Religion | Ain't Complicated

Did the Soviets Do This?

When they hosted the Olympics?

Bibles banned from 2008 Olympic village

Chinese officials have announced athletes who compete in the 2008 Beijing Games will be banned from having Bibles in their Olympic village housing, and even visitors are being warned not to bring more than a single Bible with them when they come to China.

According to a report from the Catholic News Agency, Bibles will be among the list of “prohibited objects” for athletes at the Beijing housing complexes being built now for the thousands of athletes expected to participate.

“According to the Italian daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, organizers have cited ‘security reasons’ and have prohibited athletes from bearing any kind of religious symbol at Olympic facilities,” the report said.

Also banned will be video cameras and cups, the report said.

Bibles, religious symbols, and video cameras — I can understand how the Communists would feel insecure about them.

But cups?

Update: Thursday, November 15

China denounces Games “Bible ban” report

China reacted angrily on Thursday to reports in the European press that the government would ban Bibles during next year’s Beijing Olympics, saying it could not possibly be true.

Reaching North Koreans

Though I wouldn’t endores all the tactics and philosophies employed, I’m sure this man and those he trained have done much for those whom Jesus loves: people.

(The headline “bothers” me, especially if it reflects reality.)

South Korean missionaries spread political message in the North

For years, under the leadership of Choi Kwang, a hard-driving missionary from South Korea, North Koreans seeking refuge in China were taken to apartments where they were put through a rigorous training course in Christianity that began daily at 6 a.m. and continued until 10 p.m. The trainees repeated out loud the words of an eight-hour-long tape recording of the New Testament.

Before taking breaks for meals, Choi and the North Koreans would embrace and pray: “Let’s spill Jesus’s blood in North Korea! Let’s become martyrs for North Korea!”

By 2001, when his underground proselytizing network was broken up by the Chinese police, Choi had turned about 70 North Koreans who had come to him in search of food and shelter into missionaries. At least five of them are believed to have been executed in North Korea. At least six others are thought to be in North Korean prison camps.

Launching balloon Gospel messages to North Korea

Although North Korea’s Constitution, on paper, provides for freedom of religion, in reality religious expression is tightly restricted. Schoolchildren are taught that religion is the “opium of the people” and that missionaries are “a tool of imperialism.” North Koreans who have met with missionaries have been sent to prison camps, according to human rights groups.

Major Christian groups in South Korea have raised millions of dollars to deliver food, medicine and clothing to the North and to build or renovate hospitals, schools and churches there. These groups believe that good will builds trust and helps North Korea open up, a strategy favored by President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea.

But many politically conservative Christians in South Korea reject this approach. Instead they dispatch missionaries to northeastern China, where they evangelize among North Korean refugees. They also operate smuggling networks to smuggle North Koreans out, and spread the Gospel into the North via balloons and radio broadcasts.

“You cannot expect North Korea to change from the top,” said Yu Suk Ryul, chairman of Cornerstone Ministries International. “The best way to change North Korea from the bottom is to spread the Gospel.”

Cornerstone supports underground churches in North Korea by way of ethnic Korean-Chinese traders, who supply Christians there with “mini-Bibles” translated into a North Korean dialect, as well as financial assistance and other goods. The group says that it supports more than 1,000 underground cells in North Korea, and that the number is “growing fast,” Yu said.

Cornerstone also releases plastic bags filled with Christian messages and sweets at sea, with the intent that they wash ashore in the North.

If This Were Mohammed

I saw a product picture in a catalog the other day.

The item is cute.

But sacrilegious. (Relax, though, I have no violent plans.)

Here’s a similar item I found on the Web:

What would the “Arab street” do if this were a comparable Islamic scene including Mohammed?

With Islam expanding as it is, maybe toy makers will tap into that market . . . .

Don’t Forget Them

Gaza Christians fear ‘those more extreme than Hamas’

The kidnapping and killing of Rami Ayyad, manager of the Gaza Strip’s only Christian bookstore, sent shudders through the Palestinian coastal enclave’s tiny Christian community.

Spared by the summer’s fierce factional clashes in which the Islamist Hamas movement seized power by routing their secular Fatah party rivals, Christians began to worry they too might be driven from the volatile coastal strip.

What scares them is a new generation of shadowy extremist movements that have crept from the rubble of a seven-year uprising, months of internal bloodletting and decades of conflict with Israel.

