Today’s Headlines:

RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO EXONERATE 400,000 SHOEBOX GIFTS

TURKEY’S BID TO JOIN EUROPEAN UNION BOOSTS RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS

WORLD VISION NAMED TOP PROVIDER OF EMERGENCY RELIEF AFTER TSUNAMI

SURVEY: ONE-THIRD OF SCOTTISH CLERGY BELIEVE IN LITERAL HELL

AMERICANS OVERCOME ‘COMPASSION EXHAUSTION,’ CONTINUE TO GIVE

Today’s Top Stories:

RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO EXONERATE 400,000 SHOEBOX GIFTS

Operation Christmas Child, a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse which distributed more than 4 million shoebox gifts in Russia alone in the last five years, won’t be able to do the same this year.

Mark Schroeder, international field ministries manager for Operation Christmas Child, said Russia’s Humanitarian Aid Committee refused to exonerate 400,000 shoebox gifts that the ministry had planned to hand out to needy children in Russia. “They would be viewed as commercial goods and would be taxable,” he said. “As a result, we have reallocated the shoeboxes to other countries.”

Operation Christmas Child has worked with Russian Ministries to help with the distribution in the past. However, Russian Ministries Vice President Sergey Rakhuba said the organization will still help out some of the poorest children with its own Russian-based program called Box of Hope.

The ministry is raising funds to provide 5,000 boxes for orphans this Christmas. “We decided to encourage Russian Christians to help pack these boxes” he said. “We’ll simply go ahead and buy these gifts in Russia.”

Rakhuba said the shoebox gifts have been the ministry’s most effective child evangelism tool. “They build relationships,” he said. “They help open the doors to families that were not open to Christianity before. Thousands of those children who received boxes [in previous years] made decisions for Christ. Tens of thousands . . . came to Sunday school, and many came to summer camps where they heard more about Jesus.” (Samaritan’s Purse/Mission Network News)

TURKEY’S BID TO JOIN EUROPEAN UNION BOOSTS RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS

Turkey’s desire to join the European Union is allowing evangelical Christians a bit more freedom, says IN Network’s Rody Rodeheaver. “Because of Turkey’s interest in being a part of the EU, it’s opening up to religious diversity . . . because they’re under the microscope of the European Union. So this has helped the church. It gives an opportunity for Christians to take a stand, to begin to put into place ministry projects and to work with people in a way that I believe will give a new birth to the land of Turkey.” That doesn’t mean there aren’t threats to the believers’ efforts. Rodeheaver adds, “The dangers in Turkey, at this point, are more from the hard-line fundamentalists. Many of them are in opposition to their government’s desire to be more of a secular Western nation.” An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 evangelicals live in Turkey. (Mission Network News)

WORLD VISION NAMED TOP PROVIDER OF EMERGENCY RELIEF AFTER TSUNAMI

World Vision has been named as the top provider of emergency aid in Indonesia following the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean Dec. 26, 2004, according to a recent study done by Fritz Institute. World Vision was also one of the top aid providers in India. The study showed that the recipients of aid considered international relief organizations to be superior to government and local relief groups. (Mission Network News)

SURVEY: ONE-THIRD OF SCOTTISH CLERGY BELIEVE IN LITERAL HELL

Even though the concept of hell as a literal place has declined in an increasingly secular world, more than a third of Scotland’s clergy still believe in the existence of hell as a literal place. This was one result of a recent survey conducted by Dr. Eric Stoddart of St. Andrews University. A former Baptist minister, Stoddart says he no longer believes in hell in the sense of a future destination. He canvassed 750 clergy from a wide variety of denominations to find out what they thought constituted a modern hell. The survey showed belief in hell appears to follow geographical boundaries. Social commentators said the continuing strength of the literal belief among ministers in modern Scotland reflected the rise of religious fundamentalism across the world. Stoddart commented on his findings, “I can understand that after death there might be some who think there are others who won’t get into heaven. They just won’t exist. But for others to think there is really mental and physical torment came as a shock to me.” (Religion Today/The Scotsman)

AMERICANS OVERCOME ‘COMPASSION EXHAUSTION,’ CONTINUE TO GIVE

Americans are generous people when it comes to donating money and time following crises. Donations to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the 9/11 attacks and last year’s tsunami have reached almost $6 billion. Despite the talk of “compassion exhaustion,” Americans from all walks of life continue to donate, even well into the holiday season. Helping to feed the fire of giving is a new breed of philanthropists — Generation Y. They have grown up appreciating their good fortune in a world they see vividly each day where television and Internet images convey a sense of urgency which often translates into rapid donations. “We have every reason to believe that the percentage of change in charitable giving will outpace that of the gross domestic product, yielding a positive environment for capital campaigns to begin and to continue,” said Richard Blackmon, president of RSI Institutional Services Group. In 2004 about 83 percent of U.S adults donated to one or more nonprofit organizations, but the average pretax contribution of 3.2 percent of income shows that Americans could give much more. Americans, for example, spend $23.5 billion a year on candy and gum and $40 billion a year on weight loss. (Religion Today/Religion News Service)