Spencer Chiimbwe—Adventist Peacemaker (Spectrum)
Spencer Chiimbwe is a Zambian national residing in the United States since 2006. Throughout his life he has been involved in conflict transformation at a national and international level including being a Peace Fellow, Action Researcher and Coordinator for both the Coalition for Peace in Africa in Southern Africa Region and for the ACTION Support Center. He is also a member of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPACC), a global civil society-led network which seeks to build international consensus on peace building and prevention of violent conflict. Finally, after moving to New York City, he founded the New York Center for Conflict Dialogue which enhances diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts through facilitating and coordinating various thematic forums on conflict.
Read MoreArticle18: China — Personal Observations of Liberty and Reflections on Life in Beijing, China
Part 2 of the profile on Thailand will be featured next week. This slightly more personal entry previously ran under the title “Observations of Liberty in China” back in Spring of 2010 and is rerun this week as part of Article18. By Martin Surridge -The mass of strangers and suitcases pressed against me so tightly […]
Read MoreEDITORIAL: Hero without a gun – Washington Times
Desmond T. Doss was 23 years old when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942. The lanky Lynchburg, Va., native was much like other young men of the Greatest Generation, but one thing set Desmond apart from the other new troops. He was a devout Seventh Day Adventist and refused to touch a weapon. Some of the men in his training unit made jokes about him, others threatened him, but Desmond held firm to his beliefs. . . . >>>
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Obama’s Olive Branch Doctrine: Religion & the Path of Democratic Reform in the Arab-Muslim World (PART I)
By Gregory W. Hamilton, President Northwest Religious Liberty Association (NRLA) March 15, 2011 President Barack Obama came to Cairo in 2009 with the purpose of announcing to the Arab-Muslim world that he was not following his predecessor’s “Democracy Project” as a matter of U.S. Middle East policy. One could call this Obama’s “Olive Branch Doctrine”: […]
Read MoreConversation is the True Work of Peacemaking – Huffington Post
Last week I spent three days at a gathering of the leaders of the Religious Peace Fellowships in Stony Point, N.Y. There were representatives from more than a dozen Christian denominations — from Catholic and Orthodox to Mennonite and Brethren — as well as Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist peace fellowships. And me, from the Adventist Peace Fellowship. It was the first time such a gathering had taken place in many years. It was clear that while peacemaking in our increasingly violent world was an urgent priority for all of us, working together across denominational and religious lines was something we didn’t understand as well.
Read MoreReligious Liberty Dinner – April 5, 2011
For more information about how you can attend, visit ReligiousLibertyDinner.com
Read MoreArticle18: Thailand Part 1 — Dissenters Arrested for Insulting the Monarchy; Malay Insurgents Continue Terror Campaign in South
By Martin Surridge – On Tuesday I returned from one of the most beautiful and enchanting countries in Southeast Asia–Thailand–a country known for its spicy cuisine, tropical mountainous rainforests, marvelous Buddhist temples, and the cosmopolitan city of Bangkok. But there’s much more to Thailand than the glossy posters in the travel agent’s window. […]
Read MoreObama Administration Changes Its Approach to the Defense of Marriage Act
During the brief window between the California Supreme Court’s decision finding a ban on same-sex marriage in violation of the California Constitution on May 15, 2008 and the ballot-initiative amending said constitution on November 5, 2008, Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer got married.
While same-sex marriages during this window period have been recognized in California since they were presumably “constitutional,” the newlyweds filed a case against the federal government in state court that was transferred upon motion of the federal government into federal court alleging that “the refusal of all states and jurisdictions” to recognize the validity of their marriage resulted in the denial of their marriage status by other states, and federal rights and benefits that other married couples received so long as they were of the opposite sex.
Read MoreAdvanced Citizenship: The Cost of Free Speech in America
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By Jason Hines – One of my favorite movies is “The American President,” (1995) starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. It is the story of a widowed president who falls in love with a liberal lobbyist. He struggles to navigate his relationship with her while also doing his job as the President. It’s a good […]
Read MoreNew book addresses Conscientious Objection in today’s military
Since its organization in 1863 the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been counter cultural. In its Christian witness to modern society it has advocated keeping the seventh-day Sabbath, vegetarianism, abstinence from tobacco and alcohol and refusal of its members to bear arms. But the stance on the refusal to bear arms has seen a metamorphous in […]
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