Obama grilled about his faith

On the back of a controversial survey which revealed that 1 in 5 Americans believe that Obama is actually a Muslim, a woman used an event designed to discuss the economy to grill President Barack Obama about his faith and views on abortion.

Obama was speaking in Albuquerque as part of a public outreach to explain his policies and campaign for Democrats in the November congressional elections.

However, the US president seemed happy enough to take the time to personally share about his faith, and how his public service was "an expression" of his faith.

"I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead," Obama said.

"Being my brothers' and sisters' keeper. Treating others as they would treat me. And I think also understanding that, you know, that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility that we all have to have as human beings."

Humans are "sinful" and "flawed" beings that make mistakes and "achieve salvation through the grace of God," the president added, saying that we also can "see God in other people and do our best to help them find their, you know, their own grace."

"So that's what I strive to do," Obama said. "That's what I pray to do everyday. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith."

The woman then inquired about Obama’s regulations on early and late-term abortion, a politically charged issue in the abortion debate.

Obama responded that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" in America, adding that families and not the government "should be the ones making the decision."

Restrictions against late-term abortion are in place now, he stated, adding that "people still argue and disagree about it. That's part of our Democratic tradition."

Agnostics and atheists know more about world religions than Protestants

According to a new survey undertaken by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, atheists and agnostics know more about the teachings, history and figures of major world religions than the average Protestant.

The Pew Forum asked 32 religious knowledge questions to respondents, and atheists and agnostics had on average 20.9 correct answers while Protestants as a whole answered 16 correctly. Jews and Mormons also scored high with 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively.

When it came to the specific religion of Christianity, however, evangelical Protestants managed to beat out atheists and agnostics. Evangelical Protestants scored 7.3 out of 12 on questions related to the Bible and Christianity, but atheists and agnostics were not far behind with an average score of 6.7. Mormons scored the highest in this section with 7.9.

These findings were released on Tuesday, and are based on a nationwide poll conducted in the United States from May 19 to June 6 among more than 3,400 Americans age 18 and older.

Some of the questions asked included identifying: Mother Teresa's religion, the dominant religion in Pakistan, the figure who inspired the Reformation, and which religion teaches that salvation comes through faith alone.

Interestingly enough, over half of Protestants (53 percent) failed to correctly identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. Forty-five percent of Catholics do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ.

Overall, at least two-thirds of respondents are knowledgeable about Mother Teresa's religion, and Islam being the dominant religion in Pakistan. However, only 45 percent know the four Gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Poverty myths that Christians should renounce

South African raised Mark Lutz is the author of the new book 'UnPoverty: Rich Lessons from the Working Poor', and recently wrote an article for CNN concerning various myths about poverty that Christians should renounce.

Lutz is the son of missionary parents and presently works as the Senior Vice President at Opportunity International, began his article by stating that poverty is not the real issue but people. This is because many Christians do not really understand the social realities of poverty, or indeed even understand properly Jesus’ teachings about the poor and oppressed.

Lutz then lists a number of different myths about poverty that Christians should actively turn away from. We have summarized some of these for you below.

Myth 1: People are poor because they are lazy or stupid.

Lutz argues that:

“Poor people work incredibly hard, under harsh conditions, frequently seven days a week. With no welfare programs and no social networks, if they don’t work, they don’t eat. That’s reality.

My work in microfinance has taken me to some 50 countries. I’ve watched men making bricks in equatorial sun from morning till night in exchange for $10; women hauling five-gallon containers on their heads and in each hand every morning to water their garden-size farm; children rifling through trash for recyclables to exchange for a meal.

Despite their efforts, these hard-working people cannot get off their economic treadmills; they pass their generational poverty onto their children and grandchildren. Getting to know them as sisters and brothers, I can vouch that they are anything but lazy or stupid. The only reason for their life of misery and mine of relative luxury is where we were born.”

Myth 2: Poor people want handouts.

