AUSTRALIAN PRAYER NETWORK NEWSLETTER

* OBAMA SEEKS NEW BEGINNING WITH MUSLIMS

* CHRISTIAN LEADERS CONDEMN KILLING OF ABORTION DOCTOR

* HINDU GROUP DEMAND ALL CHRISTIANS LEAVE NEPAL

* BURMA: OVER FOUR THOUSAND FLEE AS NEW ATTACKS OCCUR

* NORTH KOREAN CHRISTIANS STANDING STEADFASTLY IN PRAYER

* WORLD REFUGEE SUNDAY 21st JUNE 2009

OBAMA SEEKS NEW BEGINNING WITH MUSLIMS

President Obama called for a “new beginning” between the United States and the world’s Muslims in a June 4 speech at Cairo, urging a cooperative effort to produce global peace. The highly anticipated address, one promised by Obama during his presidential campaign, focused on seven issues the president said America and Muslims need to face together. They are “violent extremism,” the relationship between Israel and Palestinians, nuclear weapons, democracy, religious freedom, women’s rights and economic development, he told the audience at Cairo University.

Obama said the “cycle of suspicion and discord between America and Muslims must end. Whilstever our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace and those who promote conflict rather than cooperation. We have a responsibility to join together to form a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes and where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God’s children are respected.”

He reaffirmed “America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security,” Obama said. “The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few,” he added. The U.S. commitment to combating terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan “will not weaken,” Obama said. He described the conflict in Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, as a “war of choice.” America has a responsibility both to help Iraq build a better future and “to leave Iraq to Iraqis,” he said.

The president described the bond between the United States and Israel as “unbreakable.” He said denying the Holocaust, in which the Nazis killed an estimated 6 million Jews, was “baseless” and called threats to Israel’s existence “deeply wrong.” The leadership of Iran’s Islamic government has done both. Obama also said, “On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.” Obama called for a Palestinian state. He also called for an end to the construction of Israeli settlements.

He said U.S.-Iran relations “have reached a decisive point” regarding nuclear weapons. He said however any country, including Iran, “should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power” if it abides by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Obama told the audience no type of government “should be imposed” on a country, but he said “government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power.” The president urged religious freedom in Islamic-dominated states whether that be for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt,” he said.

According to Christian leaders the president’s speech contained both positive and negative elements. A Southern Baptist spokesperson said he “appreciated the unequivocal commitment to confront violent extremism in all of its forms, although I did note the word ‘terror’ or ‘terrorism’ was never used. It seems to me the difference between terrorism and violent extremism is a distinction without a difference.” He also commended Obama’s defence of religious liberty.

President Barack Obama’s address was met with mixed reactions from those who are experienced observers of Islam and the Middle East. While the effort to build bridges with the Arab/Muslim world is commendable, observers said, his misstatements about the Christian Gospel and the biblical view of Israel put him at odds with what Scripture says. Mike Edens, professor of theology and Islamic studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, praised the address on several points but said Obama “expressed a basic misunderstanding of both Islam and Christianity.”

Jim Sibley, director of Jewish Studies at Criswell College, said “Obama’s speech failed to mention the President’s own intention to divide Jerusalem. There is much to commend in his speech. To the extent that it promotes peace and the cessation of hostilities, it is to be welcomed. However, it is not built upon a biblical view of Israel. The President rightly said that a denial of the Holocaust is “baseless, ignorant, and hateful.” Yet the Holocaust should be seen in the context of God’s promise that those who curse the Jewish people will suffer judgment at God’s hand.” (Genesis 12:3).

Ant Greenham, an assistant professor of missions and Islamic studies said the common ground that President Obama advocates religiously “is too close to Islamic theology for comfort.” Greenham, a South African who previously served that country’s diplomatic missions in both Israel and Jordan, said, “His speech presented an Islamic rather than a Christian Jesus. Also the common ground he advocates at the religious level is too close to Islamic theology for comfort.

To be fair, freedom of religion was a noteworthy subject in Obama’s speech. He asserted, “People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, heart, and soul.” This is good, but all too often, freedom of religion in Islamic contexts means freedom to practice the religious tradition you were born into, but not to convert to anything else (unless a Christian converts to Islam). So I wish Obama had added a phrase on the right to choose a different faith, should one be so persuaded.

Source: Baptist Press

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CHRISTIAN LEADERS CONDEMN KILLING OF ABORTION DOCTOR

Christian ethicist Richard Land and other pro-life leaders have quickly condemned the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller. Tiller, probably one of the best known abortion providers in the United States was shot to death inside the building of the Reformation Lutheran Church of which he was a member. Scott Roeder, 51, of Kansas was arrested the same day on suspicion of committing the crime. Roeder is a member of an anti-government group strongly opposed to abortion, according to The Wichita Eagle. He believed the killing of abortion doctors was justified.

