SAUDI ARABIA ARRESTS A CHRISTIAN BLOGGER; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE......

January 30, 2009 Saudi Arabia -Authorities in Saudi Arabia have detained a 28-year-old blogger, Hamoud Bin Saleh, for publicly writing about his conversion from Islam to Christianity on his website.

He was arrested on January 13, 2008, and detained at the Eleisha political prison in Riyadh due to “his opinions and announcement at his blog that he converted from Islam to Christianity,” according to a report by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). In addition to harassing him by detaining him two other times for similar offenses, the Saudi officials have now blocked Bin Saleh’s blog, “Masihi Saudi,” at http://christforsaudi.blogspot.com/.

The report further noted that Bin Saleh’s previous release from prison in November of 2008 coincided with the Saudi-initiated interfaith dialogue held at the United Nations in New York, suggesting that his release came only because his arrest might have “tarnished its image” and “expose[d] the Saudi government’s false allegations.”

Immediately following the conference, the report indicated that Saudi officials chose to re-arrest Bin Saleh “because the entire world is busy following up on the aggression on Gaza, and the Saudi authorities may seize the chance to make an example with nobody watching.”

Bin Saleh’s case is especially urgent in that we know that this is not the first time that Saudi converts from Islam to Christianity have suffered terrible mistreatment. In August of 2008, ICC reported on the case of a female convert from Islam to Christianity who was burned to death by her father. Her father was a member of the mutaween (Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice), an arm of the government that enforces religious purity and is the government’s face of persecution to Christians in Saudi Arabia. She had also disclosed her faith on a website. (For the full text on the case of the martyred woman, see: http://www.persecution.org/suffering/pressdetail.php?presscode=236)

Despite their intolerant policies and practices, the Saudi Arabian officials leave no stone unturned to portray themselves as champions of tolerance to non-Muslims. In 2008, they organized major international conferences on interfaith dialogue. Their practice, however, shows that such conferences are mere public relations gimmicks.

Jeff King, ICC’s President, said, “The international community must hold Saudi Arabia accountable for its failure to live up to the basic rights of freedom of religion and press. Particularly the countries and organizations that are engaged in interfaith dialogue with Saudi Arabia must intervene in this case and win freedom for Bin Saleh.”

Please pray for Bin Saleh so that he will continue to persevere in his faith in Jesus Christ in the midst of the ordeal he is facing. Also please pray for his release from prison and protection after he is released.
Please call the Saudi Arabian embassy in your country and ask the officials at the embassies to release him from prison.

