have a sense of a large, international community praying together. It's pretty powerful,” she said.

However, the overall sense is that we are in the early days of making the best use possible of mobile devices in a way that will connect people and enhance the overall sense of worship. Dudley Rose, the associate dean for ministry studies at Harvard University’s Divinity School, gives a balanced view in this regard.

“The future is very bright, but we have yet to get our mind around a world where some [people get] their whole religious experience through a device. The challenge then, is how to make wise use of the technology, while at the same time be wary of its potential to be destructive to community and a sense of submission to one's faith.”

(To read the full article, please go to http://livescience.com).

Violent Drug Gang Have Christian Author as ‘Required Reading’

John Eldredge, the author of a million plus bestseller, “Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul,” has been cited as spiritual inspiration for a ruthless fundamentalist Mexican drug gang called La Familia.

The leader of the gang, which controls most of the Crystal Meth traffic in the US is Nazario Morena who has just written a 104 page booklet called “Thoughts” that gives Christian inspirational advice. Morena also expects his gang members to study the Bible and pray the Rosary even as they gun down police, dismember opponents and manufacture drugs. La Familia hit the headlines in 2006 when they threw severed heads into a Mexican disco, and they have become infamous for brutality mixed with pseudo-spirituality.

Morena has made John Eldredge’s book required reading for his gang members because he so appreciates Eldredge’s tendency to encourage Christian men to rediscover their masculinity in toughness and violence.

So what exactly is it about "Wild at Heart" that Morena loves? Well, for a start, Eldredge writes approvingly of men’s innate love of weapons, combat and hunting.

“Aggression is part of the masculine design; we are hardwired for it. If we believe that man is made in the image of God, then we would do well to remember that “the Lord is a warrior (Exodus 15:3).”

When the macho passages in Wild at Heart are read in context, it’s apparent that Eldredge’s animosity is toward what he sees as society’s emasculation of the male. His remedy is physical adventures in nature and an embracing of the Bible. He writes elsewhere that:

“Capes and swords, camouflage, bandannas and six shooters–these are the uniforms of boyhood. Little boys yearn to know that they are powerful, they are dangerous, they are something to be reckoned with. How many parents have tried to prevent little Timmy from playing with guns? Give it up. If you do not supply a boy with weapons, he will make them from whatever materials are at hand. My boys chew their graham crackers into the shape of handguns at the breakfast table.”

Over the course of his book, Eldredge tries to convince his readers that it is natural, or “in the blood” of men to yearn for violence. He says that, “Women didn’t make Braveheart one of the best selling films of the decade. Flying Tigers, The Bridge Over The River Kwai, The Magnificent Seven, Shane, High Noon, Saving Private Ryan, Top Gun, The Die Hard films, Gladiator–the movies a man loves reveal what his heart yearns for, what is set inside him from the day of his birth. Like it or not, there is something fierce in the heart of every man.”

However, abundant psychological research has proven that humans (both sexes) have an instinctive aversion to killing others. Most soldiers, other than the estimated two percent who are sociopaths, have to go through specific conditioning before they are able to fire weapons at others. For example in World War Two (prior to the development of such conditioning) according to one study only 15-20% of U.S. riflemen fired their rifles in combat.

Eldredge has distanced himself from La Familia claiming that they have fundamentally misunderstood his message.

(To read the full article, please go to http://blogs.alternet.org).

Bible will be Translated into Every Spoken Language by 2025

Within the next 15 years every spoken language in the world will have the Bible translated into its own tongue. This is because of new technological advances as well as translation strategies.

The world’s largest Scripture translation organization, the Wycliffe Bible Translators, believes that the Bible will be translated into all of the remaining 2,200 languages used by some 350 million people by 2025. There are about 6,905 languages spoken in the world.

The man who is responsible for raising the $1 billion needed for the effort, called the Last Languages Campaign, believes God will provide people and money to finally finish the more than 2,000-year effort.

“By God’s provision we went through a financial crisis and during the very same year as the financial crisis we have our greatest year ever in the number of translations started,” said Paul Edwards, executive director of Wycliffe’s Last Language Campaign, when speaking to The Christian Post recently.

“Apparently, God is less worried about the money and He is more worried about his Word getting out.”

Since its launch, the Last Languages Campaign has received a total commitment of $184 million.

Edwards said many factors are contributing to the rapid speed of Bible translation over the past few years.

New computer software allows translators to fairly accurately predict the rest of a paragraph after they enter a few phonetic words. Also a small, battery-powered satellite and a laptop enables a translator to check his translator with a master translator somewhere in the world with little effort. Both these advancements save a tremendous amount of time.

Finally, Wycliffe is also using a new approach with translation by having teams translate groups or clusters of similar languages at the same time. Many translation teams worldwide are working on five to 12 similar languages at the same time so if one language group receives a Gospel story so do the other similar language groups. This change in approach should also see Bibles being translated into new languages more quickly.

