Two Murdered in Pakistan

-
On July 19, 2010, two Christian brothers accused of distributing blasphemous material were gunned down on the premises of the sessions court in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Rashid Emmanuel, a 36-year-old pastor, and Sajid Masih Emmanuel, 30, had been running United Ministries Pakistan for the last two years in the Christian community of Dawood Nagar. Their murder represents the latest episode in the ongoing troubles of Pakistani Christians...

The full text of this article appears in "Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity" 23/6 (September/October 2010). Read in full at http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=158

Popular posts from this blog

Australia: Conversations about Islamophobia

-
In Australia, conversations about Islamophobia are expanding as the Muslim minority community grows. As in the UK, the term “Islamophobia” is often used as a device to silence critics of Islam. In the following interview, I was asked a series of questions about Islamophobia by a university student newspaper that is researching the topic for the interest of its readers. 1. What is Islamophobia? Islamophobia is usually understood to refer to a fear of Islam and Muslims that is irrational. 2. Where and when did it originate? The term “Islamophobia” has its origins in a report entitled “Islamophobia: A Challenge for us all”, that was produced by the Runnymede Trust and published in the UK in late 1997. The report was commissioned by the British government and was officially launched in the British Parliament. As for the origins of Islamophobia itself, rather than simply the origins of the term, such fear of Islam dates back many centuries, probably originally to the years fol...
Read more

The Marrakesh Declaration avoids hard questions

-
The Marrakesh Declaration , ignored by the mainstream media, has been acclaimed as a new dawn by some commentators: as promising an era of tolerance and pluralistic harmony in the Muslim-majority regions, where religious minorities have suffered so much for so long. With so much bad news coming from the Muslim world, new voices of hope are bound to receive a warm welcome. Between 25–27 January, around 300 dignitaries gathered in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh under the auspices of King Mohammed VI of Morocco. This event represented the culmination of four years of planning, led by Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah of Abu Dhabi, President of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies. The conference title was ‘The Rights of Religious Minorities in Predominantly Muslim Majority Communities: Legal Framework and a Call to Action’. As the name suggests, its specific goal was to address the discrimination and persecution experienced by religious minorities living under Islamic major...
Read more

Too Happy Together

-
The Australian city of Melbourne and its new Convention Centre played host last December to the Parliament of the World’s Religions (PWR), arguably the world’s pre-eminent interfaith event. The PWR was birthed in Chicago in 1893 but remained in a state of limbo for a century until being revived in 1993, with subsequent meetings held in 1999, 2004, and, most recently, December 3–9, 2009. The full text of this article was published in "Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity" 23/2 (March/April 2010), pp47-48
Read more