IRAQI CHRISTIANS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MOSUL VOTE; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi Christians still reeling from a string of murders last fall find themselves caught in the middle of a power struggle between Kurds and Sunni Arabs that was fueled by this weekend's elections.
The minority community has faced years of violence and intimidation from al-Qaida in Iraq and other Islamic extremists. In the northern city of Mosul and surrounding areas, many also fear the Kurds want incorporate parts of the area into their semiautonomous region in northern Iraq.
The issue came to the fore in Saturday's vote for members of ruling councils in most of Iraq's 18 provinces. Results are not expected for days or even weeks.
But when the votes are finally counted, Kurds are expected to lose the dominance they have enjoyed here in Ninevah province since Sunni Arabs boycotted the last provincial election in 2005.
Christians will get at least one out of 37 council seats in the province, thanks to a minority quota. But many Christians are divided about whether to back the Kurds or the Sunni Arabs in their struggle for domination in Ninevah and its capital city of Mosul.
The U.S. military believes continued Kurdish-Arab tension in the north poses one of the strongest challenges to ensuring long-lasting peace in Iraq now that Shiite-Sunni violence has ebbed.
Fewer than 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million people are Christians, many concentrated in Ninevah province.
Raad Shaya, a 30-year-old Christian teacher who lives in the outlying town of Batnaya, said Christians face intimidation from both sides.
Islamic extremists recently threatened him and several Christian colleagues by placing a warning inside the minibus they used to commute to work.
"The Kurds are controlling the Christians right now," he said, lowering his voice after casting his ballot on Saturday. "There's also the threat from outside Islamic political parties."
"We're not targeted because we're Christian but because we're a minority in the middle of everything," he added.
Fears spiked in the fall with a string of murders of Christians in Mosul, driving thousands of Christian families to leave their homes for the safety of Christian villages around the city. Most have drifted back but are still afraid.
"It's better at this point but we paid a high price for it," said Bassem Bello, the Christian mayor of Tel Kaif, a mixed Sunni Arab-Christian town near Mosul. "We're working very hard to make sure it doesn't happen again."
He declined to say who was behind the attacks, which claimed up to 16 lives by some counts. But he said the outgoing provincial council had failed to protect its people.
"Whenever something like this happens we lose families. They go abroad. This is the agenda. They want the original people of this country to leave," he said. "They have certain aspirations to take over what the Christians have in their areas. Also there are extremist Islamic groups."
The Kurds already have moved to stake their claim on the nearby hilly area known as the Ninevah Plains by establishing checkpoints manned by well-trained Kurdish security forces known as peshmerga.
The sunshine flag of the semiautonomous Kurdish region to the north also flies on the top of several buildings in the villages and towns that comprise the areas, including some of the schools that were used as polling stations on Saturday.
A U.S. official said Christians need the peshmerga for protection but most have stayed on the fence because they're afraid of choosing the losing side. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Although the Kurds are expected to lose seats, they are hoping for a strong showing as a measure of support for their claims to disputed areas of Ninevah.
The Kurds also are seeking to incorporate the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in another province into their semiautonomous area, but the vote for a council there was delayed until later this year.
Christians have frequently been targeted since turmoil swept the country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, although the attacks have ebbed with a sharp drop in overall violence.
Churches, priests and businesses of the generally prosperous, well-educated community have been attacked by militants who denounce Christians as pro-American "crusaders." The body of Paulos Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, also was found in March following his abduction by gunmen after a Mass.
Suvara Shamsun Haroun, a 25-year-old Christian woman who voted Saturday in Tel Kaif, pointed out that insurgents target all Iraqis "but sometimes they try to drive a wedge between the Arabs and the Christians."
Her mother Wirgania Shamwell expressed hope the Christian candidate chosen would help improve the situation.
"Hopefully the elections will bring security and a better future for Iraq and that's all we can hope for," she said. "Security is the main thing."

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH , THE WORLD'S LARGEST ORTHODOX CHURCH ENTHRONES A NEW LEADER

MOSCOW -- A new patriarch took charge of the Russian Orthodox Church on Sunday, formally becoming the first leader of the world's largest Orthodox church to take office after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Patriarch Kirill, 62, has been a cautious advocate of change and a prominent figure in trying to reconcile with the Roman Catholic Church.
He became the 16th person to bear the title in a solemn ceremony at Christ the Savior Cathedral. The original 19th-century church was dynamited under Stalin but rebuilt after the Soviet collapse. The ceremony was broadcast live on national television and attended by President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and scores of other officials from Russia and ex-Soviet states.
Patriarch Alexy II died in early December after almost two decades at the helm of the church when millions of Russians returned to their historic faith. But polls show that only about 5 percent of Russians are observant believers, and only 30 percent of the population believe they should follow the moral teachings of the church.
Kirill, long Alexy's deputy, has been critical of tolerance of homosexuality, abortion, multiparty democracy, and the division of secular and religious authority.
He adheres to nationalist ideas about Russia's role in the world and supports the idea that Russian civilization is fundamentally different from and opposed to Western concepts. An unusually public and outspoken religious figure in a church known for its traditionalism, he long has pushed for introduction of Orthodox religious classes in schools. He appears on television shows and frequently voices his opinion on secular matters, including Russia's current economic crisis.
On the day after his election, Kirill pledged to refrain from initiating "top-down reforms that hurt people," but cautiously promised changes, the Interfax news agency reported. He is expected by some to seek a more muscular role for the church, which has served the state for much of its 1,000-year history.
Church and state are officially separate under the post-Soviet constitution, but ties have tightened again since Mr. Putin came to power in 2000.
Among the changes Kirill is likely to initiate is wider use of the Russian language in services instead of the archaic Church Slavonic and permission for women to wear trousers inside churches. He will face opposition from a strong conservative movement within the church that sees him as too modern.
After his election, church leaders ruled out a meeting between pope and patriarch -- the unrealized dream of the late Pope John Paul II. The Russian church accuses the Vatican of trying to convert Russians to the Catholic faith. There have also been disputes over property and influence in Ukraine, where both churches have large flocks.

