In Nigeria, escalating religious conflict impacts Adventist Church (ANN)
Jan. 23, 2012 Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Gilbert Weeh/ANN staff
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Nigeria is seeing a drop in church attendance and some church closures amid worsening religious conflict in the country.
An upsurge of attacks against Christian churches by the extremist group Boko Haram beginning late last year has led to ongoing sectarian violence between Muslim and Christian groups in northeast Nigeria.
Adding to the tumult, the country’s government recently eliminated energy subsidies, doubling the price of gasoline and inciting nationwide strikes and demonstrations. News reports indicate that Nigerians are living in fear of continuing unrest.
Meanwhile, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called on religious leaders in her country to speak out against the violence, the Guardian reported last week.
“Christian leaders must continue to preach peace and togetherness so that Christians do not retaliate,” Adichie told the Guardian. “Muslim leaders must strongly and repeatedly condemn the violence against Christians and make it clear that Boko Haram does not represent Nigerian Islam,” she said.
The Adventist Church in the country has devoted recent days to fasting and prayer for the ongoing situation. Church administration in the country is encouraging membership to work in small groups and avoid large public religious gatherings. Open air evangelism efforts have been put on hold due to a curfew and the fragile security situation, church officials said.
According to a report by Northeast Nigeria Conference President Bindas Stephen Haruna, the Adventist Church there has not suffered property damage or loss of life. However, some individual members have had their property looted or burned.
“The situation in Northern Nigeria shows how a lack of religious freedom can affect the life of churches, and why we must promote and strongly defend this essential freedom before it is too late,” said John Graz, director for the Adventist world church’s Public Affairs and Religious Liberty.
Church attendance in northeast Nigeria has dropped drastically, leading to church closures in some regions where most members are traveling business people who have returned to their homes. In other churches, pastors have left their congregations for fear of being killed.
The situation has produced a wave of small group evangelism, church leaders said. As Nigerian Adventists funnel their efforts to spread the Adventist hope on a smaller scale, church officials in the country are soliciting the prayers and support of the world church family.
Update: Iranian Pastor Nadarkhani Continues to Refuse to Renounce Christian Beliefs
Despite promises of release in return for compromise, imprisoned Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani continues to refuse to renounce his Christian faith and accept Islam. Although he has been without any Bible or electronic access for over two years, and no contact with the outside world except for his wife and children, Nardarkhani continues to refuse to bow to pressure from his captors.
We will continue to monitor the progress of this case.
BILL TRACKER: Congress Votes to Reauthorize US Commission on International Religious Freedom
H.R. 2867: United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2011 is now on President Obama’s desk. There had been some concern that the USCIRF may not have been approved by the Senate.
Bookmark this page to track the latest developments.
The funding and function of USCIRF was the subject of a recent Liberty Magazine Roundtable discussion.
Adventist church leaders meet with Hungarian ambassador on looming deregistration of churches
Religious liberty leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church this week met the Hungarian ambassador to the United States in an effort to help officials from that country better understand the potential effects of a looming deregistration of churches.
The Law of Churches, set for implementation on January 1, would deregister all but 14 religious denominations in Hungary, including the Adventist Church. It could also potentially affect the church’s theological seminary.
Hungarian Ambassador to the United States, Gyorgy Szapary, met with officials from the Adventist Church’s Public Affairs and Religious Liberty department on December 12 at the Hungarian embassy in Washington, D.C. While the law is still set for implementation, Adventist representatives later described the meeting as “cordial” and “productive.”
“We expressed our deep concerns to Ambassador Szapary about Hungary’s recently passed ‘Law on Churches’ and its impact, not just on the Adventist Church, but on many other minority religions as well,” said Dwayne Leslie, the Adventist Church’s director of legislative affairs. Leslie represented the Adventist Church at the meeting along with Ganoune Diop, the church’s representative to the United Nations.
