Here are the latest updates for blogworldreligion@gmail.com
- Tensions rise as police question monk's followers
- Karnataka Top in Attacks on Christians in India
- Somalia Christian Killed For Carrying Bibles
- The Love Boat Captain is Back on Course
- Jury selected in Bahamas for John Travolta extortion trial
- FLDS sect member sues Arizona over loss of police job
- Church votes to retain controversial new pastor, grandson of Billy Graham
- Muslims mass-producing children to take over Africa, says Archbishop
- Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan defends his views
- Nones: people with 'no religion' gaining on major denominations
- Search Religion News Blog
Followers of an internationally known Buddhist monk say tensions are rising at a monastery in Vietnam's Central Highlands after local officials accused them of trying to "sabotage" Vietnam's communist government.
An angry crowd gathered outside the Bat Nha monastery on Monday and local police conducted late-night searches of the rooms, said Brother Phap Tu, speaking by telephone Tuesday from the compound in Lam Dong province.
AP says the monks and nuns there are followers of Thich Nhat Hanh, an exiled Vietnam-born monk who has sold more than 1 million English-books in the West and is now based at the Plum Village monastery in southern France.
With at least 43 incidents of anti-Christian violence, Karnataka saw more attacks on Christians in the first eight months of this year than any other state in India, according to advocacy organizations.
The figure compares with 35 attacks on churches, worship services and Christians during the same period last year in the state, which has become the center of violence against Christians.
Islamic militants have shot and killed a long-time underground Christian in Somalia after finding Bibles in his possession.
The man arried 25 Somali Bibles he hoped to deliver to an underground congregation, Christians said.
The world knew Gavin MacLeod as Captain Merrill Stubing in The Love Boat TV series, but he has revealed that his personal life was far from joyful – in fact it was all at sea.
But then he found Jesus Christ as his Savior fell back in love with Patti, his former wife and, after three years of divorce, he re-married her.
John Travolta is believed to have flown to the Bahamas to take the stand against two people accused of trying to extort $US25 million from the movie star following his son Jett's death in January.
Travolta is on a list of 14 witnesses against the defendants — a former Bahamas senator and an ambulance driver — who allegedly threatened to release a document related to the treatment of his chronically ill son Jett.
His testimony would mark a break from the low profile that Travolta and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, have kept since their 16-year-old son died from a seizure at a family vacation home on the Grand Bahama island on January 2.
A former police officer from a polygamous community has filed a lawsuit against Arizona officials, claiming he was defamed and his civil rights violated when they revoked his police certification, AP reports.
Preston Barlow's certification was revoked in September 2007 after allegations of misconduct the previous year.
The lawsuit contends that Barlow, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was targeted for his faith and misled about the nature of the investigation that ended with his decertification and the loss of his job.
Barlow, 30, is one of at least six officers from the Colorado City Town Marshal's office to be decertified by authorities in Arizona or Utah since 2003, some for the practice of polygamy, a tenet of the FLDS faith.
Members of the influential Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church voted overwhelmingly Sunday to keep W. Tullian Tchividjian, grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, as their spiritual leader.
Tchividjian was named senior pastor of the Fort Lauderdale mega-church six months ago. The Miami Herald says he has come under scrutiny ever since he vowed to the set the church on a different path from that charted by his predecessor, D. James Kennedy, who built Coral Ridge into a religious and political powerhouse on a bedrock of Christian conservatism.
Church members cast ballots at a closed 11 a.m. meeting, and backed Tchividjian by a vote of 940-422, a margin of about 69 percent to 31 percent.
Tchividjian, 37, doesn't preach politics. He is more apt to focus on specific Biblical passages than on the news du jour, prefers drum sets to an organ, and has chosen podcasting over broadcasting.
His approach alarmed some members of the church, who preferred Kennedy's traditional services and his willingness to tackle topics such as same-sex marriage and abortion.
Six church members, including Kennedy's daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, were banned from the premises in August after they distributed fliers criticizing the new pastor on church grounds.
One of the most powerful figures in the Anglican Church believes that Africa is under attack from Islam and that Muslims are "mass-producing" children to take over communities on the continent.
Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, 56, was elected Primate of Nigeria last week and his elevation could exacerbate tensions at a time when Anglicans are working to build bridges with Muslims, The Times writes.
"They come to Africans and say, 'Christianity is asking you to marry only one wife. We will give you four!' " Archbishop Okoh described this as "evangelism by mass-production".
He said: "That is the type of evangelism they are doing: mass-production, so if you have four wives, four children, sixteen children, very soon you will be a village."
The Swiss-born thinker, who was denied a visa to teach in the U.S., says he is a reformist interested in a 'post-integration discourse' to explore the ways Muslims in the West can contribute.
Liberal Muslim or closet fundamentalist? Peaceful intellectual or militant in sheep's clothing?
Tariq Ramadan has been called all these things -- and more -- by his friends and foes. Whatever the truth, the Swiss-born Oxford University professor ranks among the most influential thinkers in the Muslim world, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Americans who don't identify with any religion are now 15% of the USA, but trends in a new study shows they could one day surpass the nation's largest denominations — including Catholics, now 24% of the nation.
As it has grown larger, the no religion or None population is no longer a fringe group and the "None" choice in terms of (ir)religious identification is now attracting wide swaths of Middle America.
0 comments