c. 1998 Religion News Service

Update: Christian protest over Pakistan’s blasphemy law turns violent

(RNS) Some 600 people were arrested as thousands of Christians protested Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law Friday (May 15).

Protesters torched businesses and cars after police tried to disperse the mob with tear gas and steel-tipped batons, according to witnesses. Scores were hospitalized for tear gas inhalation and other injuries, the Associated Press reported.

Before the tumult began, Christian demonstrators prayed and waved banners outside the Punjab legislature to protest the blasphemy law, which imposes the death penalty on anyone convicted of insulting Islam or its prophet, Muhammad.

Last week, Roman Catholic Bishop John Joseph of Faisalabad killed himself to protest a death sentence handed down to a 26-year-old Christian convicted under the law.

Pakistani jails are filled with people awaiting trial under the blasphemy law, which Christians say targets the nation’s minority groups.”The blasphemy laws are like a sword hanging over our heads,”Carol Joseph, an assistant to Bishop Joseph, told the AP.

Parliament members representing Pakistan’s minority faiths have demanded the law be repealed but militant Muslim groups have threatened to topple the government if that happens.

Meanwhile, the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, which represents 332 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches worldwide, also has called on Pakistan to repeal the blasphemy law.

Dwain Epps, a WCC official, in a letter to Pakistan’s U.N. representative, said the WCC was concerned about”the frequent persecution and victimization of Christians that have resulted from unwarranted and indiscriminate application”of the blasphemy law.

The WCC called on the government”to take immediate steps to repeal”the law and”to guarantee the physical integrity of those presently charged”under it, reported Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

Epps cited the death of Bishop Joseph as”evidence of the level of frustration and despair among members of the Christian community”over the law.

Most of Pakistan’s more than 130 million citizens are Muslims; 2 million are Christians.

United Church of Canada to take on gaming industry

(RNS) Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, the United Church of Canada, is taking on the country’s $1.7 billion gaming industry.

The denomination, responding to petitions from local congregations and regional jurisdictions, is pushing the federal government to launch a probe into the social, economic and legal impact of both legal and illegal gambling as well as so-called charitable gaming, such as lotteries.

A similar investigation, backed by churches, is currently under way in the United States.

According to UCC officials, there has been a boom in the gaming industry in Canada in recent years.”Groups were once allowed to run lotteries on a limited basis as long they contributed to the public good,”Bonnie Greene of the UCC’s Division of Mission to Canada told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.”However (for governments), gambling revenues have become a new source of money in place of unpopular tax hikes.” She said it has become commonplace to call governments”the most highly addicted of all (gambling) addicts in Canada.” In addition to the lotteries, Canada has 55 casinos that earn about $1.7 billion a year. The provincial and federal governments take nearly half the revenues.

American converts to Judaism denied immediate Israeli citizenship

(RNS) An American family that converted to Conservative Judaism has received temporary Israeli visas after first being refused entry into the Jewish state in another flare up in the simmering dispute between Israel’s Orthodox establishment and non-Orthodox Judaism.

Elezar Yisrael, his wife and six children arrived in Israel Tuesday (May 12). After first being denied entry, they were given 30-day visas.

Under Israeli law, all persons who convert to Judaism outside Israel have the right to automatic citizenship in Israel, as do all those born Jewish. However, Israel’s Orthodox establishment has been battling the Conservative and Reform movements, who are fighting for legal parity in Israel, and the Yisrael’s have apparently become enmeshed in the conflict.

Andrew M Sacks, an official with Israel’s Masorti (Conservative) movement, said the Israeli Interior Ministry, which handles immigration and is controlled by Orthodox politicians,”has no right to refuse converts from outside of Israel. They nonetheless have been doing so. This is especially so when they are of color.” The Yisrael family is African-American. Their conversion to Judaism was completed at the Conservative University of Judaism in Los Angeles, Sacks said in an e-mail to American Conservative Jewish officials.

Interior Minister spokeswoman Tova Elinson said the Yisraels were allowed into Israel as tourists only.”… No country in the world would give automatic citizenship to eight people at once,”she said.”They started their immigration in the United States, so it has to be finished there.”

Evangelical college professor loses job over conversion to Judaism

(RNS) A tenured assistant professor of English at evangelical Malone College in Canton, Ohio, has been forced to resign because of her pending conversion to Judaism.

The 2,100-student school _ whose motto is”Christ’s Kingdom First”_ requires all faculty members to adhere to a statement of faith requiring them to”recognize Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.” Sue Misheff signed the college’s faith statement when she began teaching at Malone eight years ago. The school is affiliated with the Evangelical Friends Alliance.

