News Update – 1/25/10

Ministries Confront Mounting Despair in Haiti
Baptist Press reports that ministry and relief groups working in Haiti are facing an increasingly dire situation following January’s 7.0 magnitude earthquake.

“There is a desperation here among the Haitians that they are not going to make it through this,” said Dennis Wilbanks of the Florida Baptist Convention after arriving in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 17. “No one wants to sleep inside a building for fear they won't come out of it alive the next morning,” he said.

Southern Baptists’' response to the Haiti earthquake will be a long-term commitment, much like the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to Baptist leaders. “Katrina was in 2005 and four years later, we're still involved,” said Bruce Poss, the North American Mission Board's national disaster relief coordinator. “This will be a long-term commitment to the people of Haiti.”

Religion Today Summaries

New Generation of Pro-Lifers See Their Role as A Continuation of Human Rights Struggle
Twenty-three year-old Katie Walker is part of the new generation of young pro-life activists who sees her work as part of the great continuity of centuries of human rights development in the western world.

As the full-time public relations director for American Life League (ALL), Katie says that one of the “most striking” aspects of her work is the Personhood Movement, a major focus of ALL, and one that is reframing the issue for the public. 

Human rights, she said, is the “direction of the pro-life movement.” She named William Wilberforce, the heroes of the Civil Rights movement and the heroes of the abolitionist movement as the models for the new wave of pro-life activism.

“When you’re discussing this and you’re getting down to brass tacks with pro-aborts, and you’re in any kind of hard-core debate, it always comes down to the baby in the womb is not a human person because of either age, dependency level or location. These criteria have been used to justify slavery and all kinds of human rights abuses through the last couple of thousand years. If you look back historically, it is the same movement and the parallels are undeniable.”

Pro-life leaders need to shift their focus to present their position as one of a defense of human rights. With pro-abortion advocates, this “takes away their ammunition.”

Walker says, “You can see lights starting to go off in their heads. It’s a beautiful frame of reference to start the debate off with something that they can understand.” Communicating the pro-life message in terms of personhood, she said, gives the pro-life movement a huge tactical advantage, one that creates a mental detour around many people’s stereotypes and emotional blockages. ALL has launched a series of “personhood initiatives” in eight states with “dozens more” expected. They are, she said, “talking to people person-to-person, changing hearts and minds one at a time.”

LifeSiteNews

Churches Not Yet Enjoying Economic Rebound
The Christian Post reports that almost two-thirds of Protestant churches experienced flat or declined giving before the holidays this year.

“It's not surprising that churches—and their giving—are more impacted by unemployment than, for example, the stock market or GDP,” said Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research. “As unemployment goes up, giving tends to suffer since many churchgoers give proportionally.”

The figures from November 2009 compare to the same period in 2008. At the same time, more than 70 percent of pastors said that more people outside their congregations have asked for financial assistance, and 42 percent of churches have increased their budgeted amount to help needy families. LifeWay Research interviewed 1,002 Protestant pastors for the survey.

Religion Today Summaries

California Gay “Marriage” Ban Goes On Trial
National Public Radio reports that California's ban on gay “marriage” came under federal scrutiny on Monday in the first federal trial to determine if the ban is unconstitutional.

California's Proposition 8 received a majority vote in a November 2008 referendum, reversing the state supreme court's original decision. The case's plaintiffs have the backing of many who funded opposition to Proposition 8.

“What's at stake in this case is not only the definition of marriage in California but the potential that Americans will be forced to forfeit the core of our democracy by allowing a small group of wealthy activists to impose their will on a state—or an entire nation—through the courts,” Austin R. Nimocks, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defense Fund, told The Christian Post.

Religion Today Summaries

Sudan Archbishop Calls for Action to Stop New Conflict
Christian Today reports that the Archbishop of Sudan joined protesters Saturday in the United Kingdom to plead for intervention in Sudan. The Most Rev. Daniel Deng joined 10 aid agencies, including World Vision, Tearfund and Oxfam, all calling attention to Sudan's deteriorating political scene.

Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which officially ended the country's genocide and civil war, seemed on the verge of collapse in 2009 and must give way to national elections in 2010. About 2,500 people were killed last year, many of them women and children, and another 350,000 were displaced by ongoing violence.

“It is not yet too late to avert disaster, but the next 12 months are a crossroads for Africa's largest country,” said Maya Mailer, Policy Advisor for Oxfam. Deng and the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams met yesterday with Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the issue.

Religion Today Summaries

Militant Hindu Turns to Christ
The leader of a militant Hindu extremist group in Nepal, jailed for bombing a church in 2008, has repented because of the grace Christians in prison have shown him.

Ram Prasad Mainali, 37-year-old head of the Nepal Defense Army, was jailed in September for bombing a church in Kathmandu, the Compass Direct news service reported. A teenager and a new bride were killed and more than a dozen other people were injured.

Mainali began attending a Christian fellowship in Nakkhu Jail after he was transferred there in August. About a third of the prison's 450 inmates attend services at the prison church. He said he began reading the Bible after experiencing the graciousness of prison Christians.

“Although I bombed the church, Christians come to meet me every day,” Mainali told Compass Direct. “No rightwing Hindu has come to meet me even once.”

The Nepal Defense Army is now inactive, Mainali said, but is believed to also be responsible for the murder of a Catholic priest, John Prakash Moyalan, in June 2008. Only one half of one percent of Nepal's 30 million people are Christians, while more than 80 percent are Hindu.

Baptist Press

New Jersey Senate Kills Gay “Marriage” Bill 
The New Jersey state senate on January 7 voted down a measure to legalize gay “marriage” by a 20-14 margin, putting an end to a last-minute campaign to win approval before the departure of Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine, a same-sex “marriage” advocate.

Prior to the vote, lawmakers went back and forth with final speeches advocating for and against S1967, the “Freedom of Religion and Equality in Civil Marriage Act.”  Several lawmakers, including Richard Codey, sought to win over support by putting the new definition of marriage on a par with the civil rights movement, which critics said is both unfounded and disrespectful to those who gave their all to overcome racial oppression.

Opponents of the bill questioned why supporters of the bill refused to allow New Jersey citizens to tackle the contentious question in a referendum vote.  In all the states that have allowed voters to decide the marriage question, all have kept intact the definition of marriage between a man and a woman.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, who had promised to sign the legislation, will be replaced by Republican Governor-elect Chris Christie on January 19.  Christie has vowed to veto same-sex “marriage” legislation.

LifeSiteNews