Overly restrictive recommendations made by the Bill of Rights Forum could damage community relations instead of allowing rights and freedoms to flourish, the Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland has warned. The forum brings together representatives from Northern Ireland’s five main political parties as well as churches, trade union and business leaders, and is charged with advising the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission on a possible Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. It submitted its recommendations to the commission last week, in spite of a boycott by the DUP and the Catholic Church over the report’s failure to include the rights of the unborn child.

via christiantoday.com

Proposals to allow women in the Church in Wales to be ordained as bishops have been rejected by the Church’s Governing Body on Wednesday. The controversial Bill was defeated by just three votes at a meeting of the 140-member body in Lampeter. Prior to the vote, the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, had urged the body to accept the Bill, saying he did not see how the Church could “logically exclude women from the episcopate” after the 1996 decision to allow women priests. He expressed his disappointment after the vote. “I feel we won the argument but we narrowly lost the vote,” he said.

via christiantoday.com

Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.
'For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us,' Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook. He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population _ a stable percentage _ while Muslims were at 19.2 percent.

via topix.net

A German Lutheran leader, Maria Jepsen, who is bishop of Hamburg, spoke out in support of Tibetans during a "global day of action" for Tibet on Monday, recalling how she had insistently raised the Tibet issue on her own visits to China. She told 300 people holding "Freedom for Tibet" banners on a downtown square in the northern port-city of Hamburg that the Christian religion obliged its believers to support the oppressed. "Two things are stake at the moment: the dignity of China and the life of Tibet," she said. "Only peace can preserve both."

via earthtimes.org

Jesus Christ laid down His deity to be to become a man for our sakes. He did this not only for the sake of becoming an offering for our sins, and but also that He might live as an example for us. Faith was a characteristic of Jesus' entire human life.
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The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Personal! Personal! Personal! That’s what Christianity is.
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But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
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An explosion in a Milwaukee suburb demolished a church and damaged two homes Wednesday, injuring seven people, including three firefighters, authorities said. Road and sewer work was being done in downtown Oconomowoc before the explosion occurred around 1:30 p.m., said Bob Duffy, the city's economic development director. The blast and flying debris knocked over several workers, he said.
WE Energies had received a call from a contractor about an hour earlier, saying workers smelled gas and may have hit a line, company spokesman Brian Manthey said.

via news.yahoo.com

The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism said Wednesday that synagogues in the movement shouldn't work with the Rev. John Hagee, a Christian Zionist, calling him an "extremist" on Israeli policy who disparages other faiths. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said Hagee and his group, Christians United For Israel, reject any Israeli land concessions to achieve peace with the Palestinians. Reform Judaism supports creating a Palestinian state; Hagee sees a biblical mandate for the territory so End Times prophecy can be fulfilled.

via news.yahoo.com

A translated version of the encyclical Spe Salvi was presented a few days ago in Moscow, in a ceremony attended by Father Vladimir Shmalij, Secretary of the Synod Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate and by Catholic Archbishop Paolo Pezzi. The ceremony took place at the “Library of the Spirit”, an institution founded jointly by the Catholic “Christian Russia” Foundation and the Orthodox Centre of Sts. Cyril and Methodius of Minsk, which seeks to promote inter-confessional dialogue. It is not the first translation presented by this centre, which also houses exhibitions, round tables and other events, as well as book releases, the most notable being the presentation of the Russian translation of the book “Introduction to Christianity” by Cardinal Ratzinger.

via translation-services.co.uk

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has taken the lead in probing some high-profile ministries, asking for financial data to see if they have abused their nonprofit status with the IRS. He's getting cooperation from Benny Hinn's ministry, but not from Kenneth Copeland's. Both ministries are based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

via religionblog.dallasnews.com

Ted Turner formed a $200 million partnership Tuesday with Lutherans and Methodists to fight malaria, apologizing for his past criticism of religion as he announced the effort. Turner, 69, said he had only made a few disparaging comments a long time ago and that he is "always developing" his thinking as he grows older.
"I regret anything I said about religion that was negative," he said in a brief interview with The Associated Press.

via blog.beliefnet.com

At this point, the iconic actor is probably as well known for his Buddhist activism as for his award-winning film roles. That's a huge boon to Tibetans and their compassionate practice exemplified by the Dalai Lama. His advocacy for a Tibet with freedom of religion has led Gere to become chairman of the board of directors for the International Campaign for Tibet, founder of the Gere Foundation, and a co-creator of the Tibet House.
Now he opens up to Beliefnet about his meditation practice, what we should do about the Olympics in China and his heartbreak at seeing the "compassionate, forgiving, patient" monks of Tibet "lose their center" and resort to violence in recent protests.

via beliefnet.com

I have never seen so many white people here in my life!” It was Good Friday on the South Side of Chicago, at Trinity United Church of Christ, which has been Senator Barack Obama’s church for about twenty years and the most notorious congregation in America for about three and a half weeks. The preacher was in the pulpit, recalling a scene outside the church earlier in the week. He gestured at the reporters who had come to take notes. “I hope you’re tithing,” he said.

via newyorker.com

Ava Worthington is dead. She was only 15 months old when she died. The people responsible are her parents, who relied only on prayer as their child expired before their eyes. The question is whether they deserve to be put on trial for doing so. I think they do. Ava succumbed on March 2 to bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection, problems easily treated with antibiotics.

via msnbc.msn.com