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International Bible Society is donating an additional 25,000 Scripture products to churches in the New York City area in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The products will be used by area churches and 1100 short-term ministries en route to New York to provide follow-up ministry over the next six months. Previously, IBS provided about 78,000 Scripture products to the Salvation Army for distribution in New York City and 5000 Scripture products at the request for military chaplains for distribution at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Included in the shipments were Deeper Still (booklet in English and Spanish for those who grieve), When Your Whole World Changes (booklet in English and Spanish for disaster survivors), Book of Psalms, Looking Up (booklet of God’s promises for the downcast and discouraged), and Through the Storm New Testament (New Testament for people in crisis). The attacks levelled the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, leaving thousands dead or missing. To date, IBS has received requests for over 250,000 Scriptures from individuals struggling with grief and churches and ministries conducting outreach to those affected by the tragedy. Christian publisher Zondervan is matching 100% of its employees’ contributions to IBS’s disaster outreach efforts. The Tyndale House Foundation, of Tyndale House Publishing, has granted $15,000 US in emergency funds to assist in the effort. Donations to the emergency Scripture relief fund can be made online at www.IBSMinistry.org or send to: Attack on America Outreach, International Bible Society, Box 35901, Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3901. For those struggling with grief, IBS has a special web site: www.grieving.org. – International Bible Society
Millions in Afghanistan are desperate for food and water due to three years of inadequate rainfall. The situation is made worse because of 20 years of war. The world’s second largest group of refugees, 2.6 million Afghans, have fled to neighbouring Iran and Pakistan; millions of others are displaced within the country’s borders. Mennonite Central Committee is contributing $735,000 to work in Afghanistan in 2001. MCC has no volunteers in Afghanistan but works with partner agencies, mainly by supplying wheat through the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Of the current contribution, $447,000 will be distributed through Medair, an international aid agency, to tuberculosis patients, most of whom contracted the disease due to malnourishment and weak immune systems. Wheat will also be given to Afghan widows and their families through CARE International. Laws passed by the ruling Taliban government restrict women from holding paying jobs. – Mennonite Central Committee
Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government is implementing harsh Islamic laws. Muslims face the death sentence if they convert to another religion such as Christianity or Judaism, attempt to convert others or distribute Christian or Jewish books. The Taliban, which has ruled the country for four years, has a stated goal of building the world’s purist Islamic state. Under its laws, women are banned from working, girls over eight are not allowed to attend school, men must wear beards, women must be covered from head to toe, and most entertainment and music, except for religious music, is banned. Afghanistan’s 24 million inhabitants are currently suffering through a civil war, a measles epidemic and a drought. To crush the rebel Sunni Muslim ethnic Hazaras, the Taliban is destroying their homes, crops and irrigation systems and recruiting children under 14 to do it. – World Pulse
Christianity is the world’s largest religion, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia (second edition). Christians comprised 32% (588 million) of the world’s population in 1900, but now account for 31% (2 billion) of the population. Islam, the second largest religion, has grown to 1.2 billion followers. Hinduism has made small gains, and Judaism and Buddhism have declined. Racially, 81% of Christians were white in 1900, compared to 55% non-white in 2000. The encyclopedia also states that $16 billion US is embezzled annually from the church, while $15 billion is given to foreign missions. – WP
Almost a quarter-million abortions are performed each year in the US on women who identify themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians, according to a study published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, an affiliate of Planned Parenthood. That represents 18% of the 1.37 million abortions performed annually in the US. – Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Religion Today, Agapepress
In the last half of the 1990s, the proportion of American children living with single mothers declined slightly from about 20% to just over 18%, reversing a trend that began in the 1960s. Wendell Primus, with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., said the new data from the Census Bureau “means roughly a million children are no longer living with just a single mother”. However, the data also show a corresponding increase in cohabiting couples, not an increase in married couples. – Evangelical Press News Service