Diop and Leslie provided the ambassador with an overview of the international denomination and the history and scope of the Adventist presence in Hungary. They also explained the potential impact on the Adventist Theological Seminary in Pécel, near Budapest, which serves 66 students.
Adventist Education officials have previously said the seminary is key for providing theological and counseling education in the Hungarian language and cultural context. “Although it’s small, the seminary meets the needs of the church in Hungary for pastors and theologians, as well as for life style and family life counselors,” said Mike Lekic, an associate Education director for the Adventist Church.
Following Monday’s meeting, Diop said the ambassador was gracious and receptive to the issues presented by the Adventist Church. “The meeting provided an excellent opportunity for dialogue — we stated our concerns clearly, and heard the perspective of the Hungarian government,” he said.
When the new law, voted in July, goes into effect next month, it will strip all but 14 “historic” religions of their legal status. Minority religions must then apply to the Hungarian parliament for re-registration.
Since the legislation was passed, Hungary has maintained that the move was not “anti-religion,” but rather a legislative means to root out fraudulent organizations operating behind the protection of religion.
Religious liberty advocates worldwide, however, have decried the law, calling it unnecessary state interference with religion and a setback for human rights in Hungary. More than 300 groups are set to lose their registration, including Hungary’s Methodists, Unitarians, a number of Islamic communities, and many smaller Protestant and evangelical churches.
In November, Diop and John Graz, PARL director for the Adventist world church, met in New York with Hungary’s ambassador to the United Nations to express the church’s concerns about the potential plight not just of Adventists, but of other religious groups in Hungary that will be affected by the new law.
Leslie and Diop said the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty department will continue to monitor the situation in Hungary and will provide any assistance requested by local church leaders.
Should Congress Continue to Fund the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom?
(This article was written as a contribution to a Liberty Magazine Round Table discussion. Read the other responses and contribute your thoughts at http://www.libertymagazine.org/index.php?id=1665 )
By Michael D. Peabody -
In August 2011, the Pew Research Institute released a study, Rising Restrictions on Religion, which found that more than a third of the population of the world lives in nations where government restrictions or social hostilities involving religion are increasing. Only 1% live in countries where things are getting better.
In 1998 when Congress, as part of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), approved the creation of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Congress believed that it was important that the USCIRF operate as an independent governmental body to monitor executive branch activities related to religious freedom and to make recommendations for Presidential action when it found abuses.
Under the IRFA, the Commission has communicated with embassies around the world to find out the state of freedom, and has produced reports outlining the state of freedom around the world. This includes identifying “countries of particular concern” (CPC) that have engaged in torture, prolonged imprisonment, or “other flagrant denial[s] of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons.” Once a country is tagged as a CPC, per the IRFA, the government must, subject to the right to waiver, engage anything from bilateral agreements to sanctions in order to encourage improvements. There are eight CPCs at the present time.
The Secretary of State can then make recommendations as to how to address these issues. The White House has yet to issue any new actions or sanctions against a CPC solely for violations of religious freedom, and instead has placed religious freedom issues, if they are mentioned at all, under the umbrella of existing sanctions. The result is that religious freedom issues have gotten lost in the shuffle. In short, under the IRFA, the United States is supposed to indicate that a portion of, or the entirety of sanctions being imposed depending on the situation, is due to religious freedom violations.
In the past, the United States was relatively isolationist when dealing with religious freedom issues in other countries, leaving those issues to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The U.S. instead worked to preserve its own interests around the world. As an indirect result, many otherwise restrictive nations were forced into situations of regime change resulting in increased religious freedom within their borders. For instance, after an extended Cold War essentially bankrupted the repressive Soviet Union, its citizens enjoyed a period of unparalleled religious freedom. Today, the State Department has to tackle a wide range of pressing issues involving direct threats to the United States including terrorism, threats of a nuclear Iran, chaos in the Middle East, warfare on multiple fronts, and many other issues.