Lutz writes that in his experience, a poor person would much rather have the opportunity to work and feed their families, rather than relying upon handouts where dignity is often at stake.

Lutz says that: “In the Bible, God instructs farmers not to harvest the corner of their crops, but to leave it for the poor. God didn’t tell them to reap it and give the money to the poor, but to leave it for the poor to pick and eat. They need food, but they also need and want an opportunity to work.

Every day some 25,000 people die from starvation. Disturbing as that may be, the real tragedy is that for 90 percent of them, there is no food shortage. They just can’t afford to buy available food. The appropriate response is not relief but development, including opportunities to work.”

Myth 3: Jesus said we will always have extreme poverty.

What Jesus said in Mark 14:7 was: “The poor you will always have with you.”
Jesus recognized the fundamental truth that some in society will always have less than others but that certainly does not excuse the kind of abject, inhumane poverty that over one billion people endure. Extreme poverty should never be excused in this way.

Myth 4: Jesus was concerned primarily about spiritual poverty.

Lutz speaks of his childhood in South Africa and how often he heard the subtle message that as long as someone’s soul was saved, it did not really matter how hungry their children were.

Lutz writes that: “But when Jesus began his public ministry, he read his mission statement: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor… To set free the oppressed.” (Luke 4:18).

Though we must read on to understand the full gospel, if we seek to follow his example and teaching, we must bring good news to the poor and set free the oppressed. More than 2,000 verses in the Bible deal with the poor. Jesus had special solidarity with the poor and told us that if we love him, we will show it by caring for them.”

(You can find Lutz’s full article on CNN.com).

Anglican Archbishop endorses celibate gay bishops

In a recent interview with The Times Magazine, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, pledged his personal support for gay bishops but said they must remain celibate.

“There’s no problem about a gay person who’s a bishop. It’s about the fact that there are traditionally, historically, standards that the clergy are expected to observe,” he stated.

When questioned what was wrong with a gay bishop being in a long-term comitted relationship with one partner, the spiritual leader of Anglicans throughout the globe said that the scriptural and traditional approach “doesn’t give much ground for being positive about it.”

Williams confessed that there was not clear agreement on this complex issue, saying that the Church “doesn’t quite know what to make of it,” and agreed that debating it could cause problems for homosexuals living in countries where there is vehement opposition to homosexuality.

The Archbishop also pleaded with liberal and traditional Anglicans to stay united and not split in spite of the strong disagreements raging in the church over issues like this.

Changing the world by loving your neighbour: The story of Heartsong Church

There have been plenty of media reports lately detailing a growing ‘Islamophobia’ throughout the Western world, and in the United States in particular. Incidents have included vehement protests over the proposed build of a New York ‘mega mosque,’ arson at another mosque build in Tennessee, and most notoriously, the case of the pastor who wanted to stage a ‘Burn a Quran Day’. This is why it is refreshing to hear some positive news regarding Christian/Islamic relations in the form of an article that Sojourners president, Jim Wallis wrote for the Washington Times.

Wallis reported on some of the back story behind Pastor Terry Jones’ decision to cancel the Quran burning day, and then related a heartwarming story about a church in Cordova called Heartsong. Eighteen months ago, the pastor of Heartsong, Steven Stone, learnt that the Memphis Islamic Center had purchased land directly adjacent to his church. Instead of protesting these plans, Stone organized to put up a large sign reading: "Heartsong Church Welcomes Memphis Islamic Center to the Neighborhood."

Wallis reports how the Muslim leaders of this mosque build were totally overwhelmed by Stone’s response. They had originally hoped that at best they would just be ignored, and it had never occurred to them that they might be received with hospitality.

However, their warm welcome did not end there. Since the Islamic Center is still under construction, Heartsong Church allowed them to use their facilities for Ramadan prayer services this year. Furthermore, Heartsong’s community barbecues also serve halal meat to ensure their Muslim neighbours feel welcome enough to attend. The two congregations are also working on plans to jointly feed the homeless and tutor local children.

