Iraq: Christian forgiveness of ISIS goes viral
More than 1 million people watched on Arabic television as 10-year-old Myriam, an Iraqi Christian forced to flee Mosul, Iraq, as ISIS advanced last year, forgave her persecutors. “I will only ask God to forgive them. Why should they be killed?” she told SAT-7 in its most-watched interview ever. The Christian broadcaster also hosted Bashir Estephanos, the brother of 2 of the 21 Christians beheaded in Libya, who prayed for the killers on air. “[Their] calls are a form of resistance—through forgiveness,” said Farid Samir, SAT-7’s Egypt director. The statements drew praise from the region’s secular Arabic press, and the dean of Islamic studies at Cairo’s al-Azhar University later read Matthew 5’s “love your enemies” at a seminar.
Bob Jones U. won’t discipline leaders as asked
Bob Jones University (BJU) announced it is pursuing 25 of the 28 recommendations from an unprecedented review of how the university treated victims of sexual abuse. President Steve Pettit said BJU had “too closely juxtaposed discipline with counseling” and has asked for a “comprehensive review” of student life. But BJU declined to follow a task force’s advice to discipline chancellor Bob Jones III and counseling professor Jim Berg, the two men whom a GRACE report [Gleanings, March 2015] tagged as ultimately responsible for the university’s shoddy response in past decades. The decision angered the task force’s two survivor representatives, who called BJU’s response “shallow words backed largely by inaction.” Instead of choosing to “put this experience behind us,” Pettit said, “I want to keep it before us” so it won’t happen again.
Pakistan: Christians stop turning the other cheek
After the Taliban attacked two Sunday services in Pakistan’s largest Christian neighborhood, protesters turned unusually violent. Christians lynched two Muslim men thought to have assisted 2 suicide bombers who killed 17 and injured 80 in Lahore, the nation’s second-largest city. Christian leaders apologized on television and asked forgiveness. A terrorism court indicted 28 people. Christians complain that the Muslim government has ignored last year’s Pakistani Supreme Court order to better protect places of worship. “The government told church authorities to build higher walls, add barbed wire, and install CCTV cameras,” said bishop Joseph Arshad to AsiaNews. “For a poor church like that of Pakistan, these are huge expenses.”
LifeWay pulls heaven visitation books
Two months after Tyndale House Publishers retracted The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, LifeWay Christian Stores announced it would stop selling all “experiential testimonies about heaven.” The move followed last year’s Southern Baptist Convention resolution insisting on “the sufficiency of Scripture regarding the afterlife.” Books on near-death experiences are historically profitable: The 2010 Heaven Is for Real remains on the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association’s bestseller list. “This is a good category for us, and we’re going to continue to publish credible stories,” Baker Publishing Group told Publishers Weekly. A movie based on Baker’s 90 Minutes in Heaven will be released this fall by a sister company of Family Christian Stores, a LifeWay competitor.
Israel: Bibi reelection squeezes Arab Christians
Research suggests that Arab Christians in Israel are downplaying their Israeli or Palestinian identity in favor of their Christian one. But the move could hamper ministry outreach. The latest national election squeezed the roughly 157,000-strong community between the rising Zionism that preserved Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister and the rising Islamism that partially propelled a new Arab party to a surprising third-place finish. Research from Musalaha and Hebrew University found that Christian youth today are rejecting affiliation with both Jews and Muslims. The result: a “ghetto mentality,” said Musalaha’s Salim Munayer. “This is sad because in separating ourselves from these two communities, we have fewer opportunities for witness and ministry.”
Gordon College reaffirms sexuality stance
Despite pressure from neighboring towns and its accrediting association, Gordon College unanimously reaffirmed its current sexual standards. “We remain as committed as ever to historic Christian teaching on this topic,” said president Michael Lindsay, “while recognizing that members of the Gordon community hold varying perspectives.” The college will develop a task force, conduct biennial surveys, and bolster antibullying policies to “improve its care for students around human sexuality.” Meanwhile, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities thanked Gordon’s accreditor, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, for clarifying that a requested report [Gleanings, November 2014] on Gordon’s student conduct policy by September was a “routine follow-up” and not a threat to revoke its accreditation, intact until 2022.
Anti-porn ministry hits up Driscoll fans and fails
About 90,000 church leaders who attended Resurgence conferences at the recently disbanded Mars Hill Church received an email from an anti-porn ministry linking Mark Driscoll and porn addiction to the same root: lack of accountability. Craig Gross, founder of XXXchurch, bought the mailing list for about $1,500. His message: Buy our software, or you might end up like Driscoll. Many on the list were furious. Justin Dean, a former spokesperson, said he sold the list without permission and apologized. Not long after the email, the list was erased, and Gross received a refund. He noted: “I should have realized the Mark Driscoll supporters are as loud if not louder than the Mark Driscoll haters.”
