Short stuff

Vietnam may be taken off the U.S. list of the world’s worst religious liberty offenders, following a visit to Vietnam by U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom John Hanford. With the planned release from prison of key Hmong Christian leader Ma Van Bay, Vietnamese officials expected Hanford to take good news of progress back home. Vietnam’s presence on the list of “Countries of Particular Concern” has remained a barrier to its membership in the World Trade Organization. According to representatives of the majority of Protestants in Vietnam, who remain unregistered and thus illegal, however, there is still no clear indication of a breakthrough or that reform is uniform and systematic.

—Compass Direct

November 5 is Peace Sunday. This year’s resource packet, available from Mennonite Central Committee, focuses on conscientious objection. “Cultivating Peace: Courage, Conscience and Resistance to War” explores Canadian Anabaptist opposition to war, tells stories of COs, and challenges us to resist war-making today.

—MCC

Henry and Susan Block, charter members of Hope Fellowship MB Church and the former Central MB Church in Saskatoon, are officially retiring from their service to Camp Oshkidee, a Christian camp on Jeanette Lake in Saskatchewan’s Meadow Lake Provincial Park. The Blocks will be honoured for 35 years of service at a celebration in Saskatoon Sept. 23. They have never missed a summer at camp and Dr. Block served as board chair for more than 30 years.

Is Islam a religion of peace? Gordon Nickel’s examination of this claim, originally published in the National Post, June 13, is available at Islam: A Religion of Peace?. Nickel considers texts on violence in the Koran and concludes that interpreting them “so that they pose no threat to peaceful coexistence with non-believers . . . seems a large challenge.” But it is “certainly a challenge worth taking up,” he says. Nickel has a PhD in the earliest commentaries on the Koran and has been a missionary among Muslims in Pakistan and India with MBMS International. He currently teaches at ACTS, Langley, B.C.

103 young adults are beginning one-year assignments through Mennonite Central Committee’s Serving and Learning Together (SALT) program and its International Visitor Exchange Program (IVEP). Fifty-one youth from Canada and the U.S. will do volunteer work with MCC partners in other countries, and 52 youth from those countries will serve in North America. For the first time, participants met for a joint orientation session, Aug. 14–18 at MCC’s offices in Akron, Pa.

—MCC News

Church kits: The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has prepared a Church Action Kit on Marriage to help churches respond to the debate on the definition of marriage this fall, a debate the prime minister has promised to re-open. It also has church kits with worship aids, video, children’s materials, and country profiles for the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, scheduled for Nov. 12. Go to The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

—EFC