The US House of Representatives voted 249–178 on July 31 to reject an amendment that would have allowed the cloning of human embryos for scientific research. – EPNS
The Multan High Court has rejected the death-sentence appeal of Ayub Masih, Pakistan’s most high-profile Christian prisoner, upholding a lower court verdict to execute him for alleged blasphemy against Islam’s prophet Mohammed. The July 25 ruling against Masih marks the first time that a high court in Pakistan has failed to acquit a Christian convicted in a lower court on blasphemy charges. The cases have generally been overturned for lack of evidence. On the day of Masih’s hearing, a mob of 25 extremist Muslim religious leaders gathered at the courthouse, shouting death threats against him and his lawyer. Masih’s lawyer will now appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Refused bail since he was jailed nearly five years ago, Masih has spent the last three years on death row. His guilty verdict on April 27, 1998 rests solely on the verbal accusations of his Muslim neighbour Mohammed Akram. The 14 Christian families from Masih’s village of Arifwala were evicted from their homes and their land was confiscated Oct. 14, 1996, the same day that the alleged blasphemy case was registered against him. According to one report, the house belonging to Masih’s family is now occupied by his accuser, Akram. – Compass Direct
In a recent survey of over 1500 Canadians, 88.9% said they are against human cloning, but 77% indicated that they expect it will happen within the next 20 years. The poll also found that 55.4% supported cloning if it was only for scientific research and 40.8% were against it. – EFC, National Post, The Globe and Mail
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled July 10 that the United Church of Canada is 25% liable and the federal government 75% liable for a judgement of $410,000 won by victims of abuse in a Native residential school. The church and the government were required to pay the damages to six former students of the Alberni Indian Residential School, operated by the United Church and the federal government on Vancouver Island in the 1950s and 60s. During that time, many of the students say Arthur Henry Plint, a dormitory supervisor, sexually abused them. Plint, now 83, was convicted in 1995 on 19 counts of sexual abuse involving students at the school, which was closed in 1972. Twenty-eight former students sought $5 million in damages from the Church, Ottawa and Plint. Of these, 21 settled out of court and one case was dismissed. In this latest ruling, the six remaining plaintiffs were awarded damages ranging from $10,000 to $145,000. Church officials were pleased that the ruling supports their contention that the government was the primary operator of the schools. Natives were upset that the damages were so low that they will barely cover legal costs. However, Chief Justice Donald Brenner ruled that there is no evidence the government or the church knew the abuse was occurring. The United Church is one of four denominations – along with the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian Churches – which operated Native residential schools for the federal government. – Christianweek
Bukoto Information and Communications Center (BICC) in Uganda provides residents of Bukoto and neighbouring villages with computer, cellular phone and library services. Mennonite Central Committee has donated several computers and a solar panel used for back-up power to the Center. BICC has a 1,000-book library, a periodicals rack, daily newspapers, and educational CD-ROMs used by adult English classes and by elementary and secondary school students. The area has no land-line telephone system; among the 20,000 community residents, there may be only about 50 cell phones, most of which are not available for public use. Masaka, the nearest city, is 20 km away. – MCC
Two weeks of heavy monsoon rains in July caused severe flooding in the state of Orissa in eastern India, destroying the homes of over 1 million people. Mennonite Central Committee is providing $76,300 in food relief for 12,000 families affected by the flooding. The money will be used to buy dry ration kits, including rice, lentils, oil, salt, matches and candles. The kits will be assembled and distributed through the Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA), the relief agency of the Indian Council of Churches. CASA is also distributing tarpaulins, cooking utensils and clothing contributed by other relief agencies. – MCC
Attendance at “evangelism-oriented” Anglican churches and at Baptist churches in England is up 18% and 11% respectively, reports The Economist. The increase is attributed to evangelical outreaches such as the Alpha program, an introductory course to Christianity for non-Christians. In London alone, 7,000 Alpha attenders join a church each year. Alpha officials report that about a quarter of the 1 million who have attended Alpha have become Christians. – WP
