What is going to happen on the 30th of June? We do not know! All what we know is that when emotions run high, anything can happen. However, we trustthat God is in control and we are in His hands.Two days ago during his visit to Egypt, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby encouraged us by using St. Paul s words, while in the middle of a storm, “But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost (Acts 27:22).

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If there was a Bible belt over 1,500 years ago, it was in Turkey. However, that changed with the rise of Islam and its eventual conquest of the region. Then, a few centuries later, the area would be at the heart of one of the world’s most powerful empires, the Islamic Ottoman Empire.

After the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey took a road less traveled among majority Islamic nations””it leaned toward Europe rather than the Middle East.

Turkey has more recently been seen as a moderate Muslim country, though some (including the current President) reject that terminology, and there are troubling signs for the future.

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When it comes to leading denominational conversations on sexual violence, clergy across traditions express twin reactions: encouragement over the protocols already in place and the efforts of fellow advocates; and frustration with a culture of silence around sexual violence in the church. Despite strikingly different experiences across denominations ”” and church by church ”” the clergy, church staff, and seminarians who spoke with Sojourners are in agreement that addressing this issue in one’s own house is complicated at every level.

First, the good news: Several major Protestant denominations, across progressive and fundamentalist strains, subscribe to a practice of what the United Methodist Church calls “safe sanctuary” ”” a commitment to ensure their church buildings and leadership are free from sexual predators. These policies generally include running background checks on any volunteers working with children and establishing protocols (many developed by Marie Fortune and the Faith Trust Institute) for interpersonal interaction at the church.

These denominational policies are the first line of defense against abuse, particularly of children, in houses of worship. So what else, if anything, beyond this basic groundwork is needed from leadership?

This is where consensus breaks down, and in speaking with clergy and seminarians across denominations and traditions, various barriers and fear patterns were revealed.

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Yet, there is a dark and deeply troubling side to the web. The very unshackled freedom of expression and communication ”“ the revolutionary, even noble, principles on which it was founded ”“ has allowed a despicable underworld of sickening pornography and violent depravity to grow up virtually unregulated.

Those who take an extreme libertarian view would say that this downside of the web, while unpleasant, is a price worth paying for the enormous freedoms the internet brings all of us. However, such an argument cannot be sustained when viewed in the light of heinous murder cases, including, most recently, that of schoolgirl April Jones. Police officers found that Mark Bridger, who murdered five-year-old April, had numerous indecent images on his computer He had also views violent sexual scenes. There is a pattern here. Stuart Hazell, who killed 12-year-old Tia Sharp, regularly downloaded child abuse images on his mobile phone. And such cases do not only involve children. Jane Longhurst was 31 when she was murdered by extreme-pornography obsessive Graham Coutts.

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Religions and cultures with which we are unfamiliar are a lot harder to understand than most of us think. I suspect that most Americans would answer the question “Is Buddhism a religion of peace?” with a yes. The Dalai Lama, Richard Gere, and so on. Even the battling Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Kaine from the old TV series Kung Fu was as peaceful as people would let him be.

But this very day, Buddhists in Burma are accused of violent oppression of Muslims, no less than “ethnic cleansing.” And history includes plenty of examples of violence in the name of Buddhism.

Is Buddhism a religion of peace? It can be.

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It is….no longer possible for a platform as large and influential as Facebook to distance itself from the content uploaded by its users.

This all has real implications, for forms of gender hate elsewhere. For too long, women who object to mainstream and accepted misogyny have been silenced with the mocking argument that they are uptight, overreacting, or need to learn to take a joke. It is an effective form of silencing ”“ by branding derogatory and hateful material “banter”’ or “distasteful humour” because you immediately isolate and alienate the objector as a bitter prude.

But, like any other form of bullying, this line immediately falls flat when challenged. And so many women are now combining their voices to achieve victory in cases like this one that they can no longer be silenced.

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A series of violent riots against Pakistani Christians in the past decade has concerned human rights watchers and religious minorities in Pakistan.

The latest deadly incident, which took place just two months ago, raised questions about what, if anything, can be done to prevent such violence.

The March incident when a Muslim mob burned down a Christian neighborhood in Lahore, echoed a similar incident in the rural town of Gojra four years earlier. Nine people were killed when rioters torched two Christian neighborhoods over rumors the Christians had celebrated a wedding by showering the groom with pages torn from the Quran. Despite hundreds of arrests, no one was tried for the riots, and relatives of those killed have now fled Pakistan.

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Nigeria’s military has imposed a 24-hour curfew in parts of the north-eastern city of Maiduguri as its offensive against militants continues.

A statement named 11 areas of the city where people must remain inside their homes until further notice.

Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, has been an important base for Boko Haram Islamist militants.

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Since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak in February 2011, a growing number of Copts, including some of the most successful businessmen, have left Egypt or are preparing to do so, fearing persecution by an Islamist-controlled government as much as the stagnant economy that is smothering their industries.

Among the most prominent are the heads of the Sawiris family, who for several months have been running their enormous business empire from abroad.

