It may come as a surprise to many Christians that Muslims are generally open to studying the life of Jesus as a model for leadership because they revere him as a prophet.

But now that I’m no longer obsessed with converting people to Christianity, I’ve found that talking about Jesus is much easier and far more compelling.

I believe that doctrine is important, but it’s not more important than following Jesus.

Jesus met people where they were. Instead of trying to figure out who’s “in” and who’s “out,” why don’t we simply invite people to follow Jesus ”” and let Jesus run his kingdom?

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…the particular crisis facing all of us in Australia regarding the transmission of the Gospel in our times is that we are evangelising in the context of secularism. This living a supposed happy life without any reference to God is the real challenge to the faith today. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, our master teacher of the faith, continually draws our attention to the fact of secularism in Western countries.

He expresses the essential challenge in this way (from: Light of the World (2010, p.56)[:]

It is important for us to try to live Christianity and to think as Christians in such way that it incorporates what is good and right about modernity ”“ and at the same time separates and distinguishes itself from what is becoming a counter-religion.”

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What is your view on the vexed issue of Islamic banking in Nigeria?

It is a time bomb that is about to explode. This nation is secular in nature. It is a constitutional stipulation that no religion should be adopted as a state religion. The fact remains that Christians cannot claim to be the sole owners of Nigeria. Muslims and African Traditional Religion practitioners cannot equally claim to be owners of Nigeria. If that is the case, foisting or attempting to foist the religious practices of a particular religion on this nation is a time bomb that will explode.

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ARCHBISHOP VINCENT NICHOLS, Catholic Bishops’ Conf. of England and Wales: The Holy Land and the holy sites could become something like the Coliseum, you know, the remnants of something that is of great historical interest and maybe of cultural interest, but not lived in, not living and breathing centers of life and prayer.

[KIM] LAWTON: The leaders discussed concrete ways to help the predominantly Palestinian Christian community, such as financial support, building more relationships between congregations and increasing public policy advocacy. As part of that, the group specifically called for an end to security restrictions that prevent local people of faith from visiting their holy sites. Conference organizers denied criticism from some quarters that supporting Palestinian Christians makes one “anti-Israel.”

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At Native Deen shows, audience members are more likely to be from Middle Eastern or South Asian backgrounds than to be American blacks. One reason, according to Suad Abdul Khabeer, a Purdue University anthropologist who studies Islamic hip-hop, is that Native Deen’s “harmonies and melodies sound like the kind of nasheed” ”” Muslim praise music ”” “you get from the Middle East.”

As a result, Dr. Abdul Khabeer said, Muslim immigrants who may look down on African-American culture find Native Deen’s work palatable, while American blacks may find it insufficiently aggressive, sonically speaking. “Hip-hop lite doesn’t speak to them in the same way,” Dr. Abdul Khabeer said. “Black audiences are like, ”˜That’s kind of lite.’ ”

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After philosophy students and faculty members rallied to denounce heavy-handed efforts to separate male and female students, Islamists on campus struck back: In the dead of night, witnesses say, the radicals showed up at a men’s dormitory armed with wooden sticks and bicycle chains.

They burst into dorm rooms, attacking philosophy students. One was pistol-whipped and hit on the head with a brick. Gunfire rang out, although no one was injured. Police were called, but nearly a month after the attack, no arrests have been made.

Few on Punjab University’s leafy campus, including top administrators, dare to challenge the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, or the IJT, the student wing of one of Pakistan’s most powerful hard-line Islamist parties.

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The C of E’s head of schools strategy, Dr Rob Gwynne, has warned of new attempts to undermine church schools. “There is no doubt that there is a calculated attack by secularists on the traditions and practices of Church of England schools currently supported by legislation,” he said this week.

Dr Gwynne was commenting after secularist peers tabled amendments to the Education Bill, at the committee stage in the House of Lords, which sought to end the statutory status of collective worship and religious education in schools without a religious designation.

The amendments were debated on Monday, before being withdrawn by their sponsors, Lady Massey, patron of the National Secular Society (NSS). Lord Avebury, an honorary associate of the NSS, moved an amendment that sought to ban the inclusion of a religious element from assemblies unless governors requested it after consultation with parents.

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In an interview on the science in science fiction, novelist William Gibson noted, “[T]he future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” What Gibson meant was that the innovations in science fiction could already be found””at least in embryonic form””in our current ideas or technology. Much the same could be said about future social and legal norms concerning the institution of marriage””they are already here, they’re just not evenly distributed yet.

A prime example is the social and legal acceptance of polygamous marriage. The legal bulwark against polygamy was the first to go, dismantled by the Supreme Court ruling Lawrence v. Texas. “Liberty presumes an autonomy of self,” claimed Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion, “that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct.”

As Justice Antonin Scalia recognized in the minority opinion, the decision could be used to legalize bigamy and would be a “massive disruption of the current social order.” Last week the New York Times featured a story about a polygamist who is suing the state of Utah to overturn its anti-polygamy law that proves Scalia a prophet….

