Behold, the saviors of Christian Web sitesLifeAudio.com, run by four Princeton grads in their mid-twenties, has announced it’s taking over Pat Robertson’s Christianity.com Web site. It has already pulled one Christian Web site out of the ashes: streaming-audio site Lightsource.com. “In February of this year, we acquired Lightsource.com under circumstances similar to those of Christianity.com, and within three months were able to stabilize it and manage it to profitability,” the company explained in a letter to Christianity.com partner ministries. “We hope to do the same thing with the Christianity.com network, while continuing to provide a high level of service and working hard to make the original vision a reality.” More news to come, surely. We don’t know, for example, what’s going to happen to Crosswalk.com (Weblog left a voice mail message this morning).
Nigeria’s Shari’ah law gets a lot messier A young man charged with theft in northern Nigeria had a plan to save his hand from amputation: he told the court he had converted to Christianity, and thus immune from the controversial Islamic law being implemented in much of the African nation. In court yesterday, he recanted his conversion. “I am a Muslim, my parents are Muslims,” the thief, Mohamed Ali, said. “I did it under confusion and I regret it. I pray for forgiveness.” The court didn’t amputate his hand, reasoning that he didn’t steal enough to warrant the punishment. He got nine months in prison and 30 lashes instead. Still, Ali’s story highlights the problem of Shari’ah law in Nigeria, where Muslims say the laws won’t apply to Christians.
Elsewhere in Nigeria, the president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria is predicting a bloodbath after several churches were razed. And in the northern city of Kano, several Muslims killed a Christian truck driver after he accidentally ran over a copy of the Koran one of them had dropped.
Rescuing the Burnhams? Weblog has said this before, but it looks like something big might happenthis weekend or early next week in the attempt to free New Tribes missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham. Check Yahoo’s full coverage area, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, and ABS-CBN for updates.
More stories
Science and health:
- Science solves more mysteries of the Bible | More “startling revelations” about the most impossible tales from the ancient Scriptures, including Jonah, manna, Jericho, and other stories (Popular Mechanics)
- Mayo study puts prayer to the test | Prayer doesn’t affect deaths, heart attacks, hospitalizations, or strokes say researchers (Star-Tribune, Minneapolis)
- Back from brink patients ‘prove the soul exists’ | One in 10 had experienced emotions, visions, or lucid thoughts while they were “clinically dead” (The Daily Telegraph)
Church and state:
- Religion must be removed from all functions of state | The government’s mistake is to confuse faith with race (Polly Toynbee, The Guardian)
- Bus prayer threatens driver’s job | Woman says religion was not discussed with pupil-riders (The Sun, Baltimore)
- Court won’t hear graduation prayer | Action will likely increase pressure for a stronger religious presence at public school ceremonies (Associated Press)
- Also: High court allows graduation prayers | Justices decline to review ruling that gives students final say on ‘message’ (USA Today)
- Also: High court turns away question: Is prayer at school events constitutional? | The court’s seeming consensus is that if schools establish a neutral procedure that might or might not result in prayer being delivered by a student, it is constitutional (Tony Mauro, Freedom Forum)
- La. school prayer law ruled illegal | Panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 3-0 Tuesday to uphold a judge’s 1999 ruling striking the law down. (Associated Press)
- Also: Court voids law covering school prayer in Louisiana | Law allowing vocal classroom prayer is believed to be the only such law remaining in the nation (The New York Times)
- Schools dampen holiday spirit | Christmas is an unwelcome holiday in many public schools this year, says Rutherford Institute (The Washington Times)
- No, it’s not a Christmas tree; it’s a `holiday tree’ | Now that tree is P.C., fight breaks out over ornaments (Religion News Service)
Persecution:
- Christians demand arrest of church attackers | Call for equal rights, joint electorate (Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan)
- Indonesia’s dirty little holy War | Indonesia’s powerful Laskar Jihad has launched a campaign against Christian villages in Sulawesi (Time Asia)
- Also: Indonesia group tied to al Qaeda kills Christians | As many as 500,000 hiding from Laskar Jihad militia (The Washington Times)
- Chinese crack down on religion | President Jiang Zemin has demanded tighter control over religion, state press reported, in a clear indication strict state restrictions over worship in China are not about to be relaxed. (AFP)
Politics and law:
- Federal appeals court hosts abortion-rights, free-speech showdown | Nuremberg Files case continues at 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (Associated Press)
- Also: Many judges say they think abortion foes’ speech protected | Verdict against Nuremberg Files site likely to be tossed out (Associated Press)
- New Christian Coalition leader emphasizes grass-roots support | ‘We’ll continue to build from what we’ve done in the past’ (The Dallas Morning News)
- Homosexual bias move provokes church row | New laws banning discrimination against homosexuals will be outlined this week, risking a new confrontation between Tony Blair and some religious groups (The Daily Telegraph)
Islam and Christianity:
- After allegations of anti-Christian bias, Voice of America changes direction | Internet campaign centered on allegations that the Hausa Muslim staff of the station have been spreading pro-Muslim, anti-Christian and anti-American propaganda (Daily Trust, Abuja, Nigeria)
- Christian Wahhabists | If we were supposed to root for the Protestants in our high school history texts, shouldn’t we be applauding the Islamic “extremists” now? (Barbara Ehrenreich, The Progressive)
Other stories of interest:
Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
See our past Weblog updates:
November 30 | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26
November 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12
October 31 | 30 | 29T:IOpublicjfletcher2001ctmagxml15052.0.xml