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1. Rally to Save Darfur as deadline hits
Evangelical groups are among those leading Sunday's Save Darfur Rally to Stop Genocide in Washington, D.C., and other cities. Sunday is also the deadline for Darfur's warring parties to sign an African Union-mediated peace agreement—which doesn't look likely, says The Christian Science Monitor. More bad news from Darfur: The United Nations World Food Program is cutting its daily rations in half due to funding cuts. Keep your eye on the detailed blog Passion of the Present for frequent Darfur updates.

2. U.S. Christians still divided on immigration
The Family Research Council has posted video of yesterday's three-hour  immigration debate with leading Christian leaders and lawmakers. The bottom line from FRC's Connie Mackey in a San Francisco Chronicle front-page story: There's no consensus other than to be "compassionate but firm." "The Christian community is closer on a resolution than we actually think," said FRC president Tony Perkins. Still, The Dallas Morning News says there's plenty of conflict, too:

The testiest moment came after the Rev. Joan Maruskin of Church World Service's Immigration and Refugee Program compared Jesus to illegal immigrants.

"Christ came in as a stranger—the migrant refugee Christ to whom we owe our salvation," she said. If Jesus and his disciples arrived in the United States as 13 bearded men without documents, she said, "they would be put into a detention center, be victims of expedited removal or they'd be sent to Guantánamo."

Immigration-control advocate John O'Sullivan, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, decried such "moral bullying."

Describing himself as a rank-and-file Catholic, Mr. O'Sullivan criticized attempts to translate religious doctrine into public policy without weighing all implications—the downward pressure on wages for natives and prior immigrants, for instance.

"We have to make choices—how many of them to admit, which of them to admit," he said. "We are importing poverty."

3. The Telegraph says Christians under Muslim attack in West Bank, Pakistan
Those interested in religious liberty issues or Christian-Muslim relations will certainly want to check out The Telegraph today. One story recounts how Muslim clerics in the West Bank are trying to shut down the Qalqilya YMCA because it is Christian. Another tells of much worse pressures against Christians in Pakistan to convert to Islam.

4. Ky. Human Rights Commission: Shunning ex-Amish is impermissible
The Associated Press has a fascinating story on a Kentucky Commission on Human Rights ruling against the Amish, but doesn't tease out many church-state implications. That's unfortunate, because there are several tie-ins to the looming controversies over conscience in the workplace. Erma Troyer, the Amish owner of Troyer's Rocky Top Salvage store, says it's against her religion to take money from someone who is being shunned by the Amish community. The commission ruled she must serve any customer regardless of religion—or religious status. If she complies with the ruling, Troyer herself risks being shunned. Noted scholar Donald Kraybill says Troyer is rightly interpreting Amish doctrine. Now we need to hear from some church-state experts on whether following that doctrine trumps equal-access rules.

5. Moon's soccer teams
Earlier this month, the Chicago Tribune reported that Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon controls most of the U.S. sushi market. Today's Guardian reports that he owns a few Brazilian soccer teams, too, as part of a successful effort "to win Brazilian hearts and minds."

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April (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50