Five million people in Afghanistan are facing starvation due to a drought that is in its third year. The Canadian Foodgrains Bank is calling on the Canadian government to remember the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people as it decides how it will respond to the US government’s call for action against terrorism. Over the last three years, CFGB has shipped 3600 tonnes of Canadian wheat, beans and canola oil to Afghanistan. This project was coordinated by Mennonite Central Committee, a member of the CFGB. Currently, 600 tonnes of Canadian food are stranded in a United Nations warehouse in northern Pakistan. – Canadian Foodgrains Bank
Heritage Mountain Community Church has a new mailing address: 86–101 Parkside Dr., Port Moody, B.C. V3H 4W6; its new phone number is (604) 461-4625. Pastor couple is Mark and Shirley Tucker; their new phone number is (604) 461-8604. – Heritage Mountain Community Church
The Assemblies of God, among the largest Pentecostal denominations, voted to change policy to allow some divorced clergy candidates to be ordained. The resolution, which only applies to candidates who divorced before they became Christians, was passed 998–834 by the church’s general council at its biennial convention in August. Similar resolutions were defeated in 1991 and 1997. Supporters of the resolution say the church has been missing out on qualified leaders because of its divorce restrictions. Opponents say standards must remain high for church leaders. The Assemblies of God has about 2.5 million members in the US and about 35 million worldwide. – CW, Associated Press
As drought threatens 1.5 million people in Central America, Mennonite Central Committee is responding with emergency food aid in Honduras and Nicaragua. Across the region 700,000 people have lost at least half of their crops. The situation is most severe in Honduras; in the southern state of Choluteca, 92% of the first harvest of the year was lost. MCC is organizing aid, including 318 tonnes of corn, 36 tonnes of beans and 9 tonnes of rice, all locally grown. MCC Honduras is exploring additional emergency assistance in other areas of the country and longer-range work to stabilize the food supply in the Choluteca area. In Nicaragua, MCC is funding food packets (valued at $58,460) of rice, beans, corn, milk powder and oil to feed 2300 families in 42 communities for two to three weeks. – MCC
Three Californian women are suing Planned Parenthood to force the largest abortion provider in the US to reveal scientific evidence of a substantial link between induced abortion and increased risk of breast cancer. They allege that Planned Parenthood consistently misleads women about the safety of abortion by obscuring evidence that induced abortion causes breast cancer, telling them that childbirth “carries seven times more risk” than having an abortion. Dr. Joel Brind, an endocrinologist at Baruch College of the City University of New York, notes that of 37 independently published studies of an abortion-cancer link, 28 show a causal connection, and of those, 17 suggest a 95% certainty that this is not due to chance. – EPNS
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom on Aug. 16 nominated Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, Laos, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Turkmenistan for designation by the US State Department as “countries of particular concern” (CPC) – meaning that it considers them the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. The Commission also urged that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan be nominated as a “particularly severe violator” of religious freedom even though it is not recognized as a government by the US. Countries classified as CPCs can be subjected to US sanctions designed to influence them to change their practices. The Commission made the same recommendation last year, but Secretary of State Madeline Albright then accepted only 5 of the 10 recommendations, deciding not to give CPC status to Burma, China, Iran, Iraq and Sudan. – EPNS
The Canadian Alliance of Religious Freedom is supporting the right of Ontarian Scott Brockie, the owner and operator of a printing company, to refuse to print material he finds is morally unacceptable. Brockie was recently fined by the Ontario Board of Inquiry for refusing printing services to Ray Brillinger of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Brockie has filed an appeal of the fine to the Ontario Divisional Court. The printer has reportedly served homosexual clients in the past, but refused to print this material because it was promoting gay and lesbian rights – which Brockie opposes for religious reasons. A hearing of the case is scheduled for Dec. 5. CARF members are the Catholic Civil Rights League, Christian Legal Fellowship and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. – EPNS
