EXCERPTS from America Magazine Blog – 11/8/09 The House Vote: A Huge Triumph for the Church Posted at: 2009-11-08 08:02:54.0 Author: Michael Sean Winters It is difficult to over-estimate the degree to which last night’s vote in the House, passing a comprehensive health care reform bill, was a huge victory for the Catholic Church. Yes,…
Category: Human Rights
Sec. Clinton condemns “Religious Defamation” laws and addresses international issues in annual Religious Freedom Report
On October 25, 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented the annual International Religious Freedom Report, on behalf of the U.S. State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. In the first IRFR from the Obama administration, Clinton stated her opposition to international laws that would propose to protect religious liberty by preventing…
Texas execution looms after jury consult Bible (Amnesty International)
EXCERPT: A Texas man who faces execution after jurors at his trial consulted the Bible when deliberating his fate should have his death sentence commuted, Amnesty International said on Friday. Khristian Oliver, 32, is set to be killed on 5 November after jurors used Biblical passages supporting the death penalty to help them decide whether…
What’s Wrong with Conspiracy Theories?
The other day someone sent me a link to an “Antichrist Decoder” that has been posted online by an otherwise reputable Christian ministry. You can type in anybody’s name and the program will calculate the value of the name in Roman numerals.
After checking my name to make sure that I was not the Antichrist I looked at the other names that people had plugged into the decoder and learned that Barack Obama is not the Antichrist, neither is Barack Hussein Obama. Ronald Wilson Reagan’s name doesn’t add up to 666 even if you type in two “v”s to make the W.
People were having fun with the decoder and for the uninitiated it would be at home in a carnival next to the “Love Meter” or “Magic 8 Ball.” Perhaps an “antichrist decoder” made the rounds on the county fair circuit in years gone by, or a 666 Decoder Ring was the cheap plastic treat in the box of Cracker Jacks.
Northwest Religious Liberty Association Honors Oregon Speaker Dave Hunt
Representative Dave Hunt, speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives, was awarded by the Northwest Religious Liberty Association (NRLA) at the Oregon Conference Campmeeting in Gladstone on July 17, 2009 for his legislative sponsorship of the Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act, Senate Bill 786 (SB 786) which was signed into law by Governor Ted Kulongoski. There were…
Faith in Context: President Obama & Faith-based Initiatives
As he said he would during the campaign last year, President Obama has retained the “faith-based initiatives” emphasis at the White House, but restructured the organization that he inherited from President Bush. The new unit consists of two parts, where Bush’s White House had only one: An Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and a President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The council is make its final recommendations in February next year (2010), so it appears that further changes may yet surface. At the same time it is clear that Obama is committed to some kind of working relationship with the nonprofit sector, including the large part of it that is related to religious constituencies.
3 states still ban religious clothing for teachers (Associated Press)
EXCERPT: PORTLAND, Ore. – A law backed by the Ku Klux Klan nearly a century ago to keep Catholics out of public schools is still on the books in Oregon, one of the last states in the nation to prohibit teachers from wearing religious clothing in classrooms. Both Pennsylvania and Nebraska have similar laws, which…
Civil Rights Pioneer E.E. Cleveland talks about meeting Martin Luther King, Jr.
On August 30, 2009, renowned evangelist Edward Earl Cleveland died at Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama. He was 88. Cleveland worked for more than 60 years as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, evangelist, church leader, teacher, and civil rights leader. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attended one of Cleveland’s tent meetings in 1954 in Montgomery and…
‘We have so many uncanonised martyrs’ – Christians in Pakistan are living in daily fear of violence from extremists (Catholic Herald)
Sister Janet Fearns, communications coordinator of Missio writes about the extent of religious persecution in Pakistan. A link to the full article follows this excerpt: ‘I am sorry I could not speak to you then because we were just about to begin the funeral service for Irfan, an 11-year-old boy who was shot in the head…
Charles Colson on media indifference to international religious freedom
Charles Colson recently wrote an interesting editorial on the media’s non-response to religious freedom issues in India. Here is an excerpt followed by a link to the full article: In 1998, Congress created the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Its mandate was to “monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion…