Christian believers all over the world have found themselves in jeopardy amid massive attacks on Christians and Christianity in the Middle East, North and South Africa and South East Asia. Unless appropriate measures are taken, the Christian civilization will vanish completely, warn the participants in the International Conference on the Freedom of Religion and Discrimination against Christians, which is currently under way in Moscow. The religious forum has brought together representatives of Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Islamic communities and religious experts from Russia and countries of the near and far abroad.
About 100 million Christians worldwide are suffering persecution and thousands die in religious conflicts. The biggest number of persecutions against Christians is taking place in the countries of Africa and the Middle East, said Metropolitan Hilarion, who heads the Russian Orthodox Church’s Foreign Relations Department:
"In Libya, Christians have been leaving the country en masse following the toppling of Gaddafi’s regime and the coming to power of the National Transitional Council. According to the Open Doors human rights watchdog, 75 percent of Christians have left Libya. Tunisia’s government advocated the principle of religious tolerance before the revolution. Right after the revolution, Christians in Tunisia began to come under frequent attacks and a number of Christian churches were seized and turned into mosques."
Anti-Christian sentiment has become strong in Egypt, which reports new victims among Christians regularly, and in Iraq. Christian believers come under fierce attacks in Algeria, Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and the Philippines.
The main reasons for this anti-Christian campaign lie in the loss of Christian roots and European secularism when secular authorities aim to oust religion from public life. Governments tend to regard religion as superfluous, a trend which is fraught with danger, Archbishop Josef Ender of the Vatican, says.
Click here to read the set of the article.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
12 nurses sue over being forced to help with abortions
A dozen nurses have filed a lawsuit against a hospital run by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey over a plan that would coerce them to help with abortions, and they want an injunction right away as the hospital has scheduled them to be in the operating rooms as early as Friday.
And the complaint asks that the hospital be told to return some $60 million to the federal government, too.
Federal law prohibits hospitals that receive certain types of federal funds from forcing workers to help with abortions, according to the case brought by the Alliance Defense Fund.
Further, New Jersey law states, "No person shall be required to perform or assist in the performance of an abortion or sterilization."
"Pro-life nurses shouldn't be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs," said Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the organization. "No [fewer] than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections.
"That is flatly illegal," he said.
Click to read the rest of the article.here
And the complaint asks that the hospital be told to return some $60 million to the federal government, too.
Federal law prohibits hospitals that receive certain types of federal funds from forcing workers to help with abortions, according to the case brought by the Alliance Defense Fund.
Further, New Jersey law states, "No person shall be required to perform or assist in the performance of an abortion or sterilization."
"Pro-life nurses shouldn't be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs," said Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the organization. "No [fewer] than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections.
"That is flatly illegal," he said.
Click to read the rest of the article.here
FCC cracks down on religious broadcasters
If a church broadcasts the word of God on TV without closed captions, it risks incurring the wrath of the FCC.
Some 300 small- to medium-sized churches can expect letters from the commission within the next few days explaining why their closed captioning exemptions were lifted for TV shows like “Power in the Word” and “Producing Kingdom Citizens.”
The FCC has been mailing the letters for the past few days to churches from Maine to California, explaining that the hundreds of exemptions are now rescinded and giving the programmers 90 days to reapply.
The churches were granted FCC exemptions from the closed captioning requirement under a 2006 commission decision known as the “Anglers Order” for the Anglers for Christ Ministries program that had argued for exemption from the rules.
While the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau used the Anglers Order as the model to grant at least 298 other exemptions, the full commission overturned that decision Oct. 20 after objections were raised from a coalition of organizations for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The churches may still be eligible to win an exemption from the rules if they can prove they can’t afford closed captioning, but they now have to make their case individually.
“This was a process that went awry,” said Craig Parshall, senior vice president of the National Religious Broadcasters, an international association of Christian communicators. “Now, we are going back to Square One.”
Click here to read the rest of the article.
Some 300 small- to medium-sized churches can expect letters from the commission within the next few days explaining why their closed captioning exemptions were lifted for TV shows like “Power in the Word” and “Producing Kingdom Citizens.”
The FCC has been mailing the letters for the past few days to churches from Maine to California, explaining that the hundreds of exemptions are now rescinded and giving the programmers 90 days to reapply.
The churches were granted FCC exemptions from the closed captioning requirement under a 2006 commission decision known as the “Anglers Order” for the Anglers for Christ Ministries program that had argued for exemption from the rules.
While the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau used the Anglers Order as the model to grant at least 298 other exemptions, the full commission overturned that decision Oct. 20 after objections were raised from a coalition of organizations for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The churches may still be eligible to win an exemption from the rules if they can prove they can’t afford closed captioning, but they now have to make their case individually.
“This was a process that went awry,” said Craig Parshall, senior vice president of the National Religious Broadcasters, an international association of Christian communicators. “Now, we are going back to Square One.”
Click here to read the rest of the article.
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