Religious Tension Leads to Clashes in Jerusalem (From Al Jazeera English)
Tension over Religious Sites Leaves Dozens Hurt in Jerusalem Clashes
EXCERPT from BBC News (link below):
Palestinians and Israeli police have clashed near the Jerusalem compound housing the al-Aqsa mosque, leaving dozens of people injured. A large group of Palestinians left Friday prayers and began marching to the mosque, carrying banners and waving green flags, witnesses and police said. Police tried to disperse the crowd – some of whom were throwing stones – using stun grenades and tear gas. It is the latest in a series of clashes amid tensions over religious sites.
The Jerusalem complex is known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount, and has long been contested. The recent violence has been triggered by Israel’s decision to add two shrines in the occupied West Bank to its list of national heritage sites.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8552569.stm
Faith Healing Couple Guilty of Murder
EXCERPT from ABC News (link below):
An Oregon husband and wife who relied on faith rather than medicine to treat their dying child were convicted today of criminally negligent homicide. Jeffrey and Marci Beagley of Oregon City said they thought their 16-year-old son, Neil, merely had the flu when they prayed and laid hands on him during the summer of 2008. Neil actually suffered from a urinary tract blockage, and, on June 17 of that year, he died of kidney failure — without seeing a doctor.
The jury’s vote to convict was not unanimous, with two of the 12 voting against it, but Oregon allows non-unanimous verdicts in some cases. The case is the latest to test the line between the freedom to believe in prayer’s healing powers and the duty of parents to seek medical care when their children’s lives are on the line.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/faith-healing-couple-convicted-homicide/story?id=9721812
RLTV PODCAST: Jason Hines on The Church, Same-Sex Marriage, and Public Policy
Michael Peabody interviews Jason Hines, attorney and Andrews University seminary student, about the topic of same-sex marriage and why religious groups need to be careful to protect liberty of conscience in their advocacy on this issue.
Jason Hines on the Church, Same-Sex Marriage, and Public Policy [12:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadUN condemns Gaddafi jihad call
EXCERPT from Al Jazeera English (link below):
The United Nations and European Union have condemned a call from Libya’s leader for Muslims to carry out jihad against Switzerland over a recent vote to ban the construction of minarets in the European country.
Gaddafi said: “Any Muslim around the world who has dealings with Switzerland is an infidel [and is] against Islam, against Mohammed, against God, against the Quran.”
“Let us fight against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression,” he said in a speech broadcast live on television.
Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the UN director-general in Geneva, said the call by Muammar Gaddafi on Friday was “inadmissible”.
Read the full article at http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/02/2010226124744420153.html
God’s Counterterrorism in a ‘24′ World
God’s Counterterrorism in a ‘24′ World from Ryan Bell on Vimeo.
Ryan Bell, the pastor Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church, gave this presentation at La Sierra University on January 28, 2010.
The European Attack on Religious Liberty
By Martin Surridge -
As the nation of Haiti continues to suffer through one of the worst natural disasters in recent years, and the chaos and desperation that followed the earthquake, an incredible amount of material and financial relief has flooded into the former French colony. While Haiti may seem like another world for many people, what many do not realize is that Haiti lies only 681 miles off the coast of Miami, and that many American cities have substantial populations of Haitian-Americans. In addition, the United States government estimated that several thousand Americans were likely killed in the earthquake. Haiti, it turns out, is not as far away as we had previously thought. Sadly, the fact of the matter is that concerned citizens and other individuals tend to pay a little closer to attention to a global problem when the effects can be keenly felt in their own homes.
While they have been easy to miss, the news has been peppered recently with stories of serious threats to religious liberty not in the developing world, war-torn regions in the Middle East, or third-world countries struck by natural disasters, but in Europe, our own geopolitical backyard. In the modern era, Europe has been a beacon for personal liberty and religious tolerance, with religion playing a seemingly minor role in most of the continent’s wars and conflicts. However, one does not need an advanced degree in history to know that Europe has also been a bastion of religious persecution, a trait that has reared its ugly head in recent weeks, mostly as the continent struggles to define itself against growing waves of Muslim immigrants.
Radical, or at least conservative, Islam was seen as the enemy in the legislative decision made in Switzerland recently, when the Alpine nation banned the construction of minarets on Muslim places of worship. Not only is Switzerland a famously tolerant nation, it is also a nation with a grand total of four such minarets. The campaign that advocated for the ban preyed on people’s fears of Islamic terrorism and resorted to despicable tactics, including a poster that featured minarets rising skyward like nuclear missiles.
Perhaps less surprising that the minaret ban in Switzerland, but just as concerning, was a recent incident on the Greek isle of Crete when the only synagogue on the island was attacked by arsonists twice last month, which destroyed thousands of books, two offices and part of the historic building’s roof. Anti-Semitism is hardly new in Greece, but neither is the peaceful coexistence of Jewish and Christian communities in a country where some Jewish congregations can trace back their roots hundreds of years.