NURSE SUSPENDED FOR OFFERING PRAYER TO AN ELDERLY PATIENT'S RECOVERY IN LONDON; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE..........

LONDON - Caroline Petrie, a committed Christian, has been accused by her employers of failing to demonstrate a "personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity".
She faces disciplinary action and could lose her job over the incident.
Mrs Petrie, a married mother of two, says she has been left shocked and upset by the action taken against her.
She insists she has never forced her own religious beliefs on anyone but politely inquired if the elderly patient wanted her to pray for her – either in the woman's presence or after the nurse had left the patient's home.
"I simply couldn't believe that I have been suspended over this. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. All I am trying to do is help my patients, many of whom want me to pray for them," she said.
Mrs Petrie, 45, is a community nurse employed by North Somerset Primary Care Trust to carry out home visits to sick and elderly patients.
The incident which led to her suspension took place at the home of a woman patient in Winscombe, North Somerset.
"It was around lunchtime and I had spent about 20 to 25 minutes with her. I had applied dressings to her legs and shortly before I left I said to her: 'Would you like me to pray for you?'.
"She said 'No, thank you.' And I said: 'OK.' I only offered to pray for her because I was concerned about her welfare and wanted her to get better."
However, after the incident on December 15, she was contacted by the trust and asked to explain her actions.
The woman patient, who is believed to be in her late 70s, is understood to have complained to the trust.
Mrs Petrie will not disclose the woman's name or reveal the precise nature of her ailment because it would breach patient confidentiality.
Mrs Petrie, who lives in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, said she was initially confronted the next day by a nursing sister who said the patient had been taken aback by her question about prayer.
"I said: 'I am sorry. Did I offend or upset her?' The sister said: 'No, no. She was just a bit taken back. You must be aware of your professional code of conduct. I would be careful.'
"But the next day my coordinator left a message on my home phone and I realised this had been taken further."
Mrs Petrie said that she often offers to pray for her patients and that many take her up on it.
She either prays with them or after she has left their home. The nurse has been a committed Christian since she was ten – after her mother died of breast cancer.
Initially, she was Church of England but she switched to the Baptist faith nine years ago. "My faith is very important to me," she said.
Mrs Petrie had previously been reprimanded for an incident in Clevedon last October when she offered to give a small, home-made prayer card to an elderly, male patient, who had happily accepted it.
On this occasion, the patient's carer, who was with him, raised concerns over the incident.
Alison Withers, Mrs Petrie's boss at the time, wrote to her at the end of November saying: "As a nurse you are required to uphold the reputation of your profession.
"Your NMC [Nursing Midwifery Council] code states that 'you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity' and 'you must not use your professional status to promote causes that are not related to health'."
In the letter, Mrs Petrie, who qualified as a nurse in 1985, was asked to attend an equality and diversity course and warned: "If there is any further similar incident it may be treated as potential misconduct and the formal disciplinary procedure could be instigated."
Mrs Petrie said: "I stopped handing out prayer cards after that but I found it more and more difficult [not to offer them]. My concern is for the person as a whole, not just their health.
"I was told not to force my faith on anyone but I could respond if patients themselves brought up the subject [of religion]."
It is the second incident – the offer to pray for a patient – that led to the disciplinary action. She was suspended from her part-time job, without pay, on December 17.
She faced an internal disciplinary meeting last Wednesday and expects to learn the outcome this week.
At last week's hour-long meeting, Mrs Petrie says she was told the patient had said she was not offended by the prayer offer but the woman argued that someone else might have been.
The nurse had her representative from the Royal College of Nursing present Mrs Petrie's husband, Stewart, 48, works as a BT engineer and they have two sons, aged 14 and ten.
The couple attend Milton Baptist Church every Sunday and Mrs Petrie said: "Stuart and I have decided to put God first in our lives."
Mrs Petrie, who has worked for the trust since February last year, has already taken legal advice from the Christian Legal Centre, which seeks to promote religious freedom and, particularly, to protect Christians and Christianity.
The centre, in turn, has instructed Paul Diamond, the leading religious rights barrister. Andrea Williams, the founder and director of the centre, said: "We are backing this case all the way."
A spokesman for North Somerset Primary Care Trust said: "Caroline Petrie has been suspended pending an investigation into the matter.
"She is a bank nurse and she has been told we will not be using her in this capacity until the outcome of our investigation is known.
"We always take any concerns raised by our patients most seriously and conscientiously investigate any matter of this nature brought to our attention.
"We are always keen to be respectful of our patients' views and sensitivity as well as those of our staff."

