Religion Today Summaries – October 14, 2003
Daily briefs of the top news stories impacting Christians around the world. In today's edition:
- Lawyers Appeal Case Involving Religious Messages on School Mural
- Student Ministry Offers Free Lunch, Bible Message at Local Bar
- Praying Christians Thwart Voodoo Pact in Haiti
- Bible Translators Become Chicken Liberators
Lawyers Appeal Case Involving Religious Messages on School Mural
Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service
A Virginia-based civil liberties organization has appealed a decision permitting a high school to censor a student's religious writings on a school mural. The Rutherford Institute in Charlottesville is appealing a May ruling by a U.S. district court in Miami that school officials at Boca Raton Community High School correctly asked a student to remove references to God she and other members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes had placed on a mural on school grounds as part of a student government project. According to the court filing, Sharah Harris was instructed in 2002 by school principal Ed Harris to paint over religious symbols and language such as a cross and the words "God Loves You." "Boca Raton High School officials are out of step with the U.S. Supreme Court, which has repeatedly ruled that personal religious speech like Sharah's mural is as protected as other types of speech," said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, in a statement. "To allow this type of discrimination against religious speech would mean that state agencies could pick and choose among favored speech and eventually destroy the concept of free speech." His organization has asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether the lower court erred in its ruling that the First Amendment did not prevent the censorship.
Student Ministry Offers Free Lunch, Bible Message at Local Bar
Jim Brown, Agape Press
The Baptist Student Ministry at one Texas university is continuing its tradition of holding outreach events at a local tavern. Every fall semester, the BSM offers new students at Tarleton State University (tarleton.edu) a free lunch at Bostock's Bar and Billiards in Stephenville. Local churches provide food for the event, and the meal is typically followed by a message from a Christian speaker or musician. Darrell Samuelson, director of the university's BSM, calls it a "seed planting" ministry that offers an opportunity for the ministry to reach students where they are. "We do have an evangelistic message at every lunch," Samuelson explains. "What we see is that the students who will go to this lunch ... will begin to trickle into Bible studies or into our worship time or into churches." Samuelson says critics of the bar ministry include some local churches. He says inviting church leaders to the event usually changes their minds. "I remember one particular pastor was very much against it, and I just invited him to come," he says. "He came and saw the crowd that was there. He heard the message that was given -- a clear gospel presentation -- and now he's one of our biggest supporters."
Praying Christians Thwart Voodoo Pact in Haiti
Charisma News Service
Thousands of Haitian Christians united recently for a national day of prayer to counter a voodoo pact supported by the Caribbean nation's president. Missions researcher George Otis Jr., whose award-winning video documentaries "Transformations" chronicle prayer and revival movements worldwide, said "Aug. 14, 2003 will go down in the annals of mission history," Assist News Service (ANS) reported. "It was to be the day that the voodoo witchdoctors would lead Haiti in the re-ratification of the 200-year-old blood pact with the devil," said Otis, noting that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide "did everything in his power to support that diabolical pact." "In April this year, Aristide passed a law recognizing voodoo as a valid Haitian religion," added Otis, who arrived in Haiti Aug. 10. "... He even flew in over 400 voodoo practitioners for the 14th -- mostly from West Africa, the home of voodoo." However, a group of churches organized a national day of prayer. Otis visited several churches in Port-au-Prince, which had thousands praying. Another effort to renew the satanic covenant is reportedly planned for Jan.1 -- Haiti's national day of independence, Christian Aid Mission said.
Bible Translators Become Chicken Liberators
Michael Ireland, ASSIST News Service
Bible translators have empowered tribespeople in Ghana to understand their own constitutional rights -- which now means that fewer chickens are being ritually slaughtered. In the new edition of Enough Magazine, Dave Pearson of Wycliffe Bible Translators explains how his charity is helping to bring many kinds of freedom to far-flung parts of the world. Wycliffe works with some of the millions of people in the world who speak rare tribal languages. In many cases, these languages have never been written down, with no alphabet to work from. Here Wycliffe's work, which ends with the production of a Bible in the language, begins from scratch, and the subsequent process has some unexpected and rewarding side-effects. Recently, Wycliffe translated the constitution of Ghana into 22 languages in the north of the country. In doing so, they brought unanticipated liberation. "People from the Deg tribe in northern Ghana didn't realize that they didn't have to pay the police to have convicts released" says Pearson. In another people group in northern Ghana it's obligatory for each person to give a chicken for sacrifice to the ancestral spirit.
Originally published October 14, 2003.
