Rapid Reading Summary – Short reports with links – African context; More Israeli Jews express belief in God; Church asks Israel’s president to help end attacks on Christian places of worship; Boko Haram and Islamic puritanism from Nigerian Tribune; Karzai pleads for calm as Koran fury spreads
African Text, African Crisis
The Living Church – The difficulties our provinces face as churches in Africa — political violence and corruption, tension between Muslims and Christians, persecution, the too-easy availability of weapons, famine, HIV/AIDS, and others — are some of the deepest challenges confronting any human beings in this world. These are the issues we face; this crisis is our daily experience as Christians in Africa. There is no future in pretending that these issues are somehow minor or temporary, that solely through kind words and thoughts we will heal the destruction of the last century and more. We must do something. We must act. We must meet the cost of discipleship. The gospel is not a call to leave the world to its fate. It is a call to new creation, to be the world as God always intended it to be.
The deepest motivation for that identity is theological: because God wills it. During my four years as CAPA chairman I have tried to call people back to this insight, which is not mine but is rather the simple faith that we are all taught in our first days as Christians. – The Most Rev. Ian Ernest, who has completed four years as chairman of CAPA, is Archbishop, Province of the Indian Ocean, and Bishop of Mauritius.
http://livingchurch.org/african-text-african-crisis
Survey: more Israeli Jews express belief in God
ENI – Almost 80 percent of Israeli Jews say they believe in God according to a recent survey, up from 76 percent in 1999. The survey results reflect a marked move away from the socialist-secular ideals of the Eastern European Jews who were the driving force behind the founding of modern Israel.
http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=5489
Catholic Church asks Israel’s president to help end attacks on Christian places of worship
Washington Post — A top Roman Catholic official has taken the rare step of asking Israel’s president to help put an end to attacks on Christian holy sites. The custodian of holy places in the Holy Land, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, recalled in his letter sent Sunday to President Shimon Peres that vandals spray-painted “Death to Christians” and “We’ll crucify you” on the Baptist Church in Jerusalem and similar hate graffiti on a Greek Orthodox monastery in the city.
Nigeria unrest: Suicide bomb targets church in Jos
BBC – A suicide car bomber has killed at least three people at a church in the troubled central Nigerian city of Jos, sparking reprisals by Christian youths.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17169935
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0226/nigeria.html
See also Irish media summary for 29th February – Ulster missionaries at Jos church
Boko Haram and Islamic puritanism
Nigerian Tribune – The newly-found role of ethnic and religious cleansing by the notorious Boko Haram sect gives cause for intense worry from any reasonable Nigerian on both sides of the major religious divides. In the bid to get support from a few unscrupulous northerners, who may feel the sect is fighting the Islamic or northern cause, the sect had fearlessly spoken and given an ultimatum to the Southerners to go back to their states and Christians to leave the North. The catalogues of their barbaric acts had all the while pointed their aggression at Christians from the South, the Christian Youth corp members, the Suleja bombing, the Madalla church bombing, and numerous killings inside so many churches in Borno, Yobe, Gombe and Adamawa states. These were horrendous carnages afflicted on innocent Christian worshippers within their churches.
While the Federal Government has not failed to verbally assure Christians and Southerners of adequate measures to guarantee their safety, nothing serious has been done to actually nip the sect’s wrong deeds in the bud.
http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/letters/36657-boko-haram-and-islamic-puritanism
The burning rage: Karzai pleads for calm as Koran fury spreads
Independent – More Nato troops are wounded as details emerge about Pakistani training of killer who struck at Interior Ministry