(To read this article in full, please go to http://christianpost.com).

Religious Wars Enter App Territory

The recent dramatic increase of smart-phone software has created entirely new dimensions in the common everyday religious debate sector. What do you do if you happen to be sitting in a coffee bar with a group of friends and someone challenges you with a faith question you don’t have the first clue how to answer? Well, the answer is now as far away as your cell phone! All you need to do is download an app and it will tell you how to deal with the issue at hand.

Publishers of Christian material have begun developing iPhone apps that guide the average user in quick comebacks and rhetorical strategies for believers who need the help.

“Say someone calls you narrow-minded because you think Jesus is the only way to God,” says one top-selling application introduced in March by a Christian publishing company. “Your first answer should be: ‘What do you mean by narrow-minded?’ ”
Interestingly enough, there are also a competing group of apps which arms atheists for battle.

For religious skeptics, the “BibleThumper” iPhone app boasts that it “allows the atheist to keep the most funny and irrational Bible verses right in their pocket” to be “always ready to confront fundamentalist Christians or have a little fun among friends.”

In a dozen new phone applications, whether faith-based or faith-bashing, the prospective debater is given a primer on the basic rules of engagement — how to parry the circular argument, the false dichotomy, the ad hominem attack, the straw man — and then coached on all the likely flashpoints of contention. Why Darwinism is scientifically sound, or not. The differences between intelligent design and creationism, and whether either theory has any merit.

Users can scroll from topic to topic to prepare themselves or, in the heat of a dispute, search for the point at hand — and the perfect retort.

(To read the full article, please go to http://nytimes.com).

Robert Pattinson and Religion

Teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson is keen on starting his own religion.

The Twilight star has many ambitions away from acting and he is fascinated by the idea of being the head of his own faith.

In an interview with the German edition of Glamour magazine, Pattinson said that: "I definitely want to record an album, direct a film and start my own religion."

When asked why he would be interested in starting his own religion, Pattinson mentioned that one big advantage would be the tax breaks, saying "Well, I definitely wouldn't have to pay taxes anymore."

The actor who plays a vampire named Edward in the immensely popular Twilight series also addressed claims that author Stephanie Meyer hides Mormon philosophy in her books. He said: "I think people make up all these Mormon references just so they can publish Twilight articles in respectable publications. Even Stephanie said it doesn't mean any of that. It is based on a dream."

'Machine Gun Pastor' Film in Production

Hollywood star Gerard Butler has agreed to play the role of the drug-dealing biker who turns into a gun-toting pastor that protects children in the new film “Machine Gun Preacher.”

“Machine Gun Preacher” is based on the true story of Sam Childers, and will chronicle how he transforms from a violent drug addict to a Christian pastor and missionary who involves himself in protecting Sudanese children from the rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army.

According to Variety Magazine, filming will begin in July.

Last year, Childers was interviewed by The Christian Post about his life of wielding weapons to protect orphans while he was promoting his book ‘Another Man’s War: The True Story of One Man’s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan.’

“I don’t condone violence at all,” Childers responded when questioned about his use of weapons. “I don’t believe in violence but at the same time I don’t believe that children should be raped, murdered, or cut up."

“I look of it as a self-defense and I look at it as I’m helping God’s children,” he explained. “I’m not a person out to murder. It’s not that I like hurting anybody. But at the same time these people need to be stopped.”

In his book, Childers describes how he has spent much of the last twelve years building the Angels of East Africa Children’s village and rescuing children from attacks by the LRA. He also remembers gruesome scenes after LRA raids that included smelling the burning of flesh and saving a woman drenched in her own blood from a breast that was half cut off by a machete. He said the crazed rebel group often even forced victims to engage in acts of cannibalism and children to butcher their mothers.

“I loved fighting then. And I still love fighting now. The difference is today I’m fighting for the children and families God sent me to protect,” Childers wrote in his book.

The film “Machine Gun Preacher” is expected to be released in the fall of 2011, according to Lionsgate entertainment company.

(To read the full story, please go to http://christianpost.com. Image is of Sam Childers arriving at his book launch in Beverley Hills, CA).

Archbishop Fears the Impact of the Women Bishops Debate

In addressing the British Methodist Conference in Portsmouth, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, spoke of his deep desire to see woman eventually ordained as bishops in the Church of England, but not in a way that will “violently disrupt” the everyday life of the church.

Archbishop Williams asked the Methodists to pray for the Church of England as they prepare for their own conference and the key debates on women bishops that will take place there. Williams said that:

“My hope and prayer is that we shall see women ordained as bishops in the Church of England. My hope and prayer is also that we shall do that in a way that does not violently disrupt some of the features of our common life, that we actually lose one another in a sense.

“Yes, we will have some mess afterwards but making that mess something other than rancorous and resentful is what I would like to see. I am quite prepared to be Petrine for quite a long time on that one [a reference to the leadership style of Peter who compromised on certain principles in order to preserve order and hierarchy within the church].”