Salvation Army plans mass aid for Christchurch

Only hours after the devastating earthquake that hit Christchurch, the Salvation Army announced that it was planning mass action in terms of people, resources and money to assist those whose lives have been torn apart.

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake wreaked havoc on New Zealand’s second largest city, with the death toll being estimated at 65, and with dozens others trapped in fallen buildings. There was significant damage to the city buildings, including the iconic Christchurch Cathedral which collapsed into a central city square (see image).

The quake struck at 12.51pm (local time) on Tuesday afternoon afternoon, and by that afternoon the Salvation Army had already organised temporary housing and other services for over a 1000 afflicted citizens.

“You just cannot imagine the enormity of this [quake] compared to the first one,’ said Major Rex Cross, emergency services coordinator for The Salvation Army in Christchurch.

“Food is on its way and people will be fed,” he confirmed, saying that supplies should feed around 1500 people.

The Salvation Army National Fundraising Coordinator (NZ) Major Robbie Ross said that experience from the previous quake showed that people needed psychological and spiritual support, as much as they needed material aid.

“Our experience with the September quake showed us the great emotional shock such an event can have on people–and now there is the added dimension of some people grieving for loved ones.

“There will be a myriad of material needs by those who have lost possessions and homes. We are appealing for cash donations to strengthen our response,” he stated.

The Salvation Army has issued a call to Christians throughout the globe to pray for the victims of this natural disaster.

Twitter campaign to save life of imprisoned Said Musa

Prominent Christian leaders are involving themselves in a mass Twitter campaign on behalf of Said Musa, an Afghan citizen who is presently waiting execution for converting to Christianity from Islam.

Musa was told by a judge that he would be hanged unless he agrees to reconvert to Islam.

Rick Warren, recently named as a top 20 Twitter celebrity by Forbes, lamented the fact that media has generally underreported Musa's story.

"Media CLAIM to champion free speech but if they really did, they'd report these stories everyday," Warren tweeted his 245,653 followers.

The Saddleback Church pastor and author of “Purpose Driven Life” also tweeted a link to a National Review Online article, "America Quiet on the Execution of Afghan Christian Said Musa."

The article asks why US President Barack Obama spoke to the threat by Pastor Terry Jones to burn the Qu'ran but has been totally quiet on Musa's situation.

"If the actions of a Florida pastor who threatened to destroy a book holy to Muslims deserved public and presidential attention, then the actions of the Afghan government, ostensibly a ‘democratic’ ally, to destroy something holy to Christians, a human being made in the image of God, also deserve public and presidential attention," asserted article author Paul Marshall.

John Piper and other prominent Christian leaders have all involved themselves in some way or the other in the Twitter campaign, with many appealing to President Obama to step in.

Musa is a physiotherapist, and also a former Red Cross worker who lost his left leg in a landmine explosion. The father of six has been imprisoned since last May, after he appeared in a video broadcasted by a local TV network that showed Afghan Christians being baptized by westerners. Musa was arrested as he attempted to seek asylum at the German Embassy.

Musa has shared that while in prison he has been sexually abused and beaten and spat on for his faith in Jesus Christ, but despite all these hardships he has refused to renounce his faith, informing the Sunday Times, “My body is theirs to do what they want with. Only God can decide if my spirit goes to hell.”

Human rights groups have also been active in the fight for Musa, as they have urged Afghanistan, a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to honor religious freedom and the freedom to change religions as mandated by the document.

(Image is of Said Musa).

Nun on the run due to excessive Facebook usage

After spending 35 years in a convent, a Spanish nun has been thrown out of her order because she spent too much time on the social networking site Facebook.

María Jesús Galán was nicknamed "Sister Internet" by her fellow nuns, recently shared on her Facebook page that she had been required by her superiors to leave the convent after strong disagreements over her online activities.

The 54-year old nun had around 600 Facebook "friends" at the time of her eviction, but now has a fan page with thousands of supporters from around the word demanding she be allowed back into the order.

Sister Maria first encountered computers a decade ago when her Mother Superior was convinced that it would lessen the need for nuns to leave the safe sanctuary of the 14th century Santo Domingo el Real convent in Toledo, central Spain.

"It enabled us do things such as banking online and saved us having to make trips into the city," clarified Sister Maria.

Sister Maria, who entered the convent aged 21, soon saw the potential behind computers and started digitalising the precious archives hidden behind the convent’s walls to make them accessible to the outer world.

The nun won a local government prize in 2008 for this painstaking and valuable work. The award made headlines and before she knew it, she had been ‘friended’ by people from all over the globe.

