Religion

Foreign Teachers in Russia

Mission Network News is reporting this Moscow news:

Currently, foreigners in Russia only need a visa to teach. A draft bill has been submitted, however, that claims the current policy opens doors for the spread of “extremist ideology, national and religious hatred.” All of this poses a national security threat, according to the bill.

Persuaded by the threats, the Moscow City Dumas deputies approved the creation of the bill last Tuesday which would require a work permit for foreign teachers. This can take months to acquire.

Jesus’ Family in Mexico?

So…they…

purport to be devout Evangelical Christians. All members are disciplined to abstain from narcotics themselves and care for their homes and children, La Familia says. They are also made to study a special Bible….

Then there’s this a little farther down in the Time story:

The sect also uses the Internet to spread its gospel. On one on-line forum, hundreds of supporters sing the praises of Christ and La Familia. “Victory to La Familia Michoacana, gloryfying Jesus by helping others,” writes one aficionado calling himself Fran. “Evil will only reign until Jesus stops it,” writes another calling himself the Messenger. “Nobody is saved from divine justice and they cannot imagine the pain and suffering they will go through.”

Time calls them a sect? Maybe that’s what they are, but, somehow, that seems to me to dangerously tarnish real Evangelicals.

La Familia Michoacana just is not your conventional religious group:

Their use of extreme violence against rivals and police has given La Familia a brutal reputation across Mexico. They first burst to fame in 2006 when gangsters severed the heads of five rival traffickers and rolled them onto a disco dance floor.

😯

They don’t sound like your conventional Mexican drug cartel either

HT: Amsalazar

Religious Freedom Exemption

If you’re interested in Oregon and/or in religious freedom legal issues and/or public schools, this will interest you.

A bill passed by the Oregon Legislature that broadens religious freedom in the workplace has prompted protests by some faith leaders because it exempts schools.

The bill requires employers to allow workers to wear certain clothing, grow beards and take certain days off to observe their religious practices. But it specifically carves out school districts in Oregon, one of two states that expressly forbid teachers from wearing religious clothing.

[…]

The bill, titled the “Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act” grants workers wide religious leeway as long as the activity, clothing or other practices don’t cause an undue hardship on the employer. Religious organizations typically applaud such measures.

But the school exemption has highlighted what some think is a glaring hole in Oregon’s efforts to expand religious freedoms.

[…]

Oregon has had a law on the books for decades that states: “No teacher in any public school shall wear any religious dress while engaged in the performance of duties as a teacher.” Pennsylvania has a similar law.

Oregon’s law was tested in the 1980s, when a Sikh teacher was suspended from her job as a Eugene special education teacher for wearing a white turban and white clothes to class. The case went before the Oregon Supreme Court, which upheld the suspension. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

I saw this night before last, saved it as a draft to post yesterday, and forgot.

Source: The Oregonian

Mennonite or Mormon?

The day it happened, I was going to blog a bit about the LeBaron-Widmar killings in Chihuahua, Mexico. After all, Benjamin LeBaron and Luis Widmar were identified by the Associated Press as “members of the pacifist Mennonite community in northern Mexico.”

Then I decided not to bother calling attention to the story, even though I’m a Mennonite.

A day or two later I started seeing stories about a couple of Mormons killed in northwest Mexico.

This morning I verified the stories are all about the same murders.

Are Mennonites and Mormons so easy to confuse?

I assume LeBaron and Widmar were Mormons, since a Web search I did turned up more references to them as such rather than Mennonites.

Whatever the case, friends and families are hurting, especially two wives and ten children. May they find lasting solace and peace in God.

Pope: “Charity in Truth”

So he released his latest encyclical:

Pope Benedict on Tuesday called for a “world political authority” to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat.

The pope’s call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run came in new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations.

[…]

The pope said every economic decision has a moral consequence and called for “forms of redistribution” of wealth overseen by governments to help those most affected by crises.

Benedict said “there is an urgent need of a true world political authority” whose task would be “to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result.”

Such an authority would have to be “regulated by law” and “would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights.”

Global economic political authority? No, thanks!

But it’s coming anyway.

The Bible tells me so (as I recall).

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Above all, love God!