C U R R E N T - N E W S - S U M M A R Y
by the Editors of ReligionTodayFebruary 22, 2000 U.S. Hindus, Muslims, and Jews are training to resist Christian evangelism. National religious leaders are asking local congregations to teach members about the "threat" of Christian evangelists, Knight-Ridder News Service said. They have expressed concern since the Southern Baptist Convention (see link #1 below) has become more assertive, publishing prayer guides to help Christians evangelize people of other faiths.
...The SBC initiatives may be "a blessing in disguise," Texas Hindu leader Phillip Ramsaroop said. They made Hindus realize that "we need to educate ourselves so we can educate others," he said.
...About 60 Hindu teen-agers and young adults in Houston attended a class comparing the SBC prayer guides to Hindu teaching. Leaders took the young people through a "page-by-page refutation" of the SBC pamphlet, the World Hindu Council said. Muslim leaders are discussing the need for similar programs, Knight-Ridder said.
...A 12-year-old Jewish boy talked to more than 100 Jewish youths about his experience at a Dallas church. The boy said he signed a card attesting that he had professed faith in Jesus Christ after attending two youth events at First Baptist Church of Allen, Knight Ridder said. He then canceled his upcoming bar mitzvah and told his mother she should become a Christian to avoid going to hell.
...The mother said she called the church and complained to the youth pastor, Knight Ridder said. "He said (that) what he did was convey God's message to him. He said, 'I'm just doing my job.' So I told him that from now on, 'I'm going to be doing my job.' " She led the boy to re-focus on Judaism and prepared teaching materials to help other students and parents deal with similar evangelistic outreaches. "I have to stand up and protect the children here," she said.
An Oregon church is forbidden to hold weddings or funerals. The Portland City Council granted a Presbyterian congregation a permit to build a church and school on a 10-acre site, but said that in order to keep traffic down it could not hold weddings or funerals, The Associated Press said. The congregation meets in a building that holds 125 people but needs a 400-seat facility to handle its growing congregation, pastor Larry Jung said.
..."We're definitely not in the Bible Belt," Jung said, noting that Oregon is one of the least-churched states. He will appeal the decision to the state's Land Use Board of Appeals. It also will hear the appeal of a Methodist church (see link #2 below) that was ordered this month to limit the size of its services and cut back on programs to feed the hungry because of purported traffic concerns.
A debate over a banner is a sign of the times at an east Texas school. Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches was embroiled in a debate over an application by Wiccan students to form a campus pagan society, the Houston Chronicle said. The student government approved the group after intense debate, President Sean Bradley said. "It was hot, very hot, last fall."
...The controversy re-emerged when the group used satanic symbols to announce its meetings. One announcement, drawn in chalk on a sidewalk, featured a pentagram with a tree growing out of it under the gaze of the eye of Ra, an ancient Egyptian sun god, the Chronicle said.
...A Christian fraternity raised a banner two weeks later announcing, "This campus belongs to God." Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship, associated with the Assemblies of God (see link #3 below), posted fliers on campus and bought two full-page ads in the school newspaper featuring the same message. Any school-approved groups, including the pagans, are allowed to post banners across Vista Drive, the main entrance to the administration building, for 14 days at a time, the school said.
...The banner is not a response to the pagan announcements, Christians said. "This isn't a slam against [the pagans]," AG campus minister Gary Paschal said. "This is a coincidence." Campus Christians had planned to emphasize Christian awareness on campus for some time, he said.
A ministry is facing discrimination in Tampa, Fla. Sponsors of the Love Won Out conference, which protects young people from homosexuality, say media in the city are censoring their ads, Associated Baptist Press said. Radio stations have pulled advertisements promoting the conference and other media have refused to run the ads, John Paulk of Focus on the Family (see link #4 below) said.
..."What we're experiencing is pure censorship," Paulk said. Focus plans to hold the conference Feb. 26 at Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon. The ministry, which teaches public school administrators, teachers, and parents how to protect children from what it calls "the homosexual agenda," has held conferences
in Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois, and California....A Tampa Baptist church was vandalized because of the conference, news reports said. Someone wrote the message "Tired of being Baptist?" in pink spray paint on Seminole Heights Baptist Church Feb. 13. The message is a takeoff on an ad for the conference that appeared in the Tampa Tribune that reads, "Tired of Being Gay?"
At least five people died in religious violence in Kaduna, Nigeria. Violence broke out when thousands of Christians marched Feb. 21 to protest Muslim calls that Islamic law be implemented, Reuters said. One northern state already has implemented sharia law (see link #5 below), and several others are planning to do the same.
..."There are skirmishes all over the place and bodies in the streets," an official said. "We don't know how many are dead." Churches, mosques, and shops have been attacked, some burned, Reuters said. "I saw two people killed when the clash first started and then it turned into a stampede and everyone was running in different directions," a witness said.
...Nigeria is Africa's most populous country with 108 million people. About 50% are Muslims, 40% Christian, and the rest animist, news reports said. Hundreds have died (see link #6 below) in ethnic and religious clashes in the past.
-----------
RELATED LINKS:
1: http://www.sbc.net
2: http://www.religiontoday.com/Archive/NewsSummary/view.cgi?file=20000215.brf.html
3: http://www.ag.org
4: http://www.family.org/
5: http://www.religiontoday.com/Archive/NewsSummary/view.cgi?file=20000107.brf.html
6: http://www.religiontoday.com/Archive/NewsSummary/view.cgi?file=19990730.brf. html- BAPTISTS - | - NEWS -