Sister Maria says that her conviction to her call as a nun is as strong as ever, but that fellow nuns disapproved of her activities and she was eventually driven from the convent.

Her Dominican order has refused to comment on the matter, while the Archbishop of Toledo insisted to reporters that it remained "an internal matter".

The “internet nun” is now living at her mother’s house, but if her fight to gain re-admittance to the convent does not work out, then she said she would start a new phase of her life.

"I would like to visit London and New York," she recently posted on Facebook. "Such things were impossible to even dream when at the convent."

Obama grants highest honour to murdered Christian optometrist

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, this week awarded his country’s highest civilian honor to Dr. Tom Little, a Christian worker for the International Assistance Mission (IAM) who was murdered in Afghanistan last August.

"Tom Little could have pursued a lucrative career," Obama said. "Instead, he was guided by his faith, and he set out to heal the poorest of the poor in Afghanistan. For 30 years, amid invasion and civil war, the terror of the Taliban, the spread of insurgency, he and his wife Libby helped bring Afghans—literally—the miracle of sight."

As an optometrist of vast field experience, Little was leading an eye care team in the remote northeastern region of Badakhshan when he and nine others were murdered by political and religious extremists.

The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the act, alleging that the group were proselytizing and carrying Bibles in the Dari language, which the IAM have firmly denied.

Little's widow Libby Little accepted the award on her husband's behalf.

In a speech made during the awards ceremony, President Obama described Little as "a humanitarian in the truest sense of the word: a man who not only dedicated his life to others, but who lived that lesson of Scripture: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' "

Little's was the only posthumous Medal of Freedom awarded this year.

(The image depicts Libby Little receiving the award from President Obama).

Jericho Tower was used to intimidate

Known as the world’s first skyscraper, and built 11,000 years ago, the Jericho tower was intended to promote the farming life, say archeologists after releasing their latest study.

Long before Jericho came under attack from Israel, the town’s residents were involved in a battle of another kind: the age-old struggle between farmers and nomads. Archaeologists believe the tower was built by leading figures in the town in an attempt to intimidate people into moving away from hunting and gathering and to start farming for a living.

For years archaeologists have argued over the reason for the building of the mysterious 8.5-meter (28-foot) stone tower on the edge of town, but now using the latest computer technology they believe it was built to mark the summer solstice and as a symbol that would entice people to abandon their nomadic ways and settle down.

“The tower was constructed by a major building effort. People were working for a very long time and very hard. It was not like the other domestic buildings in Jericho,” said Ran Barkai of the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University.

Barkai and fellow archaeologist Roy Liran used computers to reconstruct sunsets and found that when the tower was built the nearby mountains cast a shadow on it as the sun set on the longest day of the year. The shadow fell exactly on the structure and then spread out to cover the entire village.

“The tower is an indication of power struggles at the beginning of the Neolithic period and of the fact that a particular person or people exploited the primeval fears of the residents and persuaded them to build it,” Barkai said in an interview with The Media Line.

Barkai said architecture was often used to intimidate and inspire, and even without any obviously functional purpose, isn’t unique to the megalithic period. This technique is still used in modern times with governments building monuments like the Arc de Triomphe to influence public opinion and improve popularity.

“This was a time when hierarchy began and leadership was established. This was the time that social formations took place and many scientists have wondered why people were moved to produce food, to make the transition to agriculture,” Barkai stated. “Agriculture worked for the benefit of certain individuals in the community, because people produce surplus that was stored and then divided by individuals.”

“It has been proven that people worked much harder during the Neolithic period than before. It was easier to live by hunting and gathering so we believe this tower was one of the mechanisms to motivate people to take part in a communal lifestyle,” he said.

Barkai does not believe the tower, which would have been utterly alien to the conceptual world of the builders, was ever used for defensive purposes. He supported this statement by quoting historical records that prove no invaders were present in the area at the time it was built, about 8300 BC. 

Archaeologists estimate that the tower took approximately 11,000 working days to build.

“It is something out of time and place and looks like it doesn’t belong where it was. It was a monumental effort to build, like the pyramids [built 5,000 years later], only among a village of former hunters and gatherers,” Barkai concluded.

Billy Ray Cyrus: Our faith has been shaken

There has been endless speculation about the relationship between Billy Ray Cyrus and his famous 18-year old daughter, Miley, and in the March issues of GQ, Billy Ray moved to clear up a few things.

Billy Ray admitted he had been deeply disappointed with photos released last December of Miley smoking through a bong, but bemoaned the fact that his daughter’s minders seemed to have driven a wedge between the two.