As a result, the government is not always in a diplomatic position to address religious freedom issues separately. As I write this, the United States is experiencing unprecedented tension with Pakistan regarding the War on Terror and the possibility of significant armed conflict seems nearly imminent. Pakistan is also a CPC, and in the midst of this if USCIRF were to operate “properly” the President should also be levying sanctions against Pakistan for the way it treats its own citizens when in reality the flow of U.S. dollars to Pakistan may be the only thing preventing all-out war.
The USCIRF should be continued – it has an important function as a monitor of international religious freedom, but as long as the State Department is also engaged in its fundamental duty of protecting the interests of the United States above those of any other nation, it will not be able to fulfill its complete charter of recommending direct action against hostile countries without facing a great deal of suspicion of either diplomatic or religious mission. While many hostile nations promote a particular religious worldview with impunity, and act under color of that faith as they carry out persecution, the USCIRF must be careful in contrast not to be seen as fulfilling a mission designed to extend American Christianity. If it is perceived across borders and language barriers as a low key Medieval Crusade, it will lose its effectiveness and be a hindrance to international diplomacy.
Religions cross borders, cultures, and languages, and thus the promotion of freedom of religion is generally perceived as a mission of peace, not a mission of war. Because the parameters of religion differ from national borders, unless a hostile nation changes its internal character, religious freedom abuses will continue either officially or unofficially.
In a perfect world, the tasks of the USCIRF would probably be best handled by the United Nations, but that body seems unlikely to move in a productive direction along these lines anytime soon. The reality is, as uncomfortable as it might seem, aside from the Holy See, there is no independent recognized country in the world that can carry an olive branch of religious peace without an overt direct threat of violence or sanctions. It would therefore appear incumbent on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and religious organizations to assert religious freedom using whatever peaceful and cooperative methods that are available.
This does not mean that USCIRF should be allowed to wither on the vine – its role as a monitor of religious freedom is invaluable and it establishes this sense in the minds of Americans and shows the global community that this nation holds onto and respects these inalienable values regardless of whether they can be imposed on other nations. The USCIRF is one mechanism by which the United States can remain at the forefront of promoting the ideals of freedoms of speech, conscience, religion, and belief.
Vatican again urges radical reform of global marketplace – The Irish Times
Excerpt: TRADE ISSUES: FOR THE second time in the last month, the Holy See has argued that international trade markets need to be radically reformed.
The point was made by secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone who, at a Vatican meeting of European Bishops’ Conferences on the New Evangelisation yesterday said: “The [global] crisis illustrates clearly the untenability of a market that has become totally self-referential . . .
“This present difficult situation prompts a whole series of new questions about the responsibilities and the ethics of the marketplace; it urgently asks a fundamental question about the destiny, dignity and spiritual vocation of man . . . ”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/1123/1224307999115.html
The Story of a Life by Lincoln Steed (Liberty Magazine)
EXCERPT: Charles Dickens began one of his essentially autobiographical tales by wondering aloud if he would prove to be the hero of his own life. Reality is so dynamic and changeable it is hard for anyone to know where their actions will lead them, or how they will bear up to the challenges of the day or the year.
Those same questions tugged at me recently when I traveled half a world away from our editorial offices in Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.A., to Australia, to participate in a religious liberty meeting of experts in Sydney, Australia. I left Australia some decades ago as a teenager; and each time I return, the question of what I have made of my life nags at me.
The day I arrived in Sydney I stopped off at Paddy’s Market, where they sell things like kangaroo skins and souvenir hats made in China. It was crowded and noisy, with commerce yelled out in mostly accented English. I found that I was less interested in buying than analyzing the sellers. They struck me as an incredibly diverse group, and I wondered about the story of their lives.
One especially vigorous and vocal Chinese woman caught my attention. “You want to buy souvenir pens?” she pitched. I looked over the products briefly, and asked her where she was from. “I come from Hong Kong,” she answered in a voice still pitched for Mandarin but heavily accented with Australian inflections. “Where are you from?” was her bounce back.