“Every week I learn of 10 people who are leaving or who have already left,” Mr. [Wasfi Amin] Wassef said. “They know that what happened to the Sawiris’ can happen to them tomorrow.”

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Gunmen believed to be members of the Islamic extremist Boko Haram group yesterday killed the Rev. Faye Pama Musa, secretary of the Borno state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). He was 47.

The gunmen reportedly followed the long-time Christian leader from his church building, where he was holding an evening Bible study, to his house in the Government Reservation Area in Maiduguri, and shot him dead there, said the Rev. Titus Dama Pona, chairman of CAN’s Borno chapter.

“Rev. Faye Pama was killed last light,” Pona said this morning by phone from Maiduguri, the state capital. “I am right now with his family, and they are still consulting on what next to do.”

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The Primate of All Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Nicholas Okoh, on Monday opposed the call for emergency rule in parts of the country affected by armed conflict.

Mr. Okoh said this in Abuja at a press conference on the forthcoming 2013 Synod session of the Abuja Diocese of the Anglican Communion.

He said that government should rather support a national dialogue by various interest groups to address the myriad of problems militating against the country’s quest for socio-economic development.

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Radical and intolerant Islamist leaders preached to crowds of students at almost 200 official events in the past year, according to a study of external speakers at universities including Cambridge, Birmingham and University College London.

Segregated seating for male and female students is understood to have been implemented for at least a quarter of those public meetings held by the Islamic societies at 21 universities.

Two institutions have announced investigations into segregated meetings. But research by Student Rights, which was set up to tackle extremism on campus, indicates that the practice is prevalent across Britain, despite university equality rules forbidding it.

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Archbishop of York John Sentamu is setting up an independent inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse made against a Church of England cleric.

A former Archbishop of York has denied being negligent by failing to notify police when made aware of the claims.

Dr Sentamu’s office said the probe would look “specifically into the issues surrounding the reports” and the findings would be made public.

It said child abuse allegations were treated “with the utmost seriousness”.

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The mystery surrounding the burial of the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev has come to an end. The Boston Marathon bombing suspect was buried this week at a small Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Va.

According to his completed death certificate, which was released on Friday, Mr. Tsarnaev was buried on Thursday at Al-Barzakh Cemetery, about half an hour north of Richmond. Officials in Massachusetts had said the body was moved to a burial site out of state. But they had refused to disclose where.

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ROBIN GUILLEN (Inmate): (speaking to group) My name is Robin, and I’m a peacemaker.

OLSON: Fellow inmates, like Robin Guillen, who are graduates of the program, guide the weekly sessions.

GUILLEN: (speaking to group) That’s part of what we explore here and discover about ourselves on why we acted violently.

OLSON: Guillen has served 40 years in prison””20 of them here at San Quentin””for a murder he committed at age 17. After witnessing a stabbing outside his cell, he made a decision to turn his life around beginning with facing his painful past.

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“On Saturday, May 11, Christians of all denominations will gather in prayer to petition God to grant his mercy on Syria and to bring an end to violence,” reads a message issued by the Syrian Christian community.

The prayer is focused on four main intentions: the return of peace, the liberation of all hostages, assistance for all children traumatized by the war, and humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees and displaced people.

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Indian Christians are celebrating the result of recent elections in Karnataka, a southwestern state known for having the highest rates of violence against Christians. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu nationalist party which supports extremist groups, has finally lost power “after nine years of unchallenged rule.”

“The BJP is decimated,” reports AsiaNews. “Its defeat is good news especially for social and religious minorities of Karnataka, victims in these years of violence and persecution of the Hindu ultranationalist groups, openly supported by the BJP.”

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Responding to Carson’s testimony at a House Subcommittee on Africa hearing in July 2012, Subcommittee Chairman, U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ), remonstrated that poverty alone does not drive people to violence. And in any case, Boko Haram is well funded by outside Islamists. “Heavy machine guns” and “buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns” are just the latest examples to show that Boko Haram is not just a motley crew of impoverished, marginalized local Muslims. In February 2013 it was revealed that hundreds of Boko Haram members had trained for months in terrorist camps in northern Mali with the local “Ansar Dine” al Qaeda of Mali. Their former chef, explained that he cooked for over 200 Nigerians who had “arrived in Timbuktu in April 2012 in about 300 cars, after al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) swept into the city.”

In its 2013 Nigeria briefing, human rights group Justice for Jos +, a project of Jubilee Campaign USA, remarked, “Ironically, in northern Nigeria, it is Christians who are totally disenfranchised politically, economically, and socially in their own states and by their own ethnic groups due to their religious identity.” This is worse than just “political marginalization,” Mr. Carson! Justice for Jos + continues, “Christians are regarded as inferior to Muslims and suffer ongoing, systematic and comprehensive discrimination even by local and (Sharia) state governments.”

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Pakistanis went to the polls in high numbers on Saturday, in a vote that carried the historic prospect of the country’s first fully democratic political cycle despite being carried out under threat of fresh violence from Taliban insurgents.

