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Today's Top Five

1. Nigeria holds its breath: Are riots over?
Onitsha is calm after two days of anti-Muslim riots, say press reports, but all is not well in the southern Nigerian city. "Mobs stopped killing and looting in this battered Nigerian city Thursday and turned to disposing of the evidence in the crudest of ways," reports The Washington Post. "With smoldering bonfires fueled by pieces of wood and old tires, men burned the remains of their Muslim victims on downtown streets, leaving behind charred legs, skulls, and shoulders that motorists swerved to avoid." Both the Post and the Associated Press quote Ifeanyi Ese (Eze), who was found writing on one of the destroyed mosques, "Muhammad is a man, but Jesus is from above."

"We don't want these mosques here anymore," he told the reporters. "These people are causing all the problems all over the world because they don't fear God. We don't want Muhammad anymore."

Reuters quotes another resident saying, "We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson."

The concern now is that Muslims in northern Nigeria will retaliate for the retaliatory attacks, which reportedly killed twice as many people as the attacks against Christians in Maiduguri and elsewhere earlier in the week.

2. South Dakota's abortion ban returns
In 2004, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds vetoed a bill banning almost all abortions in the state, saying he was worried that existing abortion restrictions would be eliminated during the certain court fight. Now a very similar bill has returned to his desk. If Rounds signs it this time, it would be a clear opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Indeed, that's pretty much the point of the bill. But there almost surely aren't enough anti-Roe justices on the Court at this time. Whether there would be enough by the time the case worked its way through the court system is the gamble. Some pro-life groups say it's too big a gamble, and a ruling against South Dakota would derail efforts to overturn Roe. Others say the risk is worth it.

3. Dutch politician suggests forced abortions
Marianne van den Anker, city councilor/alderman for Rotterdam, says she's frustrated by her efforts to prevent child abuse. So, she presented a new idea on her political party's website: "Obligatory abortions for bad mothers." Drug addicts, people with mental handicaps, and Antillean teenage mothers should be prohibited from having children, she said. If they get pregnant, she said, they should be forced to abort their children. "Van den Anker said children from these groups run an 'unacceptable risk' of growing up without love and with 'violence, neglect, mistreatment and sexual abuse,'" says the Dutch news site Expatica, picking the story up from the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The site notes that van den Anker's plan has no chance of actually being implemented at this time, but it's amazing that such a blatantly racist, nationalist, and eugenic proposal could actually get a serious hearing.

4. World Council of Churches head attacks megachurches
We just don't pay attention to the WCC. As many say these days, it's the World Council of Churches Nobody Goes To Anymore. But World Council of Churches General Secretary Samuel Kobia is getting a fair bit of press for an interview he did with Reuters. In it, he slams the megachurch as having "no depth, in most cases, theologically speaking, and has no appeal for any commitment. It's a church being organized on corporate logic. That can be quite dangerous if we are not very careful, because this may become a Christianity which I describe as 'two miles long and one inch deep.'"

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February (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50