Religion Today Summaries – October 7, 2005
Daily briefs of the top news stories impacting Christians around the world. In today's edition:
NAMB Commissions 102 New Missionaries and Chaplains
Wrongly Accused Christian Sunday School Teachers Organize A Church Service Behind Prison Walls
Attorney Laments Roberts Court's Refusal to Hear Religious Freedom Case
India : Police Beat Christians In Punjab State
NAMB Commissions 102 New Missionaries and Chaplains
Mickey Noah, Baptist Press
Charged with spreading the Gospel of Christ throughout North America, 102 new missionaries and chaplains were commissioned Oct. 2 by the North American Mission Board. In a special 90-minute service at Eagle's Landing First Baptist Church in McDonough, Ga., NAMB commissioned 48 married couples and six individuals. The new missionaries will serve in 27 states and five Canada locations -- Alberta, Toronto, Ontario, British Columbia and Montreal. Another eight hold "national" assignments. Following a processional, all the new missionaries and chaplains - accompanied by flags representing their new states or provinces - introduced themselves to the 2,000-person congregation while several shared their testimonies. In his charge to the new missionaries, Chuck Allen, NAMB's executive vice president, told the missionaries and congregation that "we make God's simplistic plan of salvation complicated when it's really not. It's not what we have, but what we give back to God that counts. Do what you can with what you have and God will never leave you where you are at or give you more than you can stand," Allen told the missionaries. NAMB partners with state Baptist conventions, associations and Southern Baptist churches to support more than 5,200 missionaries in the United States, Canada and U.S. and Canadian Territories.
Wrongly Accused Christian Sunday School Teachers Organize A Church Service Behind Prison Walls
Michael Ireland, Assist News Service
Three Indonesian Christian women, currently serving a three-year prison sentence in the Indramayu district of West Java, have started a church within the confines of their prison. Christian Freedom International president Jim Jacobson visited the three women in the Indramayu prison. Incredibly, Dr. Rebekka Zakaria is currently allowed to lead a worship service on Sundays in a small outdoor courtyard area of the prison. About 35 people from her church are allowed to enter the prison each Sunday to participate. One male inmate recently converted to Christianity and attends the worship service, bringing the Christian inmate population to seven. CFI says the three women were imprisoned after having been wrongly convicted of "attempting to coerce children to change their religion" under the Indonesian "Child Protection Act." In reality, Rebekka, Eti, and Ratna allowed several Muslim children to attend their Sunday school program only after obtaining verbal consent from the Muslim students' guardians. The three women ran a popular Sunday school program which was attended by some 100 Christian students in their community. Christian Freedom International is urging the Indonesian government to release the three women. CFI is also urging the U.S. government to place all possible pressure on Indonesia for their immediate release. According to Jacobson, "under the Children Protection Act and other regulations, no Christian is safe in Indonesia. This case should be a wakeup call for all caring Christians." Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world.
Attorney Laments Roberts Court's Refusal to Hear Religious Freedom Case
Jim Brown, AgapePress
A civil liberties organization is expressing disappointment over the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear a public school religious freedom case. The Rutherford Institute had asked the high court to overturn a 2004 ruling against a Florida high school student who was ordered to paint over religious references she had included on a school mural. Student Sharah Harris alleged the school was engaging in viewpoint discrimination. However, the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that the school had the right to censor her religious words and symbols. Harris' attorney, Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead, says he was surprised the Roberts court turned down the case. At the Supreme Court, the attorney explains, a hearing requires that at least four justices will agree to hear the case. President Bush, through his appointments to the Supreme Court bench, appears to be creating a court that is "deferential to authority in all its forms," Whitehead contends. And unfortunately, he adds, religious discrimination and other First Amendment cases are not a high priority for the court. Whitehead says he is sorry the high court "chose not to weigh in on what promised to be a critical religious freedom case." He feels the Roberts court, by refusing to hear the matter, missed a prime opportunity to show its commitment to First Amendment ideals.
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 07, 2005.