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The forty-year-old Virgin Mary Church on Cairo’s al-Wahda Street””the name means unity, or oneness””looks striking these days. Its cream and white façade is unscathed by the dust and smog that otherwise blanket neighboring buildings and the rest of the city, and inside, its walls and floors glisten with newly laid cappuccino-colored marble. The church, its guardians say, has never looked better. “Ever, in its entire history.”

On May 8, this church, in the impoverished Cairo neighborhood of Imbaba, a ten-minute drive from Tahrir Square, was a scene of devastation. It had been ravaged by flames and its insides gutted, smashed, looted, and charred after clashes broke out between Muslims and Christians over the case of a Coptic woman named Abeer Fakhri, an alleged convert to Islam whom ultraconservative Salafis had claimed was being held against her will at the nearby Church of St. Mina, which was also attacked. Fifteen people were killed in the violence and almost two hundred injured.

The attack was one of a series against Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority in the weeks since President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on February 11. Since then, widespread and escalating crime has gripped the country….

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The US has said it will send aid to famine-hit areas of Somalia controlled by the Islamist group al-Shabab.

But US aid officials say assurances must be given that the insurgents will not interfere with its distribution.

The US considers al-Shabab a terrorist group and last year stopped aid to the large area of Somalia it controls.

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Paganism, a centuries-old faith, has just been officially established as a religion in England. Dating back to pre-Christian times, followers worship the land, animals, spirits and ancient gods and it’s been growing in popularity in recent years.

Its estimated that around 250,000 Brits now claim to be Pagans.

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Daniel Dalton, 46, a non-profit attorney in Farmington Hills, Mich., says the IRS has taken the position “it’s not going to look at ecclesiastical, doctrinal issues.” He grew up in the Missouri Lutheran Church, which limits women’s roles in leadership positions. “I don’t understand it. I don’t agree with it,” says Dalton. “But that’s a doctrinal issue.”

I understand the difficulties in having the state intervene in worship issues. I believe in a separation of church and state, but I’ve come to the difficult decision that women must use the legal system to restore rights in places of worship, particularly when intimidation is used to enforce unfair rules.

In our protest movement, we haven’t yet won national enforcement of gender equity in mosques. But we reached our youth….

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A decision by Prime Minister Najib Razak to meet with Pope Benedict XVI on Monday signals a wish to mend ties with Malaysia’s Christians following a series of incidents, including the firebombing of churches, that have strained interfaith relations in this Muslim-majority nation, analysts say.

Mr. Najib is scheduled to visit Benedict at Castel Gandolfo, the pope’s summer residence near Rome, for talks that are expected to touch on the possibility of Malaysia establishing diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

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The Bishop of Kubwa Diocese (Anglican Communion), Rt. Reverend Duke Akamisoko, has said that the proposed Islamic Banking is making some people to be apprehensive, saying that the development is overheating the polity.

The cleric, who spoke to journalists at the Pre- Synod press conference in Abuja yesterday, added that World Bank statistics had revealed that 60-70 per cent of citizens of countries like Pakistan, Kuwait, Sudan that had practiced Islamic banking for over 40 years lived below poverty level.

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Three church-state activist groups criticized the Army for allowing an evangelical concert at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg but not making similar provisions for a “Rock Beyond Belief” concert for nonbelievers.

The three groups””Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina””on Tuesday (July 5) complained to the Secretary of the Army about events that appear to give “selective benefits” to religious groups.

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In a remarkable interfaith gesture, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed and Episcopal Bishop of Utah Rt. Rev. Scott B. Hayashi met in Salt Lake City (Utah, USA) on July 7 and had a dialogue.

Meeting in Episcopal Diocese of Utah, two leaders discussed various topics, including harmonious living, dialogue, overcoming prejudices, love-compassion-respect-trust, finding common ground, etc. Executive Director of Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable Dr. Rev. Canon W. Ivan Cendese also participated.

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Certain practices and beliefs remain intact even as the church’s outward trappings change. Scientology’s core practice is “auditing,” in which members use a crude lie-detector device to probe each other about traumas in current and past lives. Auditing allows a Scientologist to rise in the church’s spiritual hierarchy””as long as the auditing, Ms. Reitman says, is accompanied by hefty financial contributions.

Ultimately the church reveals to its highest-level members””spoiler alert””75 million years ago Earth was known as Teegeeack and that an intergalactic warlord named Xenu brought billions of his enemies here from other stars and vaporized them with hydrogen bombs. The souls of those beings still haunt our planet, and auditing exorcizes them.

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Primate of Anglican Communion, Nigeria, Most Revd. Nicholas Okoh, has described the introduction of Islamic banking by the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, as a religious oppressive instrument and a tool for social coercion of the poor to convert to Islam.

