People and Events

The International Committee of Mennonite Brethren has set up an Emergency Relief Fund that began as a response to the Jan. 17, 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan. $65,000 US was given to the Japan MB Conference, and about $18,000 was returned to ICOMB to be used to respond to future natural disasters affecting one of the MB conferences.--
ICOMB

About 2,000 people attended a rally at Fresno (Calif.) Pacific College for US presidential candidate Bob Dole Oct. 26. Dole criticized President Clinton for losing 500,000 military jobs for California and for cutting defence budgets by $112 billion. He also accused the Clinton administration of rushing immigrants through the naturalization process without criminal background checks so they could vote in the November, 1996 election. Some students opposed the rally, saying the rally was a violation of the separation of church and state. Some also wondered why the college allowed the rally to be held on a college campus clearly associated with a peace church. FPC president Richard Kriegbaum said the school was not endorsing the Dole campaign; FPC simply allowed the Dole campaign committee to rent space on campus. A group of about 10 students protested the rally by holding up signs supporting Clinton.--
FPC release

Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Muslim group , apologized and asked forgiveness for an attack by thousands of Muslims on churches around Situbondo in East Java Oct. 10. At least 5 people died in the June 9 attacks. According to the Communion of Churches in Indonesia, 25 churches and Christian schools were burned or damaged in the attacks, which reportedly involved 5,000-10,000 people. Police say only 9 churches were burned. Adburrahman Wahid, leader of the 30-million-member NU, urged community leaders to teach tolerance of other religions. The riot was sparked by a court hearing involving a case of alleged blasphemy against Islam by a Muslim leader. Thousands of Muslims outside the court were angry that the defendant was sentenced to only five years, and demanded the death sentence. Police said the reason the crowd reacted by attacking Christian churches was unclear.--
Evangelical Press News Service

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a constitutional challenge to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law that protects religious freedom from unwarranted government regulation. The RFRA has been drawing fire from prison officials, who say that inmates are using the law to challenge aspects of prison life ranging from uniforms to diet. In one case, a Texas inmate claimed that his religion required that he be served chateaubriand (an expensive cut of beef) at least once a week.--
EPNS

Kabbalah , an ancient Jewish mystical teaching, is gaining followers among US celebrities such as Roseanne, Sandra Bernhard, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Dolly Parton. The Kabbalah Learning Center teaches that Moses received the Kabbalah on Mt. Sinai at the same time he was given the Ten Commandments and Torah (Old Testament law); while the Torah was given to all, the Kabbalah was hidden from all but a few sages because it was too advanced for people to understand.--
EPNS

Norwest Mortgage will provide Habitat for Humanity with $16.5 million in loans and contributions over five years. This is the largest contribution in the ministry's history. The commitment is part of a new $200 million effort to build 50,000 homes for needy families by the year 2000. That will be as many homes in four years as the ministry built in its first 20.--
EPNS

ASSIST Ministries links Christians in the West with new believers in the former Soviet Union. ASSIST has received more than 76,000 letters from new believers in the former Soviet Union, most of whom read and write English and all of whom would like a pen pal and prayer partner in the West. Information is available from ASSIST, P.O. Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA, 92842-2126.--
EPNS

The Forum of Bible Agencies is exploring the development of a central information bank which will place all Scripture sources worldwide on the internet. A home page will list all Scripture resources currently available from the 16 organizations which are members of the forum. The Forum of Bible Agencies was formed during a Lausanne Congress on evangelism in Manila, Philippines in 1989, after competitive Bible agencies decided to cooperate.--
Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization

Egyptian Christian Ibrahim Sharaf el-Din flew out of Cairo to be reunited with his family in Nairobi, Kenya on Sept. 16, ending a nearly two-year ordeal of arrest, imprisonment, surveillance and blacklisting for the convert from Islam to Christianity. Now 54, Sharaf el-Din had immigrated to Kenya with his family in 1988 but was secretly arrested and jailed upon his return to Egypt in October, 1994. Egyptian authorities detained him for the next nine months on unsubstantiated charges of "insulting Islam" and "giving false information against Islam" while living abroad. After his unexplained release June 22, 1995, his passport was returned in August, 1996 and he was told he could leave the country.--
Compass Direct

The Egyptian government has agreed to provide over $14 million to restore the famed Hanging Church in Cairo, reputed to be the world's oldest church. Many parts of the church can be dated to the 5th century. The roof of the church looks like an inverted Noah's Ark. The foundation of the church rests on two huge, 13-metre-high towers. In earlier centuries, the Nile flowed right past the church, and the seasonal floods would cover most of the towers, allowing people to land boats at the entrance. The course of the Nile changed in later centuries, which kept the foundations dry for many centuries, until the Aswan Dam was built 25 years ago. The two towers were originally part of a Roman fort called Babylon. The fort in turn was built on the site of a pagan temple, probably dating from the Ptolemaic period. The church has deteriorated badly in the past 25 years and has undergone sporadic inadequate renovations.--
Compass Direct

Bible Center Emmanuel , a Protestant church in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, has been closed following a heavy harassment campaign carried out by the media and the local population. In 1990, pastor Evan Nestorov founded a religious community called "Emmanuel". Finding it impossible to obtain religious association status, he registered it as a non-profit association. By 1993, the movement had grown to over 600 members. The local media began accusing Nestorov of brainwashing his congregation. That year, the church was outlawed by local authorities; the believers were expelled from their building and were unable to rent another place to worship. They joined the Bulgarian United Church of God, a legally registered denomination, and began to build a new church. But after violent demonstrations in which church windows were broken and several believers assaulted, the mayor of Plovdiv had the church closed in fall. Pressure was also put on the United Church of God, which withdrew its affiliation with the congregation.--
CD

The number of those incarcerated in the federal penitentiary system grew by 22% and provincially by 12% on average from 1989 to 1995. Canadians spend $10 billion a year for police, courts and prisons. The Church Council on Justice and Corrections advocates alternatives to incarceration, in its new book, Satisfying Justice

.--
Church Council on Justice and Corrections