Religious liberty is also under threat in France, where parliament is expected to enact a law that will require dozens of conservative Muslim women to cease wearing the controversial burqa, the face-covering full length veils. Arguments abound on both sides of the debate. Those opposed to the veil argue that it degrades women, is an affront to gender equality, insinuates that men are incapable of controlling their lust, and is a threat to public security. Those who contend that such a law would infringe upon freedom of speech and religion claim that it unfairly targets Islam and have pointed to the fact that conservative nuns expose little more than their hands and face in their own full length dresses with similar head scarves. Regardless of political affiliation or personal opinions on the burqa, it is hard to deny that if such a law were passed it would amount to government interference in religion.
If this pattern of religious liberty infringements were anything to go by, the United States may not be far behind. Connections between North America and Europe run deep and while there may be several key differences between the two continents, religious intolerance seems to be an emerging, unifying theme. These incidents display a disturbing trend that scholars of religion and sufferers of anti-Semitism have known for a long time: laws prohibiting the free practice of religion are just the first in a series of slippery steps toward widespread intolerance and institutionalized discrimination. It is time that the Europe, and the other nations of the west, show the developing world that religious liberty is not optional, but rather a fundamental and guaranteed principle of our society.
Pat Robertson, the Earthquake in Haiti, and the Righteousness of God
In 1999, comedian George Carlin wrote, “Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you.”
I thought about Carlin’s statement as I watched a clip of Pat Robertson blaming this week’s earthquake in Haiti on a mythical pact that the people of Haiti supposedly made with the Devil in order to become independent of France over two centuries ago. ““[E]ver since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor,” Robertson said.
Unfortunately, this was not the first time that Pat Robertson or other preachers acting under the guise of Christianity twisted history and theology in order to explain various tragic events. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, Jerry Falwell had this to say, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”
After the December 26, 2004 Indonesian tsunami, John MacLeod, a minister in the First Presbyterian Church of Scotland, wrote, “Some of the places most affected by this tsunami attracted pleasure-seekers from all over the world. It has to be noted that the wave arrived on the Lord’s Day, the day that God has set apart to be observed the world over by a holy resting from all employments and recreations that are lawful on other days.”
After a massive tragedy, it is human nature to try to find out why it happened. The victims must have done something wrong, after all, isn’t everything pre-ordained by God?
This finger pointing was an approach that Christ Himself repeatedly rejected, whether it had to do with blaming a man’s parents for blindness, the experience of violent oppression, or even a natural disaster. In Luke 13:1-5 (NIV), we read the following exchange:
“Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
There is no magic formula for avoiding tragedy. Instead, we need to focus on our own lives before we start placing blame on others. “”Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3). It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t eventually point out your brother’s eye goober, but be sure that you don’t hit him in the face with the big stick in your eye when you turn to look at him.
It is so easy to fall into the trap of perverting the good news of Jesus Christ by making Him look like an arbitrary tyrant intent on destroying people who have offended Him. Many people struggle through their faith or leave altogether when they can’t explain why bad things happen to good people or why a “loving” God would willingly torture people throughout eternity.
Jonathan Edwards terrified a generation of New Englanders when he preached in 1741, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire. . . . You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder” (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God).
Theology along these lines, not found in the Bible, would explain why so many American Christians actively support torture or a preliminary attack on Iran. It explains the push for the death penalty against homosexuals in Uganda. It provided the framework for the Inquisition and cleansing of “heresy” throughout the middle ages. If God is just, and is our example, then why shouldn’t Christians seek to do His dirty work on earth? If forces of evil are going to be tortured in hell, why not send them there early and prevent them from leading the innocent astray?
This doctrine of eternal torture in hell violates principles that most decent human beings hold themselves to – it involves disproportionate punishment and invokes the cognitive dissonance of eternal bliss with the knowledge that another is undergoing eternal torment.
If God was like this, George Carlin’s sense of dark irony would be well-placed. The universe would have two sides, a bright living room where angels float on clouds, and a basement so evil that it would exceed the worst that Satan himself could conceive.
But is that really the character of God? No.
One of the biggest contributions that Seventh-day Adventism has made to Christianity is the rediscovery of the Biblical doctrine that hell is not eternal torment. There are many complete explanations of the Biblical research behind this position online (click here for a good place to start). Essentially Adventists believe that “the wicked . . . shall be destroyed forever” (Psalm 92:7), and that those who accept Christ can, “according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13).
So what does this have to do with religious liberty? Many of the strongest challenges to freedom of conscience and religious liberty on a global basis come from those who do not understand the reality of the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and instead make Him out to be a tyrant. They consider themselves His deputies.
Only when Christians begin to understand the truth of the gospel can they begin to see how important it is to tell the truth the consistency of His character and the all sufficient power of His love. “If you abide in my word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,’” (John 8:31,32).
To learn how you can help the people of Haiti, visit: www.adra.org/Haiti
Jan Paulsen on Freedon
Pastor Jan Paulsen, world president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church discusses freedom as a foundational value for human dignity.
Chris Seiple: Religious Freedom: The Ultimate Counterterrorism Weapon?
Google Tech Talk
August 12, 2009
ABSTRACT
Presented by Chris Seiple.
While the U.S. can summon hard power with relative ease, employing soft power is more difficult. Indeed, smart power suggests that hard and soft power are two sides of the same coin, that our interests are protected when our values are promoted. If Americans want to engage the world with efficient and enduring effect, we must better understand the essence of American power and the foundation of the global public square: religious freedom.