World News for January 9, 2008

January 9, 2008

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  • Observers are saying that the African nation of Kenya will never be the same after recent events of the past several weeks. Of grave concern to believers was the burning down of an Assembly of God church building near Eldoret in the western part of the country; at least 35 people perished. Initially the ones responsible for the tragedy used rocks and other objects to attack the people who were inside the building. Then they set fire to the building, having placed mattresses and other items in front of the door. The attackers were members of the Kalenjin tribe, who were stirred up by the election of President Mwai Kibaki, an election seen as fraudulent and leading to widespread violence. Additional violence around the country has left at least 300 people dead. Meanwhile, up to 100,000 people face starvation due largely to the violence. Tribal tension may result in some 500,000 needing aid. Mission Aviation Fellowship, one of the largest missions based in the U.S., was helping by answering emergency calls for evacuations and humanitarian help. But MAF has had to suspend flights to Kenya due to the extreme danger from shootings and rioting. MAF was to continue the aid if the violence subsided.
  • Conservative Christians in the U.S. continue to analyze the political meanings behind the caucus results in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other states to come, as well as evaluate interpretations of various pundits. Mike Huckabee, whose populist message and Christian roots has been wooing the Right, is being eyed with increasing scrutiny from conservatives. “Mike Huckabee is a Christian socialist. He is a good man, but with a Big Government heart,” said Richard A. Viguerie, author of Conservatives Betrayed. Rush Limbaugh, leading conservative talk show host, also is wary of Huckabee: “Gov. Huckabee, mighty fine man and is a great Christian, is not a conservative. . . . If you look at his record as governor, he’s got some conservative tendencies on things, but he’s certainly not the most conservative of the candidates running on the Republican side.” Limbaugh believes that Huckabee is doing evangelical Christians a disservice with his injection of his religious affiliation into the race, given the former Arkansas governor’s views and record. Editor and conservative radio show host John Lofton, long associated with conservative issues, called Huckabee clueless and a double-minded man. But the conservative Campaign for Children and Families gave Huckabee and Ron Paul the highest marks of the Republican candidates on eight topics, among them protecting traditional marriage, opposing homosexual adoption, and protecting school children and the Boy Scouts from homosexual agenda. On the Democratic side, Senator Hillary Clinton has been arguing that she is more pro-abortion than Senator Barack Obama.
  • A U.S. District Judge has ruled that a mandatory moment of silence for Texas schoolchildren does not advance or inhibit religion. “Legislators repeatedly emphasized that students could stare at their shoes, think about upcoming exams, think about their pets, engage in other nonverbal activities during the moment of silence, as well as pray, if they wished,” noted Judge Barbara M. G. Lynn.
  • Same-sex marriage has been in the news in recent years, but now same-sex divorce is challenging the legal system. One state, Massachusetts, does not keep records on the number of gay and lesbian couples who have divorced, but lawyers who specialize in family cases say it is in the dozens. “One of the benefits of marriage is divorce,” said Joyce Kauffman, a Boston divorce lawyer. “But for a lot of couples, that benefit is very complicated and very costly in ways that heterosexual couples would never have to experience.” For same-sex couples, divorce is potentially ruinous. Heterosexual couples claim a tax deduction for alimony payments, but that benefit is not available to gay and lesbian spouses because the Internal Revenue Service does not recognize their marriages. Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which says that no state is required to recognize a same-sex marriage that occurred in another state. States that do not recognize such unions “would probably not divorce a same-sex couple from Massachusetts,” said a 2004 handbook on marriage produced by the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association.
  • According to the Corporate Funding Project assembled and released by Life Decisions International, poinsettia growers who have provided flowers for Christmas to many people are supporters of abortion through Planned Parenthood, the largest U.S. provider in the abortion industry. The company, Paul Ecke Ranch, has boasted that “approximately 70 percent of all the flowering poinsettias in the USA and more than 50 percent worldwide get their start” at its business. WorldNetDaily reported, “When Christian churches flooded their facilities with poinsettias to celebrate the Christmas season, odds are that at least some of the money they paid for the blooms will be dedicated to paying for abortions.”
  • Some prominent evangelicals are criticizing National Association of Evangelicals leaders including Leith Anderson and Richard Cizik because the latter men signed a letter to Muslim leaders containing “controversial language” that appeared to appease Muslims by compromising the importance of Jesus in Christianity and apologizing for the sins of Christians during the Crusades and for “excesses” in the global war on terror. Among the critics was prominent theologian and seminary president Dr. R. Albert Mohler, who charged that the letter “sends the wrong signal” and has basic theological problems. Asked Mohler, “Are these people suggesting that they wish the military conflict with Islam had ended differently—that Islam had conquered Europe?”
  • Dr. R. Albert Mohler is going to be nominated for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention, according to a news release from Baptist Press. If elected in June, Mohler will become the seventh seminary president to serve in the top denominational office. “When Southern Seminary [Louisville, Ky.] seemed to be lost to liberalism and irrelevancy, Dr. Mohler put his life and ministry on the line for the truth of God’s word and the urgency of sharing Christ with a lost world,” stated Robert Jeffress, pastor of the historic First Baptist Church, Dallas, who intends to nominate Mohler.
  • Dozens of gay and lesbian couples entered into civil unions in New Hampshire in the first moments of New Year’s Day, as a new state law legalized the partnerships after midnight.
  • Christianity Today partnered with Zondervan Publishers and commissioned a study by Knowledge Networks to see who is in the church pews. Of various types of self-professed Christians, 19 percent were “active”; and of this “active” group, 35 percent held church leadership positions.
  • The “worst” countries of the world to live in are all in Africa, according to a United Nations report, with war-torn Sierra Leone in last place. Norway was the world’s best place to live in, followed by Sweden, Australia, and Canada. Sweden has found a successful way to nearly wipe out prostitution, according to Spiegel—by criminalizing the buying of sex rather than the selling of sex. The law was passed in 1999 and has been enormously successful, according to Jonas Trolle, inspector with the Stockholm police unit dedicated to combating prostitution.