A bomb in the southern port city of Karachi killed at least 11 people, doctors said, offering an ominous start to the day following Taliban threats to dispatch suicide bombers to targets across the country. And intensifying claims of vote irregularities in Karachi raised the prospect that some of the vote would be invalidated in the country’s largest metropolis.

But in several cities the turnout was very strong, supporting predictions of unusually high voter participation. Long lines remained at many polling places well into the evening, leading to the announcement that the formal poll-closing time would be extended by an hour, to 6 p.m. local time, and that even then lines would not be cut off.

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Former Archbishop of York David Hope has “strenuously denied” he “acted negligently” in not referring sexual abuse complaints against a Church of England cleric to police.

The Times said he was told of claims against ex-Dean of Manchester, Robert Waddington, in 1999 and again in 2003.

They involved an Australian schoolboy and a Manchester Cathedral choirboy.

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According to The Times newspaper Lord Hope of Thornes was made aware of accusations against the former Dean of Manchester, Robert Waddington, in 1999 and again in 2003.

Waddington was stripped of his right to conduct church services but Lord Hope did not report concerns to police or child protection agencies.

The allegations relating to an Australian school pupil were reportedly put to Lord Hope in 1999 and a subsequent allegation relating to a Manchester Cathedral choirboy was made in 2003. Mr Waddington, who died in 2007, denied the allegations.

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The two men grew up on separate continents, speaking their own languages. One was not yet 20; the other was bearing down on 100.

Yet within half an hour of meeting each other this week for the first time, Henry Kabiyona and Sol Rosenkranz knew each other’s stories before the words reached their lips.

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The former Archbishop of York stood accused last night of covering up allegations that a senior Church of England clergyman had abused choirboys and school pupils.

Lord Hope of Thornes was made aware of the accusations against the Very Rev Robert Waddington, a former Dean of Manchester Cathedral and once the cleric in overall charge of Church schools, in 1999 and again in 2003. Waddington was stripped of his right to conduct church services but the archbishop did not report concerns about alleged past abuse or a potential continuing threat to children to police or child protection agencies.

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The war in Ambon and the wider Maluku islands started for a variety of reasons. But it quickly boiled down to a question of identity, of Christians versus Muslims, as more than 5,000 people were killed and 500,000 were displaced from their homes between 1999 and 2002.

The religious passions and communal hatred stirred up in the war put a question mark over Indonesia’s moves to build a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship. Could Indonesia’s Muslim majority coexist with Christians and other religious minorities without an authoritarian hand on the tiller?

Sitting in Ambon’s Joas Coffee House 13 years after the fighting ended, the answer is clear: Yes. And sitting across from me is Jacky Manuputty, one member of a brave group of local community leaders, Muslim and Christian alike, who have helped heal the wounds of war and today act as the first responders of harmony when the fragile peace looks threatened.

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Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle reacted swiftly to the news that the Pentagon’s estimated number of sexual assaults jumped 35 percent, with several introducing legislation in the House and Senate to protect victims and improve response following report of an incident.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the Senate Armed Services personnel panel, plans to introduce legislation next week that would eliminate a commander’s authority to overturn rulings in cases of sexual assault.

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The problem of sexual assault in the military leapt to the forefront in Washington on Tuesday as the Pentagon released a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010, and an angry President Obama and Congress demanded action.

The study, based on a confidential survey sent to 108,000 active-duty service members, was released two days after the officer in charge of sexual assault prevention programs for the Air Force was arrested and charged with sexual battery for grabbing a woman’s breasts and buttocks in an Arlington, Va., parking lot.

At a White House news conference, Mr. Obama expressed exasperation with the Pentagon’s attempts to bring sexual assault under control.

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Photographer Lalage Snow photographed and interviewed members of 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland before they were sent to Afghanistan, after three months’ service, and days after they returned home. Their faces show the toll that fighting in Afghanistan takes on our troops.

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Andrew Bennett, Canada’s Ambassador for Religious Freedom, today issued the following statement:

“Canada condemns the ongoing violence in Syria in light of the rise in attacks on religious groups over the last few weeks….

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BOB ABERNETHY, host:….The president referred to self-radicalizing. What””how does that work, and what can the Muslim community do to prevent it?

HARIS TARIN (Muslim Public Affairs Council): Well, the phenomenon of self-radicalization is where individuals who do not find a place in mainstream Muslim institutions, places like mosques and organizations, they don’t find a place for their fiery rhetoric, for their violent, extremist rhetoric, so they go online, and they listen to sermons, and they listen to individuals like Anwar al-Awlaki or Adam Gadahn or other folks who misinterpret the religion to give it a violent, violent ideology, and they fall prey to these individuals who are basically online predators, and they get influenced by these individuals to address their grievances through violence….

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Of all the moral precepts instilled in Buddhist monks the promise not to kill comes first, and the principle of non-violence is arguably more central to Buddhism than any other major religion. So why have monks been using hate speech against Muslims and joining mobs that have left dozens dead?

This is happening in two countries separated by well over 1,000 miles of Indian Ocean – Burma and Sri Lanka. It is puzzling because neither country is facing an Islamist militant threat. Muslims in both places are a generally peaceable and small minority.

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