“We are not afraid of Hamas because as a government they are responsible for protecting people,” Ayyad’s brother Ramzi says. “We are afraid of those who are more extreme than Hamas.”

Palestinian Christians number around 75,000 but there are only 2,500 — most of them Greek Orthodox — living in the Gaza Strip among nearly 1.5 million Muslims, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Gaza has no history of tensions between the two communities and Christians say they are bound to their Muslim neighbours by shared suffering.

“Balances” in Egypt

Twenty five year old Mohammed Ahmed Higazi (L), and his pregnant wife Zeinab, 23, read from the bible August 2 in their home in a Cairo. Higazi who converted from Islam to Christianity has launched a bid to have the change recognized officially in what is believed to be the first such case, he told AFP today. In Egypt, identity cards say whether the bearer is Christian or Muslim, but those who convert to Christianity complain that administrative hurdles prevent them being able to change their official papers

Nigeria Steps Up Security After Militants Kill Christians

Nigeria’s central government will deploy more police to the nation’s troubled state of Kaduna “to fight crime”, after two Christians were reportedly killed there by suspected Muslim militants, BosNewsLife learned Wednesday, October 24.

Prominent Beijing Pastor Beaten Again By Security Forces

Chinese Christians remained concerned Thursday, October 25, about the health situation of a prominent Beijing pastor amid reports he was beaten again by security forces after being discharged from Tiantan Hospital.

Religious literature censorship in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan continues to maintain severe religious literature censorship, Forum 18 News Service notes. Current examples include two shipments of Jehovah’s Witness literature â€“ one in transit for Tajikistan and one intended for an Uzbek congregation â€“ which have been held for more than a year. Other religious communities, such as Protestants and Muslims, also experience problems. A Protestant, involved in sending literature requested by Christians in Uzbekistan, told Forum 18 that most shipments never arrived. “This was either through postal inefficiency or because it was rejected at Uzbek customs,” the Protestant stated. “So we have given up trying to send literature.” Many who would like to receive literature are afraid of the consequences of being identified by the authorities as Christians, from their receiving literature by post. Uzbek officials are reluctant to discuss the issue, but insist that religious material can only be received after specific approval by the state Religious Affairs Committee. Uzbekistan frequently burns religious literature, including the Bible, confiscated from Muslims, Protestants, Hare Krishna devotees and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Even legally imported literature is confiscated in police raids.

Measure 49: A Lesson

A few weeks ago I started seeing signs like these:

The more I saw, the more it seemed the best thing was to approve 49.

Especially since I didn’t see any anti-49 signs.

Finally I noticed one in town.

Then a few started popping up in the country:

So despite my early misimpressions, the issue does have two sides. (No real shock there, of course.)

Monday morning, as I drove by some of the aforementioned signs, I suddenly thought of two Bible verses.

I see now they’re both from Proverbs 18:

“He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him” (verse 17).

“He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” (verse 13).

So there you are — an important life lesson that far exceeds the importance of Oregon’s Measure 49.

Every story has two sides, so wait to express judgment till you know both sides!

(And even then, be careful.)

Christmas Is Coming!

Nativity display OK for Washington state Capitol

A Nativity display will be allowed in the state Capitol rotunda this Christmas season and other religious displays will also be allowed now that a lawsuit has been resolved, officials said.

With settlement of a federal lawsuit filed by Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal rights group in Arizona, any faith community can apply for permission to mount a display so long as it doesn’t promote one religion over another, said Steve Valandra, a spokesman for the state Department of General Administration.

Bah humbug?

A Fiery Pope?

Is this Pope John Paul II waving from beyond the grave? Vatican TV director says yes

This fiery figure is being hailed as Pope John Paul II making an appearance beyond the grave.

The image, said by believers to show the Holy Father with his right hand raised in blessing, was spotted during a ceremony in Poland to mark the second anniversary of his death.

[…]

The pictures were being broadcast continuously on Italian TV and also posted on religious websites, some of which crashed as thousands logged on to see for themselves the eerie figure formed by the flames.

The bonfire was lit during a service at Beskid Zywiecki, close to John Paul’s birthplace at Katowice, southern Poland, on April 2 – the second anniversary of his death.

If the image wasn’t photoshopped, is that a demon manifestation?

Or is it a sign from God about the flaming state of the previous Pope?

Or is it truly what the director of Vatican TV says it is?

For the record, I lean towards computer hijinks.