GEORGE BEVERLY SHEA VOICE , BILLYGRAHAM'S SINGER STILL BOOMING AT 100

MONTREAT, —George Beverly Shea is skipping from memory to memory of his globe-trotting career as evangelist Billy Graham's crusade crooner. When words can't explain, he bellows out a song.
"Oh, can it be, upon a tree, the Savior died for me?" Shea sings from a John Newton hymn, his raw and rumbling voice describing how music fits into ministry. "My soul is thrilled, my heart is filled, to think He died for me."
Shea planned to celebrate his 100th birthday Sunday, and the songs that defined his career still burst out in a signature bass-baritone that can quiet a room in an instant. Shea worked with Graham for more than half a century, making him one of the world's most recognized voices: He's sung live in front of an estimated 200 million people. And he's still making special appearances without his longtime partner.
"When they ask me to sing these days, they're just being kind, you know?" Shea said, an idea his wife rejects.
"When everybody else sings, it's a personality singing," Karlene Shea said. "When he sings, something else comes over you—the words, the message, and you forget he's standing there."
Though he's about a decade older than Graham, Shea is in far better health. Aside from a heart attack earlier this decade, Shea's only ailment is a painful back. He walks—mostly with the aid of a walker—and still visits all the restaurants near his mountainside home.
While Shea hasn't driven a vehicle since he was 95, he noticed a year ago that his driver's license had expired. Wanting to keep an updated form of identification, he went down to the local office, passed the vision test and won a new license.
"I don't feel 100," Shea said during a recent interview at his home in Montreat, about 15 miles east of Asheville.
Shea's life is mostly quiet these days, spent in Montreat with Karlene. He often watches reruns of Graham sermons that he says still move him. Though he lives just a mile away from his famous partner, he and Graham mostly speak by phone. Graham's health has been slipping for years and he has been hospitalized several times in recent years for various ailments.
Though Shea's career is largely behind him—his last major production was a country-and-western album in 1997—he still sings at senior celebrations and other events connected to Graham's ministry.
Born in Winchester, Ontario, on Feb. 1, 1909, Shea grew up singing in the choir of his father's Wesleyan church. After moving to New York City, the budding virtuoso had several chances to perform on secular radio programs but shied away after auditioners wanted him to sing songs such as "To Hell With Burgundy."
So Shea left for Chicago and started work at the Moody Bible Institute as a singer on gospel radio. It was there that Graham, just 21 years old at the time, first met Shea after hearing his voice on the airwaves.
Four years later, in 1947, Shea joined Graham's young crusade team, singing at an event in Charlotte and beginning a decades-long ministry that would reach to every state and every corner of the earth—from North Carolina to North Korea.
Writing "The Wonder of It All" and reviving songs such as "How Great Thou Art," Shea was at times given the moniker of "America's beloved gospel singer," riffing off Graham's role as "America's pastor." He recorded more than 70 albums of gospel music and won a Grammy along with 10 Grammy nominations.
But with a personality that strays from humble to bashful, Shea deemed his role in the ministry as "very insignificant"—especially compared with his contemporaries.
"What I do is old-fashioned," Shea said. "It's the guitar these days. When they sing at Mr. Graham's meetings, it's pretty exciting. People clap, you know? So they look for me to come up before the message and sort of quiet them down."

