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Does this story upset you? It's just a dog. Martin and Gracia Burnham have been held hostage for 290 days in much worse conditions. Pray for them, get involved in pushing for their release, and contact your representative to urge the U.S. government to make their freedom a priority.

Persecution:

• China's insecurity complex | As China's leaders wrestle with corruption and other problems of development, they will continually struggle to justify rule by a Communist Party that no longer believes in communism. (Fred Hiatt, The Washington Post)
  
  
• Human rights record of the United States in 2001 | China responds (People's Daily)
  
  
• Also: U.S. State Department Human Rights Report on China
  
  
• The threat of Jaffar | Jaffar Umar Thalib dismisses bin Laden as a lightweight. He wants a radically Islamic Indonesia. He has an army (The New York Times Magazine)
  
  
• 12 killed in stampede at Nigerian prayer meeting | Police: Worshippers trying to escape gunmen (Associated Press)
  
  
• 410 NGOs face axe in crackdown | Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya part of group that must prove existence (The Nation, Nairobi)
  
  

9/11, six months later:

• Fundamentalist religion | In the six months since the calamitous events of 11 September, I've come to feel a member of an embattled minority: I'm an atheist. (George Kerevan, The Scotsman)
  
  
• Cleric says others need payments more than he | Paul M. Britton, whose unmarried sister died aboard Flight 93, has decided not to seek financial compensation for her death (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
  
  
• Ashcroft's rhetorical jihad on Islam | The attorney general should contemplate the impact of his remarks—and the effects of some of his actions on our civil liberties. (Nat Hentoff, The Washington Times)
  
  

Israel:

• Their faith lives beyond religion | Leaders join together amid the chaos in Israel (The Jerusalem Post)
  
  
• Group aids 'prophetic' Jewish state | Some Christians see immigrants as holy destiny (Associated Press)
  
  
• Church council to encourage 'outrage' over Israeli occupation | World Council of Churches tries to rally public opposition to the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank (Religion News Service)
  
  

Politics & law:

• Federal, state agencies quietly foster faith-based initiatives | Religious groups have found success at local level (Religion News Service)
  
  
• Bush keeps GOP conservatives happy | Unlike his father, president follows Reagan's example (Chicago Tribune)
  
  
• Chief of staff's wife—a Methodist pastor—preaches to the president | Bushes attend different church (Associated Press)
  
  
• New tactics needed for cultural wars | Being right and being effective are not always the same (Philip Gold, The Washington Times)
  
  
• Pastor fights conservatives' rejecting stance | Vineyard pastor's book, Who Is My Enemy? says culture-war rhetoric suggests "that our primary call is to crush those who oppose us, not to bring healing and salvation to them" (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)
  
  
• Rundle pressed on gay rights law | Groups ask Bush to take her off case (The Miami Herald)
  
  
• Pious shots from the pulpit by another turbulent African priest | Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, although educated by European missionaries and a regular at Sunday mass, no longer has much time for the Catholic Church (The Sydney Morning Herald)
  
  
• Sunday alcohol could face vote | Unless city commissioners change their minds before November, Albany residents will decide if they can buy a drink on Sunday. (The Albany [N.Y] Herald)
  
  

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March (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46