Religion Today Summaries – October 4, 2005
Daily briefs of the top news stories impacting Christians around the world. In today's edition:
SBC's 'Adopt-a-Church' Initiative Offers Help for Hurricane-Affected Pastors
Church In Iraq Helps Rebuild New Orleans Parish
- Tooley: Anglican Bishops' Report on Terrorism Rooted in British Prejudice
India : Police Beat Christians In Punjab State
SBC's 'Adopt-a-Church' Initiative Offers Help for Hurricane-Affected Pastors
Allie Martin, AgapePress
The North American Mission Board (NAMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention is encouraging churches across the U.S. to help those pastors whose churches were destroyed or severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The initiative known as "Adopt a Church" allows each participating church to reach out to a pastor and his congregation that were severely affected by the recent devastating hurricane. Under the program, the distressed church's pastor would be supported by members of another church for up to a year. NAMB president Dr. Bob Reccord says the Adopt a Church effort is a much-needed arm of compassionate support for Christian congregation leaders that have taken a hard hit. Reccord says this relief initiative will help ease the stress and tension felt by so many pastors whose lives have been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. "We're asking churches to take them under their wing across the nation and cover their salary and benefits for a year," he explains, "to give them breathing room so they can focus on getting their church back on its feet and moving forward to a hopeful future." The NAMB has also announced that it will provide low-interest loans of up to $100,000 for churches damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile, Reccord says similar programs may be needed to help those pastors and churches damaged by Hurricane Rita.
Church In Iraq Helps Rebuild New Orleans Parish
Dan Wooding, Assist News Service
A small church in Iraq is providing aid to hurricane victims in the United States. The 300-member Christian church in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan Governance is collecting money to help the Adullam Christian Fellowship church -- a New Orleans church hit hard by hurricane Katrina. “We saw the pictures of the devastation on television,” said Rev. Hazem, pastor of the two-year old Kurdzman Church in Iraq. “We were motivated to help the people of New Orleans rebuild so we called our friends at World Compassion to see how to get money to Louisiana.” World Compassion has been working in Iraq since U.S. forces entered Iraq. The president and founder of the non-governmental relief agency, Dr. Terry Law, helped start The Kurdzman Church in Iraq. “This action demonstrates the love and compassion of Iraqi Christians. It is also something they could never have done under Saddam Hussein’s regime, ” said Dr. Law. The pastor of Adullam Christian Fellowship was equally surprised that a church in Iraq was reaching out to help. “We have been destroyed,” said Randy Millett, head of the devastated congregation in St. Bernard’s Parish, one of the hardest hit areas of the flooding. “And we are grateful for our friends around the world – including those in Iraq – who are standing with us during this difficult time.”
Tooley: Anglican Bishops' Report on Terrorism Rooted in British Prejudice
Jim Brown, AgapePress
A committee of bishops commissioned by the Church of England recently issued a report responding to the Iraq war and the war on terror. A Protestant renewal group in America is dismissing the report as "absurd." The five Anglican bishops suggested that Christians should apologize to Muslims for the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq and the subsequent overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein. The report -- entitled "Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11" -- includes a 13-point schedule of "Christian principles" in response to the threat of terrorism, in which the writers call for states to "understand" the perspective of their terrorist antagonists. The September 19 report also alleges that U.S. evangelical Christians promoted and facilitated the war in Iraq because of their purported belief that the United States has a manifest destiny for military conquest. Mark Tooley with the Washington, DC-based Institute on Religion and Democracy does not give the report much credibility. Tooley says Church of England bishops often rely on stereotypes of U.S. Evangelicals rooted in British prejudice rather than genuine reality. The conspiracy theories laid out in the bishops' report, says the IRD spokesman, are spurious, yet also very revealing about those making the allegations. He believes the Anglican bishops are trying to deflect attention away from their own problems. Tooley notes that by some counts, there are more mosque-going Muslims in Great Britain than there are church-going Anglicans.
India : Police Beat Christians In Punjab State
Compass Direct
Religious tensions in Punjab state increased last week, as police who had taken several Christians into custody, presumably to protect them from Hindu extremists, instead beat them in jail. At least 40 Christians were praying at a home in Maloud the night of September 25 when a mob, including members of the Hindu extremist group Bajrang Dal, stormed the house. The mob threatened the Christians and beat some of them. The believers called the police, and four of them – Gurdev Singh, Balkaran Singh, Jaswant Singh and Amar Singh, a pastor – were taken into custody, as the mob had grown increasingly violent. At the police station, however, Hukum Chand Sharma, assistant sub-inspector of the Maloud Police station, repeatedly struck the Christians, gravely injuring Gurdev Singh and Amar Singh. He later also beat a 60-year-old pastor, Sukhdev Singh, who was later hospitalized with serious injuries.
Originally published October 04, 2005.
