There is new drama this morning over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Iran is ready to retaliate against any action taken to halt that program – this after Israeli leaders issued unusually blunt warnings about possibly striking Iranian nuclear sites. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reportedly believes that could…
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In post 9/11 America the construction of new mosques in the US has sometimes sparked controversy and even confrontation. Is that why some new Muslim houses of worship are being built without the most recognisable features of Islamic architecture – minarets and domes? The National Islamic Center in Washington DC is an imposing building with…
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A few weeks ago, the great ‘philosopher,’ Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered one his historical speeches in front of an assembly of ‘enlightened’ Islamic clerics in which he vowed to fight against what he called “the Judaization of Jerusalem.” This in itself would have been treated as another foolish statement from the master of the…
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A Christian convert from Islam who fled hostilities in his native Ethiopia has faced attempted murder and ongoing death threats in Kenya. Somali Muslim extremists in Kenya kidnapped and tried to kill Barack Hussein Kedir in July 2010, and most recently Kenyan-born Islamic extremists in contact with their co-religionists in Ethiopia sent a death threat…
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An Orthodox Christian church famed for its valuable icons was set alight in southern Macedonia overnight, authorities said Tuesday, as religious tension between Christians and minority Muslims grew over a carnival in which men dressed as women in burqas and mocked the Quran. Firefighters extinguished the fire late Monday in the two century-old Sveti Nikola…
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Global Christianity is thriving, with one out of every 3 people on earth professing Christian faith, according to a Pew study released last month. But Christianity is shifting south. Two percent of global Christians 100 years ago lived in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, nearly a quarter do, equal to Europe’s percentage, and soon surely to surpass…
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The Muslim world is threatened by religious fanaticism. The Western world is threatened by secular fanaticism. Both seek to dominate society and to use state power to do so. Both seek to eliminate the Other — for Islamic fanatics that means non-Muslim religions and secularism; for secular fanatics it means Christianity and virtually any public…
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The case of the Iranian pastor sentenced to death for his faith has attached a human face to the horrible situation of Christians in the Middle East. While Youcef Nadarkhani awaits the death sentence for practicing his religion in Iran, scores of Christians across the Middle East are fleeing their countries amid rising hostility. Sadly,…
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Some 35 Ethiopian Christians face deportation from Saudi Arabia for “illicit mingling”, the global rights body Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. Police arrested the group – including 29 women – after raiding a prayer meeting in the second city of Jeddah. The women were subjected to strip searches and the men beaten and called “unbelievers”,…
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The sharia court in Muslim-majority Kashmir has no constitutional or legal authority. But its recent verdict ordering the expulsion of five Christians from the troubled Indian side of Kashmir has sent alarm bells ringing among Christians in India. Apart from ordering the expulsion of the Christians, the court also directed the government of Jammu and…
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