People & events

Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, in a Nov. 10 broadcast, called Muhammad a “sex deviant” and “pervert”, called for the expulsion of foreign Muslim university students from the US, called for profiling airline passengers “with a diaper on their head and a fan-belt around their waist” and said, “We ought to tell every other Moslem living in this nation that if you say one word, you’re gone.” Since the broadcast was also carried on the CFMT (OMNI) television station in Toronto, the Canadian office of the Council on American–Islamic Relations has filed an official complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. CFMT has apologized unconditionally for Swaggart’s comments; it has promised to monitor future Swaggart broadcasts and refuse to air any broadcasts it finds objectionable.

—Council on American–Islamic Relations

A Muslim cleric in Iran, Mohsen Mujtahed Shabestari, in a sermon Oct. 11, said that “it is necessary” to kill US televangelists Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham for anti-Islam comments they have made. Hossein Chariatmadari, editor of the Iranian newspaper Kayhan, also said Falwell should be killed. However, Falwell has since apologized for his remarks, and no Muslim clergy have actually issued a formal fatwa (decree) calling for the killings, as was done several years ago for novelist Salman Rushdie.

—B.C. Christian News, Assist News Service

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is considering declaring bankruptcy due to lawsuits from 450 alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests. The Church reached a tentative agreement to give $30 million to 86 victims of priest John Geoghan, but that was reduced to $10 million when the Archdiocese’s finance committee rejected it. It was admitted that Archbishop Cardinal Law knew about Geoghan’s abuse but continued to move him from parish to parish. The Church is reluctant to declare bankruptcy because that would open the Church’s financial records to public scrutiny. Victims say the threat of bankruptcy is being used to pressure them into accepting smaller settlements.

—Evangelical Press News Service

Nicholas Gutierrez, 19, was arrested Nov. 16 after he stabbed and strangled 51-year-old Mary Stachowicz and hid her body under the floor of his apartment. Gutierrez says he became enraged after Stachowicz, a Catholic, questioned his homosexual lifestyle, which reminded him of debates he had had with his mother. Pro-family groups have questioned why this case has not aroused the same outcry as other hate crimes such as the murder of homosexual Matthew Shepard.

—Evangelical Press News Service

Focus on the Family has cut its annual budget from $130 million US to $125 million, laid off 34 of its 1300 workers and announced that it will not fill 66 vacant positions. These are the first layoffs since Focus was founded 26 years ago by James Dobson. Focus will also cut its magazine to 8 times a year, cut merit pay increases and travel, close an office cafeteria and eliminate the annual employee picnic. However, Focus will continue to expand its internet ministry and its ministry to young families, blacks, secular society and other countries. Donations to Focus have dropped 2–3% due to the US recession.

—Evangelical Press News Service

Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, was euthanized in February after she was diagnosed with progressive lung disease and arthritis. Dolly was 6 years old; sheep often live to age 11 or 12.

—Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, CNN.com

Mennonite Central Committee has sent five 40-foot containers holding $1.1 million in relief kits, blankets and comforters to Jordan to be sent to Iran or to be given to fleeing Iraqis in case of war. For the same purpose, MCC has also sent two containers of canned beef worth $205,000 and, with CARE and the Islamic Relief Agency, bought 200 tents, 3000 blankets and 120 portable water tanks. MCC is also sending 28,000 school kits to Iraq and coordinating a project to supply $1.59 million in medicine to Iraqi children.

—Mennonite Central Committee

“The Sanctity of Life in a Brave New World: A Manifesto on Biotechnology” has been signed by Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson, Focus on the Family president James Dobson, former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, paraplegic Joni Eareckson Tada and over 20 others. It calls for a ban on all human cloning.

—Evangelical Press News Service

US missionary Joseph Cooper and seven Indian Christians were attacked Jan. 13 in Kilimanoor, India, by a gang wielding knives, sticks, swords and crowbars. Police have arrested over 15 people, including 10 members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a militant Hindu organization. On Jan. 20, the Indian government ordered Cooper, then in hospital, deported from the country. He was in India on a tourist visa, which forbids speaking at religious meetings, and Cooper had apparently just given his testimony at a Protestant convention. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) has a list of 50 other Christian missionaries it would also like deported.

—Compass Direct, Evangelical Press News Service

MBMS International resource missionaries Darren and Shahna Duerksen hosted an evangelistic concert Dec. 4 at California State University in Fresno, Calif. Performers for the event were Aradhna (Chris Hale and Peter Hicks) playing and singing Christian devotional songs in Hindi and Nepali. The Duerksens do administrative work with MBMSI and are also trying to reach out to the 70,000 Indo–Americans in central California.

—MBMS International

North Korea for the first time has been named the world’s worst persecutor of Christians on Open Doors’ World Watch List. Open Doors was founded in 1955 by Bible smuggler Brother Andrew. The next 10 worst countries for persecuting Christians are Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Laos, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Bhutan, Maldives, Somalia, Iran and China. The estimated 400,000 Christians in North Korea face imprisonment and death if caught.

—Evangelical Press News Service

Mennonite Publishing Network, the debt-plagued publishing house of Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada, is expecting a profit of $488,000 US on sales of $17.1 million in the year ending Jan. 31, 2003, a vast improvement from the deficit of $1,703,729 it incurred the previous year. The Network also raised $678,600 to help eliminate its accumulated debt of over $5 million.

—Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada

72 Protestant ministers and 33 Catholic priests have been killed in the last decade in the ongoing war between leftist revolutionaries and pro-government right-wing militias in Colombia. Ministers are often targeted for their refusal to lead their congregations in supporting one side or the other. Since 1985, over 60,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Kidnappings, a source of revenue for revolutionaries, average four a day.

—Compass Direct

Israel’s Geological Institute announced Jan. 13 that it had examined a 12–15-inch stone tablet mentioning King Joash in language similar to 2 Kings 12. The tablet was reportedly found on the Temple Mount and has traces of gold and fire damage, possibly from the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians in the 6th century B.C. If authentic, the tablet could reinforce Jewish claims to the site. Palestinian negotiators deny that the artifact came from the Temple Mount and that Israel ever had a temple on the site.

—Evangelical Press News Service

The Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China, based in New York, has released detailed reports showing that 182 house church Christians were arrested between June and August, 2002. Most were interrogated and fined; many were tortured.

—Compass Direct

L’Abri, the spiritual retreat founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer in Switzerland in 1955, is opening a Canadian branch in a 4000-square-foot house on a 21-acre site on Bowen Island. The site, a 20-minute ferry ride from Vancouver and two hours from Whistler ski resort, was chosen because seeking young people tend to gravitate to Canada’s west coast. L’Abri (French for “Shelter”) provides help for spiritual seekers, attempting to give honest answers to honest questions and demonstrate that a personal, infinite God really exists. Three couples from Burlington, Ont. founded L’Abri Fellowship Canada three years ago and have since sponsored L’Abri conferences at Trinity Western University in British Columbia in 2000 and McMaster University in Ontario in 2002. Directing the Canadian retreat centre will be Doug and Maggie Curry, who are currently working with L’Abri in England; Doug was a missionary to Nepal for 21 years, and Maggie is one of the Schaeffers’ grandchildren. Other L’Abri branches have been founded in Sweden, Holland, Korea and the US.

—B.C. Christian News