A dancing elephant statue at the Calgary Zoo has kicked up controversy after a Christian group condemned the figure as an inappropriate religious icon.

Zoo officials say they have no plans to replace the Ganesh statue — which has stood near the elephant enclosure for at least two years — despite calls for its removal from Concerned Christians Canada.

Grahame Newton, the zoo’s director of corporate services, says the Ganesh statue isn’t a religious icon, rather a cultural symbol that shows the tie between the elephants and Asian culture.

Evangelical Christians in India’s eastern state of Andhra Pradesh faced the difficult task Sunday, May 10, of rebuilding their church after suspected anti-Christian militants torched the building, the latest in a series of attacks against churches in the area, investigators said.

The latest incident has underscored an anti-Christian climate in several parts of India.

In a surprise move, a Saudi Christian arrested in January for describing his conversion from Islam and criticizing the kingdom’s judiciary on his blog site was released on March 28 with the stipulation that he not travel outside of Saudi Arabia or appear on media.

The country’s penalty for “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, is death, although in recent years there have been no known cases of kingdom citizens formally convicted and sentenced with capital punishment for the offense.

Instead of investigating a reported burglary, a posse of cops reportedly committed a variety of hate crimes against members of a Sikh family.

One deputy reportedly asked them if they’d “heard about the bombings in Bombay.” Another allegedly said he had been to Kuwait and “knew about Muslims.”

Since 9/11, misperceptions about Sikhs’ religiously mandated turbans and beards have led to an increase in discrimination against Sikhs, according to the New York-based Sikh Coalition.

The burning of 200 New Testament bibles underscores growing tensions in the Jewish state between the mainstream religion and Christian Zionists.It was the latest in a string of incidents targeting Messianic Jews in Israel, a trend that has alarmed Christian Zionist organizations.

England: Two Christian preachers were stopped from handing out Bible extracts by police because they were in a Muslim area, it was claimed yesterday.

They say they were told by a Muslim police community support officer that they could not preach there and that attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity was a hate crime.

The community officer is also said to have told the two men: ‘You have been warned. If you come back here and get beat up, well, you have been warned.’

Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, though in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust of World War II.

A student in Wisconsin, USA, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.

A history teacher has been sued for making what one student calls anti-Christian comments in the classroom. The case has sparked a debate about the role that a teacher’s convictions should play in their lessons.

According to Daniel Rossing, former adviser to the Religious Affairs Ministry on Christian affairs and director of a Jerusalem center for Christian-Jewish dialogue, there has been an increase in the number of such incidents recently, “as part of a general atmosphere of lack of tolerance in the country.”

Christian activists briefly disrupted a Hindu invocation in the U.S Senate on Thursday, marring a historic first for the chamber and showing that fundamentalism is present and shouting in the U.S too.

Thousands of Christian teenagers rallying this weekend against the moral corruption they see afflicting their generation are finding their agenda at odds with many in this live-and-let-live city.

A civil liberties group has sued a public school district for holding its graduation ceremonies in a Baptist church, calling it a violation of a Muslim student’s religious freedom.

A Catholic school principal has organized sensitivity training for students who shouted “We love Jesus” during a basketball game against a school with Jewish students.

Police say religious zeal led Bible student to burn Episcopal church.

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