Article18: Afghanistan — The Land that Freedom Forgot; A Profile on Religious Persecution in One of the World’s Most Depressing Nations (Liberty Magazine)
The following excerpt is from an article written by RLTV associate editor and Article18 creator Martin Surridge that appeared in the November/December 2011 issue of Liberty Magazine.
EXCERPT: The sound and smell of motorcycles roaring down a street in Kandahar must have overwhelmed 16-year-old Atifa in the moments before the attack. Before she really knew what was happening, one of the cyclists approached Atifa, her sister Shamsia, and several other girls and threw acid onto their faces. Atifa’s scarf melted into her hair, and 19-year-old Shamsia lost much of the skin on her face and the temporary use of her eyes, swollen shut from the inflammation.
This tragic story, as well as details of other acid attacks on Afghan school girls, was reported by CNN’s Atia Abawi in January of 2009. Stunned observers around the world learned that the religious extremism in Afghanistan was more violent than many had thought possible. Despite the forty-fourth article of the Afghan constitution specifically promoting the education of women, many Islamists still hold the hard-line views of the Taliban, which from 1996 to 2001 banned even basic female education for being un-Islamic.
Afghanistan has been called a failed state—a nation incapable of governing itself adequately. It is a land marked by systematic corruption, widespread human-rights abuses, and continual violence. Landlocked in the mountains of central Asia and highly dependent on the export of heroin, Afghanistan has been gripped by war, civil unrest, and terrorism for nearly a century. Instead of improving, things there seem only to be getting worse.
Since regaining its independence from the British in 1919, Afghanistan has ousted kings and generals. The country endured and then resisted Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and suffered through a lengthy civil war. The civil war facilitated the rise of the Taliban, who gained power after storming the presidential palace in the capital city of Kabul in September 1996.
Read the full article on the Liberty Magazine website
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Article18 is a weekly blog written by Martin Surridge, Associate Editor of Religious Liberty TV. Article18 logo and other artwork created by Bradley Kenyon.
Don’t forget to check out other recent Article18 entries.
Article18: Norway — Personal Reflections on the Origin of a Tragedy
Why Do They Hate Us?
By Monte Sahlin – Memories of what happened ten years ago bring me back to the haunting question of the time. It still remains largely a mystery. Why do some people have such hate for those who believe differently that they think God has authorized them to kill?
This is not a Muslim problem, despite the slander believed by some. Christian fundamentalists bombed the Federal courthouse in Oklahoma City before Muslim fundamentalists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In fact, it seems most religions have a very small percentage of people who are insanely, violently zealous. There are Christians willing to kill people they disagree with over abortion despite the fact that Jesus clearly taught us to “turn the other cheek” and not resist evil with evil.
Ultimately this kind of hate does not come from God. It is not about piety or devotion in any religion. It is rooted in evil. It is a marker of all the God is against. There is a word for this in all religions; sin. Anyone who thinks they can rid the world of sin by resorting to violence or injustice is overcome by the very thing they are supposedly fighting against. It is like the old folk tale of the tar baby. The more you hit it, the more you are stuck in it.
The only thing that is victorious over sin is divine love. God chooses to struggle against sin by extending mercy, forgiveness and grace because He is wise enough to know there is no other way to actually overcome sin. Hate and terrorism ends when I decide to quit hating those with whom I disagree on the most profound topics, the most cherished truths.
Why do they hate us? Because we hate them. The only thing that disconnects this vicious cycle is when we choose to join God’s side and love the hater. That takes far more courage, a far more fearless moral stand than anything else. The Son of God gave His life to demonstrate this reality.
Monte Sahlin originally posted this on his “Faith in Context” blog at http://www.montesahlin.com/ He is the author of 20 books, 56 research monographs and hundreds of magazine articles. His most recent book is entitled “Mission in Metropolis.”
Vatican Radio – Full Text: Note on financial reform from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
The full text of the document released earlier today.
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