TELEVANGELISM IN CHAOS OVER A FAMILY SPLIT

GARDEN GROVE, — Once one of the nation's most popular televangelists, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller is watching his life's work crumble.
His son and recent successor, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, has abruptly resigned as senior pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. The shimmering, glass-walled megachurch is home to the "Hour of Power" broadcast, an evangelism staple that's been on the air for more than three decades.
The church is in financial turmoil: It plans to sell more than $65 million worth of its Orange County property to pay off debt. Revenue dropped by nearly $5 million last year, according to a recent letter from the elder Schuller to elite donors. In the letter, Schuller Sr. implored the Eagle's Club members — who supply 30 percent of the church's revenue — for donations and hinted that the show might go off the air without their support.
"The final months of 2008 were devastating for our ministry," the 82-year-old pastor wrote.
The Crystal Cathedral blames the recession for its woes. But it's clear that the elder Schuller's carefully orchestrated leadership transition, planned over a decade, has stumbled badly.
It's a problem common to personality driven ministries. Most have collapsed or been greatly diminished after their founders left the pulpit or died.
Members often tie their donations to the pastor, not the institution, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist of religion at Boston University. Schuller, with a style that blends pop psychology and theology, has a particularly devoted following, she said.
"Viewers are probably much less likely to give when it's not their preacher they're giving to," she said. "There's something about these televised programs where people develop a certain loyalty."
Today's increasingly fragmented media landscape is also to blame, said Quentin Schultze, a Calvin College professor who specializes in Christian media.
Church-based televangelism led by powerful personalities filled TV in the 1980s, but now only a handful of shows remain, he said. Among the struggling ministries are those of Oral Roberts and the late D. James Kennedy of "The Coral Ridge Hour" TV show.
"I don't see a scenario for maintaining a TV-based megachurch anymore. The days of doing that in the models of Schuller and Jimmy Swaggart and Oral Roberts are over," Schultze said. "It's amazing to me that the 'Hour of Power' was able to keep going as long as it did."
Through a spokesman, Schuller Sr., his family members and other cathedral officials declined to comment. The younger Schuller, 54, did not respond to an e-mail requesting an interview.
The elder Schuller, who called his weekly show "America's Television Church," founded his ministry in a drive-in theater after moving to Southern California in 1955.
He studied marketing strategies to attract worshippers and preached a feel-good Christianity, describing himself as a "possibility thinker" and spinning his upbeat style into a 10,000-member church and a broadcast watched by millions worldwide.
The church's main sanctuary, the Crystal Cathedral, is a landmark designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson, with a spire visible from afar amid Orange County's suburban sprawl. Thousands make the pilgrimage to see where the broadcast is filmed before a live congregation.
The Schullers consider the church a family business and the younger Schuller's 2006 appointment was sanctioned by the Crystal Cathedral's parent denomination, the Reformed Church in America.
But the church announced on Nov. 29 that Schuller Jr. had resigned as senior pastor, just a month after he was removed from the church's syndicated broadcasts. In a news release, Schuller Sr. said: "Robert and I have been struggling as we each have different ideas as to the direction and the vision for this ministry."
The church has since instituted a rotating roster of high-profile guest preachers, including Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church, the Chicago-area megachurch, and evangelist Luis Palau.
Schuller Sr.'s daughters and sons-in-law remain involved in the church, some in key roles. But Juan Carlos Ortiz, the interim senior pastor, hopes to appoint a senior pastor with no ties to the Schuller family within two years.
On the church Web site, concerned members and TV fans have posted hundreds of comments protesting the upheaval, with some indicating they have stopped giving or will leave altogether.
Several angry viewers have launched petitions to get the younger Schuller back.
Melody Mook, a 58-year-old medical transcriptionist from El Paso, Texas, said she stopped her $25 monthly donation and is looking elsewhere for her spiritual needs. She said she dislikes the guest pastors.
"I feel hurt and confused and I'm not sure that I want to sit and watch when I know there's problems beneath the surface," she said. "You feel like you're in somebody else's church every Sunday."
Others said they felt betrayed that the Schullers couldn't put God before their family spat.
"They have not been forthcoming at all," said John Dewart, an insurance agent from New Jersey who's watched for 30 years. "Why can't a father and son work together for the glory of God? That's my big question."