The entire pro-life community “must swiftly and soundly repudiate” the one who killed Tiller if he “was acting in the name of the pro-life movement,” said Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, in a statement released the day of the murder. Tiller’s slaying “is a human tragedy,” Land said. “Murdering someone is a grotesque and bizarre way to emphasize one’s commitment to the sanctity of human life. People who truly believe in the sanctity of human life believe in the sanctity of the lives of abortion providers as well as the unborn babies who are aborted.”

Land said, “Clearly the killing of abortion providers is unbiblical, unchristian and un-American. Such callous disregard for human beings brutalizes everyone. “For people to take the law into their hands in this fashion and to attempt to be judge, jury and executioner of a fellow human being is reprehensible and must be condemned by all civilized citizens,” he said. All the country’s major pro-life organizations denounced Tiller’s murder. Tiller, who was previously shot in both arms in 1993, became the fourth abortion doctor killed in the United States in murders related to the profession.

Tiller, 67, gained notoriety among pro-lifers as the leading late-term abortion provider in the country. It has advertised on its website it has “more experience in late abortion services over 24 weeks than anyone else currently practicing in the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Australia.” Women travelled to his clinic from throughout the United States and various foreign countries in order to have abortions even in the third trimester. Pro-life activists regularly kept a peaceful vigil outside Tiller’s clinic and sought to persuade pregnant women not to go through with their abortions.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said, “Violence in the name of protesting abortion is immoral, unjustified and horribly harmful to the pro-life cause. “Murder is murder. The law rightly affirms that the killing of Dr. George Tiller is murder. In this we must agree. We cannot rest however until the law also recognizes the killing of the unborn as murder. The killing of Dr. George Tiller makes that challenge all the more difficult.”

Other leaders called for prayer for Tiller’s wife and other family members, as well “all those who were forced to witness the terrible act of violence in a house of worship. Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said he was “shocked” by Tiller’s murder and that he “categorically condemns” the “act of vigilantism and violence. President Obama said in a statement he was “shocked and outraged” by Tiller’s killing. “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,” the president said.

Source: The Witchita Eagle

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HINDU GROUP DEMAND ALL CHRISTIANS LEAVE NEPAL

A Hindu extremist group calling itself the Nepal Defence Army (NDA) has demanded that all Christians leave the country. A statement released by the group said, “We want all the 1 million Christians out of the country, if not we will plant 1 million bombs in all the houses where Christians live and detonate them.” NDA is believed to comprise former soldiers, former policemen and victims of Maoist guerrillas. It claims to have trained suicide bombers to fight communists, Christians and Muslims. The shadowy group’s main objective is to restore Nepal as a Hindu nation.

The Nepali government when elected declared the country secular. The Maoists, who led a decade-long insurgency in this Himalayan nation, joined mainstream politics the same year after signing a peace accord with the government. Since then, several Hindu groups have protested the government’s move and demanded that Nepal be declared a Hindu nation again. Bishop Anthony Sharma, apostolic vicar of Nepal, feels that Christians do not need to be alarmed in the wake of the NDA statement.

“The NDA has always been threatening us and this threat is just another one. There is no need for us to worry,” he said.. However, he said that security has been stepped up in Christian churches across the country. Reverend Isu Jung Karki, a Protestant pastor, said that the NDA is simply trying to terrorise Christians and that making good on their threat “is not that easy.” “These kinds of threats will not in any way affect our mission in Nepal. We have successfully worked through similar difficult times in the past,” he said.

Source: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission

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BURMA: OVER FOUR THOUSAND FLEE AS NEW ATTACKS OCCUR

The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (supported by the Burma Army) has launched an attack on a camp of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Karen State on the Thailand-Burma border. As the trial of Burma’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi continues, this new crisis has caused over four thousand IDPs to flee across the border into Thailand. Ler Per Her, an IDP camp just inside Karen State, Burma, has been evacuated as more than a thousand troops have entered ther area. The camp has been attacked twice before and forced to relocate.

Thousands of IDPs, have already had to flee the regime’s policies of forced labour, rape, torture, destruction of villages, crops and livestock and the use of human minesweepers. This is an urgent situation which requires immediate international attention. Karen civilians have been suffering such attacks, as well as other gross violations of human rights amounting to crimes against humanity for several decades.

Source: Christian Solidarity Worldwide

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NORTH KOREAN CHRISTIANS STANDING STEADFASTLY IN PRAYER

In light of the recent defiant missile launches by Kim Jong-ll and his regime in North Korea, the eyes of the world are nervously watching the impoverished country. Christian Believers and the underground Church in North Korea are stepping up their intercession and have launched an evangelistic prayer campaign amid the darkness of their oppression. