Religion News, January 4, 2011

Religion News
• Catholic school board found guilty of religious discrimination against UFO cult: The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ordered a Catholic school board to compensate three members of the Raelian movement after finding the board guilty of religious discrimination.
• Group requests permission to distribute Qur’an in public schools: The slamic Information Center at the University of Waterloo has applied to the Waterloo Region District School Board to send a copy of the Qur’an home with any Grade 5 student whose parents indicate they would like one.
• Witchcraft declared legal profession in Romania: The move, which went into effect Saturday, is part of the government’s drive to crack down on widespread tax evasion in a country that is in recession.
• Coptic pope urges calm after Egypt church blast: Egypt’s Coptic Pope Shenouda III appealed for calm as Christian protesters clashed with police for a third day in a row after a New Year’s Day bombing killed 21 churchgoers.
• Bomb blasts, church attacks show violent Christian, Muslim split in Nigeria ahead of election: Africa’s most populous country, home to 150 million people, has seen tens of thousands die in the violence between Christians and Muslims since it gained independence from Britain in 1960. While members of the two faiths intermarry and live peacefully in much of the country, political, economic and ethnic rivalries often fuel violence between the two faiths.
• Scam victims want justice: Preacher’s wife took church members’ savings

Hate Groups
• Ex-Lebanon Leader: Christians Target of Genocide: Extremist groups are waging a “genocide” against Christians in the Middle East, a former Lebanese president said Monday, after a New Year’s suicide bombing of a church in Egypt killed 21 people. Amin Gemayel, a Christian who served a six-year term as president in the 1980s, cited the attack in Egypt and recent violence in Iraq as he urged leaders to give Christian communities a larger political role.

Analysis, Commentary, Opinion
• The Islamification of Britain: record numbers embrace Muslim faith: The number of Britons choosing to become Muslims has nearly doubled in the past decade, according to one of the most comprehensive attempts to estimate how many people have embraced Islam. Following the global spread of violent Islamism, British Muslims have faced more scrutiny, criticism and analysis than any other religious community. Yet, despite the often negative portrayal of Islam, thousands of Britons are adopting the religion every year.
• Muslims in Evangelical Churches: Does loving your neighbor mean opening your doors to false worship?
• Anger at God common, even among atheists
• A European anti-Islam movement grows: Paris conference brings together speakers from across Europe to rail against the dangers of Islamization.
• The enigma of America’s secular roots: Joel Barlow’s disavowal of Christianity as the basis for US government in the 1797 treaty of Tripoli is a mystery
• Why Catholicism is good for America: “As a non-Catholic paying attention to the church’s travails, I am struck, too, by the steadfast faith of the Catholics I know, and the principled public witness of the Catholics on the ground — the nuns, community activists, volunteers and everyday parishioners who keep on keeping on in the face of adversity.”

Also Noted
• Hers is the ministry of ‘yes’: The Rev. Jane Adams Spahr was found guilty of violating the Presbyterian constitution. Her offense? Officiating at same-sex weddings. A lesbian herself, she says she won’t quit the church she loves.
• Virgin Mary statue replaced with gnome: An Italian mountaineering group protesting “narcissistic” acts in the wilderness said it placed a garden gnome in the place of a stolen Virgin Mary statue.
• Dictionary published with 2,600 apparitions of the Virgin Mary

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The Islamification of Britain: record numbers embrace Muslim faith