The Rutherford Institute has asked the US Supreme Court to clarify what religious speech is acceptable in the workplace. Kenneth Weiss, a former employee of REN Laboratories of Florida, Inc., was fired after having a discussion about church attendance with a new worker at a company-sponsored party. The new employee later expressed her discomfort about this discussion to her supervisor. On the following day, Weiss received a written notice of termination. This violated REN company policy, which requires REN to provide a verbal correction form, a written warning and a final warning prior to firing. A jury in a federal court unanimously ruled in Weiss’s favour, awarding him $129,000 US in compensation and punitive damages. However, the trial judge overturned the verdict and awarded judgement to REN. A US Court of Appeals overturned that decision and ordered a new trial. The Appeals Court noted several other instances of what it regarded as “inappropriate” workplace behaviour by Weiss, including offering a Bible to a Muslim co-worker and praying for a co-worker who was sick. The Rutherford Institute is a civil liberties organization that defends religious freedom. – EPNS
“Where Faith and Wall Street Intersect” is a report by Mennonite Mutual Aid of Goshen, Ind., based on a survey of 1141 US investors. The study found that 79% of investors (83% of women and 74% of men) describe themselves as religious or spiritual; 62% of the “religious” Americans who invest use their faith or personal ethical values in financial decision-making, compared to 33% of non-religious investors. – EPNS
About 3000 Colombians from various sectors of society gathered July 19–21 to talk about peace. The Third National Plenary of the Permanent Assembly of Civil Society for Peace was held in the Antioquia region of north central Colombia. There were also 30 international guests, including people from Canada and the US. Bonnie Klassen, who works for JustaPaz, the peace and justice organization of the Colombia Mennonite Church, was involved in the planning. The assembly focused on the themes “Protection and Value of Life”, “Social Development” and “Strengthening Civil Society”. Other issues included the peace process between the Colombian government and the various armed rebel groups, urban conflict, peace culture, the role of the international community in Colombia, human rights, employment, and health policies. The assembly reached a consensus to oppose the fumigation of coca fields, which is heavily financed by the US government in order to curb cocaine production in Colombia. Cocaine is a major source of income for the rebel groups, but fumigation also damages other crops and poses a risk to the environment and human health. The first peace assembly was held in Bogotá in 1998, with 4000 in attendance, and the second in Cali in 1999, with 2500. In 1999, the Colombian government began holding peace talks with the rebel group FARC after 10 million citizens voted in favour of peace in 1997. Those talks, however, haven’t stopped the fighting, and this year’s peace assembly called for a ceasefire. An estimated 35,000 Colombians have died since 1989 as a result of violence between the military, right-wing paramilitary groups and the left-wing rebel groups. – General Conference Mennonite Church News
The new Liberal government of British Columbia has withdrawn from a Charter challenge of the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one women. The previous NDP government was the first government in Canada to come out in support of legalizing gay marriages. Three gay and lesbian couples, who had been denied marriage licences, had challenged the Charter. The case was heard July 23. – EFC, Today’s Family News in Focus
The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission has ordered the Saskatoon StarPhoenix newspaper and Hugh Owens of Regina to pay $1,500 to three homosexual activists for publishing an ad in the newspaper quoting Bible verses condemning homosexuality. Owens placed the ad in the StarPhoenix on June 30, 1997 to coincide with Gay Pride Week. The ad gave four Bible passages from Romans, Leviticus and 1 Corinthians. The list was followed by an equal sign and two male stick figures holding hands in a circle crossed out. The adjudicator, lawyer Valerie Watson, said that the reference to the passage in Leviticus saying that a man who “lies with a man” must be put to death clearly exposed gays to hatred. In the ruling, Watson conceded that “Mr. Owens believed that he was publicly expressing his honestly held religious belief as it related to his interpretation of the Bible and its discussion of homosexuality.” However, she said the restriction on Owen’s right to freedom of expression was reasonable since, as a result of the ad, the complainants “were exposed to hatred, ridicule and their dignity was affronted on the basis of their sexual orientation”. Owens has said he will appeal. – EFC, The Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen
MCC photo by Mavis Olesen |
Teachers in a Karen refugee camp in Thailand review curriculum they have developed in recent months. The Karen are an ethnic minority in Burma; many have fled the country’s civil strife. There are 15 Karen camps along the Burmese border. This spring, a group of 34 teachers, themselves Karen refugees, participated in workshops led by Mennonite Central Committee volunteers Jim and Mavis Olesen of Regina. Participants are now able to train others to teach the more than 3000 children living in their camp. Topics covered in the workshops included curriculum development, evaluation and teaching children with special needs.
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Last modified October 29, 2001.
© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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