Misheff _ a Methodist who plans on completing her conversion from Christianity to Judaism this summer _ said she will not fight her ouster.”I don’t hate Malone. I don’t hate the people and the administration,”she told the Akron Beacon Journal.”I’m angry not at any particular person, but at the situation.” The college has agree to a severance package of one year’s salary and full benefits in exchange for Misheff’s departure at the end of this academic year.

Jonathan Knight, associate secretary of the American Association of University Professors, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that church-affiliated schools may require faculty members to adhere to religious beliefs stated in writing at the time of hiring.”If there is a complete change of religious faith, then it’s not improper to ask a faculty member to seek a position elsewhere,”Knight said.

Parents of slain students start non-violence foundation

(RNS) The parents of the three Kentucky teens who were gunned down last December in their school prayer circle have created a national foundation to address school-related violence.

The KNJ Foundation was named for the three girls who were killed, Kayce Steger, Nicole Hadley and Jessica James. They were students at Heath High School in W. Paducah, Ky.”This foundation is not about Paducah or the state of Kentucky _ it’s about the safety of our children across the country,”said Sabrina Steger, Kayce’s mother.”This is an effort to get people to share their experiences and ideas to help us find ways to end the violence. Our goal is to reach out to all Americans along with the families who have lost loved ones to violence.” The creation of the Paducah-based foundation, announced on Thursday (May 14), comes at a time when other efforts to help the victims of the shooting are continuing.

Contemporary Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman, a graduate of Heath High, was scheduled to perform a benefit”Concert of Hope”at the school on Friday. Money raised from the concert will help pay the medical expenses incurred by the victims’ families as well as a scholarship fund and counseling fund.”After singing at the funerals of Kayce, Nicole and Jessica, I felt the best gift I could give to remember and honor these young ladies was to come together with the community that is still a big part of who I am, and have a celebration of hope,”Chapman said.

Wisconsin abortion clinics shut down due to new restrictions

(RNS) Five of Wisconsin’s six women’s health clinics that provide abortion services have stopped doing the procedure _ at least temporarily _ as a result the state’s new law banning a controversial late-term abortion procedure.”The dilemma is that the law is so vague that no one knows what the parameters are”in deciding which abortions are legal, Ann Olson, director of Affiliated Medical Services in Milwaukee, told the Associated Press.

“Life in prison is not something that I nor our physician take lightly,” she said, referring to a provision of the law, which took effect Thursday (May 14).

On Wednesday, a district judge refused to grant a restraining order blocking the law from taking effect and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said late Thursday it would take no action before Monday.

The law, signed by Gov. Tommy Thompson last month, bans a late-term procedure called”partial-birth abortion”by its foes. Under the law, those who perform the procedure face life in prison, unless no other medical action could save the woman’s life.

The appeals court ordered both sides to submit papers by noon Monday on whether the court has jurisdiction to take up the appeal. “Based on the law that is written … there is no distinction between the fetus when it’s viable and when it’s a nonviable fetus,”Olson said.

But abortion foes accused the clinics of creating a smokescreen in attacking the law’s vagueness.

Susan Armacost, executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life, said the law was clear.”It is such a smokescreen because the law couldn’t be clearer as to what’s a partial-birth abortion,” she said.

Scottish church criticizes BBC reogranization

(RNS) A planned reorganization of the BBC’s internationally acclaimed World Service has come under strong criticism from the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland’s Church and Nation committee.

The report will be debated by the denomination’s General Assembly, which begins meeting in Edinburgh on Saturday (May 16).

The report said the World Service had built up”an unrivaled reputation for reliability, accuracy, and truthfulness”in countries where personal and collective freedoms were threatened. This is”especially true”of its news coverage, providing other news model in impartiality and its willingness to report uncomfortable truths.

But, the church report said, the BBC is proposing to separate the two main functions of program production and broadcasting and introduce an”internal market”whereby the broadcasting arm would buy news and programs from the production arm.

That means, the church report warned, World Service’s”editorial independence”could disappear.

Delegates at the assembly will be asked to urge the BBC to maintain World Service News as an independent department of the BBC.

The World Service began as a purely English-language service in 1932 and began broadcasting in other languages during World War II to counter Nazi and Fascist propaganda. It is financed by a grant-in-aid from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but the government has no editorial control.

Quote of the day: Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy

(RNS)”We may feel secure in a pluralistic, liberal-oriented society, and there are good reasons to do so. Yet it might be wise to keep in mind the possibility that a society with little room for God may one day have little room for those who believe in God and wish to live according to his law and commandments.” _ Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, speaking Friday (May 15) in Washington.

DEA END RNS