Wallis then wrote about a telephone conversation he had with Pastor Stone last week, where Stone related that he had been contacted by a group of Muslims from a small town in Kashmir, Pakistan. They had watched a CNN segment on Heartsong Church, and afterwards one of the community leaders said to those gathered: "God just spoke to us through this man." Another said: "How can we kill these people?" A third person decided to go directly to a local Christian church and clean it from top to bottom.

Wallis concludes by saying that Stone feels his actions are part and parcel of just trying to love his neighbors, as he says Jesus instructs him to do. And in response to his warm-hearted good neighbourliness, the citizens of that small town in Kashmir told him: "We are now trying to be good neighbors, too. Tell your congregation we do not hate them, we love them, and for the rest of our lives we are going to take care of that little church."

(My thanks to John van de Laar who originally alerted me to this story through his twitter source @rogersaner. Find John on www.sacredise.com).

East Jerusalem violence threatens peace efforts

Following the shooting of a local man on Wednesday, big groups of Palestinian youths ran amok in east Jerusalem in protest. This violence is threatening fragile peace efforts in the region, and comes on the back of the Palestinian president indicating that he may be willing to press on with the peace talks despite Israel resuming its West Bank settlement construction efforts.

The situation became so dire yesterday that Israeli riot police stormed the hilltop compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Ironically, this site is where the previous Palestinian uprising began almost a decade ago and is historically the most explosive site in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This violence comes after less than a month of peace talks, and at a particularly tense time as the Palestinian president had previously been threatening to pull out of the negotiations due to Israel’s announced intentions to end its 10-month slowdown of construction in the Jewish settlements of the West Bank.

The construction slowdown was announced last November as a result of forceful U.S. pressure to help draw the Palestinians into negotiations with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who - despite having accepted the concept of a Palestinian state – is not popular among Palestinians.

The violence yesterday was perhaps an expression of the visible tension that has been built up over the last week since Netanyahu announced on Sunday that construction would begin again, reports the Washington Times.

Scientists show how the parting of the Red Sea 'could have happened'

Perhaps the most famous miracle described in the book of Exodus is that of the parting of the Red Sea as Moses led the Israelites to safety away from their Egyptian oppressors. Biblical scholars have long known that the most likely location for this miracle was not the Red Sea, but rather a nearby spot in the Nile Delta region known as the Reed Sea.

Now scientists have shown that this dramatic episode is by no means in contravention of natural physical laws, and they have depicted how it actually could have happened.

The Biblical account describes how a mighty east wind blew all night, eventually splitting the waters to leave a safe passage way through to the other side. The Israelites successfully made their escape but when the Egyptians tried to follow on their chariots, the walls of water on either side came crashing back down and drowned them.

Researchers began with a careful analysis of archaeological records, satellite measurements and maps which enabled them to accurately predict the water flow and depth of the crossing-over site 3,000 years ago.

An ocean computer model was then used to simulate the influence that an overnight wind might have on the 1.81 metre deep waters. The team of scientists discovered that an east wind of approximately 63mph blowing for 12 hours would indeed have driven the waters back, both into the nearby lake and the river channel. This would have resulted in a land bridge right through the middle of the water. The bridge would have remained in place for a period of four hours.

Immediately after the winds dropped, the waters would have poured back into place, much like a tidal bore and anyone trapped in the middle would have risked drowning, especially if they were encumbered by heavy armour and weapons.

These findings were reported yesterday in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.

Lead researcher Carl Drews, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said: "The simulations match fairly closely with the account in Exodus.

"The parting of the waters can be understood through fluid dynamics. The wind moves the water in a way that's in accordance with physical laws, creating a safe passage with water on two sides and then abruptly allowing the water to rush back in.

"People have always been fascinated by this Exodus story, wondering if it comes from historical facts. What this study shows is that the description of the waters parting indeed has a basis in physical laws."