Okoh, who spoke to newsmen, yesterday, at Agbarha-Otor, Ughelli North Local Government Area, Delta State, said it was a follow up to demands by Boko Haram for the application of Sharia all over the country.

He said: “In 10 years from now, it would have grown and matured to what it is intended to be- a religious oppressive instrument and tool for social coercion of the poor to convert to Islam. It is heavily skewed to put other non-interest banking at disadvantage.

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A petition of more than 2,000 signatures was handed into 10 Downing Street last week in opposition to Pakistan’s controversial Blasphemy Laws.

Organised by Wilson Chowdhry and the British Pakistani Christian Association, the petition’s aim is to protect Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan.

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Mormon officials are telling their top, full-time leaders that they and their spouses should not participate in political campaigns, including making donations or endorsing candidates.

However, part-time leaders””including local and regional congregational leaders””are still allowed to do that, but are cautioned to make clear they are acting as individuals and do not represent the church.

Local leaders are also told not to engage in political fundraising or campaigning focused on members of congregations they oversee.

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If Friedrich Nietzsche was the first sincere atheist, it is because he saw that the Almighty is exceedingly good at disguising Himself as something else, and that much so-called secularisation is accordingly bogus. Secular thinking, too, had to be demythified. “God had in fact gone into hiding,” Robbins observes, “and now had to be smoked out of various secular terms, from morals and nature and history to man and even grammar.” Even Nietzsche’s will to power has a suspiciously metaphysical ring to it.

Postmodernism is perhaps best seen as Nietzsche shorn of the metaphysical baggage. Whereas modernism is still haunted by a God-shaped absence, postmodern culture is too young to remember a time when men and women were anguished by the fading spectres of truth, reality, nature, value, meaning, foundations and the like. For postmodern theory, there never was any truth or meaning in the first place, and so mourning its disappearance would be like lamenting that a rabbit can’t recite Paradise Lost.

Postmodernism is properly secular, but it pays an immense price for this coming of age – if coming of age it is. It means shelving all the other big questions, too, as hopelessly passé. It also involves the grave error of imagining that all faith or passionate conviction is inci­piently dogmatic. It is not only religious belief to which postmodernism is allergic, but belief as such. Advanced capitalism sees no need for the stuff. It is both politically divisive and commercially unnecessary.

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In a potential blow to the proposed San Francisco circumcision ban, the city’s top lawyer has concluded it is unconstitutional to ban the practice as a religious ritual, but allow it as a medical procedure.

The measure, now headed toward the Nov. 8 ballot, would ban nearly all infant circumcisions.

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Angry reactions have continued to trail the planned introduction of Islamic banking system in the country by the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

The condemnation was part of a 14-point communiqué issued at the end of the third session of the first synod of the Diocese of Oru, Anglican Communion, and signed by the Bishop and Synod Secretary, Rt. Rev. Geoffrey Chukwunenye and Ven. H.U Nnaoma respectively.

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…92 percent of evangelical leaders from the United States who took part in a new Pew Forum survey said they are convinced that secularism is a “major threat” to the health of evangelical Christianity in their land, a threat even greater than materialism, consumerism and the rising tide of sex and violence in popular culture.

In a related question, a majority of U.S. evangelical leaders — 82 percent — said they are convinced that their churches are currently losing clout in American life.

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The Anglican paper presented by Mrs. Clare Amos highlighted the dialectic of whether the Psalms should be considered as ‘our words to God’ or ‘God’s words to us’ and reviewed the changing place and role of Psalms in Anglican liturgy and life. In response, Chief Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen examined the place of David as temporal and spiritual leader and how this was reflected in specific Psalms.

The papers and the ensuing discussion reflected on the way in which Psalms may serve as a calibrating resource to curb human arrogance and combat despair. Furthermore, in highlighting the creative tensions between the transcendent and the immanent, the Psalms demonstrate both the constancy and intimacy of the Divine Presence.

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At least 10 people have been killed in a series of attacks blamed on Islamist militants in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, officials have said.

Military commander Gen Jack Nwaogbo said five people were killed when a bomb exploded on Sunday inside a bar frequented by soldiers and policemen.

Gunmen also shot dead four people late on Saturday and one person on Sunday.

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A recent Sunday service at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore ended with an apology.

Laurel Mendes explained that religious doctrine had been duly scrubbed from the hymns in the congregation’s Sunday program.

But Mendes, a neo-pagan lay member who led the service, feared that a reference to God in “Once to Every Soul and Nation” might still upset the humanists in the pews.

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Church leaders in the US and UK have called upon their governments to take a stand against Sharia law,

On June 9 the former Bishop of Rochester urged the government to support legislation outlawing the use of Sharia law in Britain when it conflicts with English law, while an American bishop has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voicing his dismay over NATO negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Bishop-elect Julian Dobbs of the Anglican Church in North America, and founder of the Church and Islam Project, told Mrs. Clinton that too many people were willing to ignore the implications of Sharia law and believe that Islam is a religion of peace.

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