Billy Ray believes that Miley’s management team often used him to draw attention away from his daughter when scandals arose, and that since he stopped this, he has been pushed out of her life.

The country singer said he feared that her entourage had more interest in making money from her, then they were in genuinely protecting her best interests, and also took the opportunity to clarify the financial relationship he has with his daughter.

"And some of these handlers are perhaps more interested in handling Miley's money than her safety and her career," alleged Billy Ray before saying how that leaves him "scared for her."

"I've never made a dime off of Miley," he insisted. "You got a lot of people have made percentages off of her. I'm proud to say to this day I've never made one commissioned dollar, or dime, off of my daughter."



The father of 6 who is in the process of divorcing his wife, bemoaned his daughter’s rise to fame through “Hannah Montana” and said he would take it all back if he could.


"It destroyed my family. I'll tell you right now – the damn show destroyed my family. I'd take it back in a second. For my family to be here and just be everybody okay, safe and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic. Heck, yeah," he emphasised, "I'd erase it all in a second if I could."



Billy Ray also shared the deep pain he feels that both his and Miley’s faith in God has been shaken by the whole experience.

"Somewhere along this journey, both mine and Miley's faith has been shaken," he said. "That saddens me the most."


Here Billy Ray stated his belief that evil forces were at work trying to destroy their lives, and that his family was being attacked by Satan.



"No doubt," he insisted. "There's no doubt about it."



But most tellingly, Billy Ray took a huge amount of responsibility on himself for his daughter’s present behaviour, and said that he should have been a better parent to her.


"How many interviews did I give and say, 'You know what's important between me and Miley is I try to be a friend to my kids'? I said it a lot," he confessed.

"And sometimes I would even read other parents might say, 'You don't need to be a friend, you need to be a parent.' Well, I'm the first guy to say to them right now: You were right.



"I should have been a better parent. I should have said, 'Enough is enough – it's getting dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt,'" he continued. "I should have, but I didn't. Honestly, I didn't know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere."

Explaining why Egypt’s Christians are hopeful, yet nervous

In an opinion piece in CNN.faith, Ashley Makar, a Yale Divinity School graduate, writes about the amazing unity displayed during the recent semi-peaceful revolution by Coptic Christians and Egyptian Muslims.

Makar is the daughter of a Coptic-American immigrant to the States, and as such, she is astounded by scenes coming out of Egypt of Muslims forming a protective circle around Christians as they prayed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Monday, just as Christian protesters had done for them during last Friday’s prayers.

Makar relates that her amazement comes from the fact that in all the time she has spent in Cairo and Alexandria, she has never seen Christian prayers done in public, never mind Muslims forming a protective circle around them. She has never seen a cross anywhere near a Quran, never mind seeing them carried together in the same crowd.

Coptic Christians make up around 10 percent of Egypt’s population, and relations with the majority Muslim population have often been contentious. This has been especially true in recent times with the New Year’s Eve bombing of a church in Alexandria, killing 23 Copts, an action reportedly carried out by radical Muslims. Coptic protestors retaliated by throwing stones at a nearby mosque.

Makar, however, relates widespread doubts as to the Egyptian government’s probe into the matter, and says that this is strangely one of the reasons for the “new solidarity between Egyptian Christians and Muslims.”

Makar explains: “Copts can’t trust the government to protect them. Some discern a pattern of Mubarak provoking Muslim-Christian strife to distract Egyptians from government corruption. When militant Islamists become scapegoats for violence, the Mubarak regime gains brownie points from U.S. supporters for helping the fight against terrorism.

At the same time, Copts really do feel vulnerable to Islamist attacks. Coptic churches received threatening letters not long before the Alexandria church bombing. Simply put, Copts don’t know who to trust.”

Makar says many Coptic Christians in the past have allowed this vulnerability to morph into anti-Islamic sentiment, and have been silently supportive of the oppressive Mubarak regime because they fear a radical Muslim takeover of government. Now they feel let down by the government, and are more willing to risk change.

Makar says this leaves Egyptian Christians feeling both excited and afraid. Excited to participate in making history, in working for a chance for the better, and at a chance of living in a democratic Egypt but also afraid that radical Muslims will swoop in and take over.

Makar expresses their hope, however, that the almost miraculous nature of this change, and the remarkable unity displayed between Muslims and Christians over the last few weeks, could translate into something wonderful for Egypt.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that real change is happening in Egypt, that the solidarity between Muslims and Christians, between urban elites and rural farmers, and between computer-savvy youth and illiterate workers - is sustainable,” Makar concludes.

(Image shows Crosses and Qurans were raised in Cairo’s Tahrir Square this week.)