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“I never thought I would see this in America,” says Steven Atkins, a resident of Toronto, Canada, who was visiting the festival and observed the incident. The three arrested include Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, David Woods, and Paul Rezkalla. Dr. Quereshi is co-director of Acts 17 Apologetics Ministries.

“When Dr. Quereshi was arrested I heard people clapping and applauding, and some said ‘Allahu Akbar,’” Atkins said. There was a crowd of 15-20 people watching the exchange and subsequent arrest. This year, the city of Dearborn banned the distribution of Christian literature near the festival.

Religion Today Summaries

Four Gulf Coast Governors Call Sunday a Day of Prayer
Baptist Press reports that four Gulf Coast governors called on residents to set aside June 27 as a Day of Prayer to pray for a solution to the oil spill and for citizens impacted by the disaster.

Alabama’s Bob Riley, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, Mississippi’s Haley Barbour and Texas’ Rick Perry all issued proclamations calling on prayer for the spill, which entered its 69th day Sunday.

“Throughout our history, Alabamians have humbly turned to God to ask for His blessings and to hold us steady during times of struggle. This is certainly one of those times,” Riley said in a statement. Perry’s proclamation says it “seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join with their fellow Gulf Coast residents” and others across the country and around the world “to thank God, seek his wisdom for ourselves and our leaders, and ask him for his merciful intervention and healing in this time of crisis.”

Religion Today Summaries

Tax the Church? In Spain, It Saves the Government Billions
As liberal groups continue to push governments to tax Christian churches, data recently published by the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) found that the Catholic Church actually saves the Spanish government billions of dollars per year in social service expenditures.

The Catholic Church receives approximately 252.7 million Euros per year ($311.8 million) from voluntary taxpayer contributions, coming from only 7.2 million taxpayers who check a box indicating that they wish 0.7% of their tax to go to the Catholic Church, rather than to a government fund. The rest of its income is through private donations.

However, the Catholic bishops contend that taxpayers realize a massive return for their investment, resulting in billions of Euros in savings from social programs and other services that would have cost much more if they had been left to the private sector.

The “immense labor of assistance” by the Catholic Church in Spain involves 20,000 priests, more than 70,000 pastoral assistants and more than 60,000 volunteers, according to Gimenez Barriocanal.  

The Church spends approximately 2.8 billion Euros per year on assistance programs, including 68 women’s shelters to aid victims of spousal abuse and ex-prostitutes, and 870,000 poor who are clothed and fed by Catholics. In total, 2.8 million people receive such benefits from the Catholic Church.

In addition, the Catholic Church in Spain provides educational services to almost 1.4 million students, saving the government more than 4.1 billion Euros annually.

LifeSiteNews

Militants Order Lebanese Christians to Leave
Worthy News reports that at least one person was killed when a bomb exploded in a predominantly Christian town in Lebanon. The blast followed the distribution of leaflets demanding that Christians leave the city of Sidon.

The leaflets, which included Islamic slogans, warned Christians to “spare their lives by evacuating the area within one week” or “bear the consequences.” Lebanese officials detained two suspects accused of distributing the threats. They have stepped up their efforts following the bomb detonation on June 19, which killed one person and injured two others.

Internal Security Forces southern commander Brig. Gen. Munzir Ayoubi, who met with Maronite Catholic church leaders, made clear his troops would not allow Islamic militants to destroy what he called “an example of Islamic-Christian coexistence.”

Religion Today Summaries

Not Preaching about Giving Costs Churches, Report Finds
A new report shows that pastors who don’t preach about giving and generosity are likely losing tithes and donations, according to Christian Today.

The report, “Why Christians Give”, was compiled by McConkey Johnston International UK and based on the responses of 2,000 Evangelical Alliance members surveyed last autumn. The report found that most churches do not actively teach on tithing, though about one-fifth teach on stewardship.

“Most Christian leaders seem to believe that they are called to ‘do mission’ but do not consider that raising the money for this work is part of their remit,” said the report’s author, Redina Kolaneci. “They tend to sweep money issues under the carpet and fail to preach inspiring sermons on the subject of generosity.”

Religion Today Summaries

Bible Translators Hope for Every Language by 2025
Progress continues in Wycliffe’s Bible Translators’ efforts to translate at least part of the Bible in every one of the world’s 6,909 spoken languages in the next 15 years, the Denver Post reports.

“We’re in the greatest period of acceleration in 20 centuries of Bible translation,” said Paul Edwards, who heads up Wycliffe Bible Translators’ $1 billion Last Languages Campaign. He said portable computers and satellites have helped speed up the process by about 125 years.

“Wycliffe missionaries don’t evangelize, teach theology, hold Bible study or start churches. They give (preliterate people) a written language,” Edwards said. “They teach them to read and write in their mother tongue.” About 2,200 languages still have no written Bible.

Religion Today Summaries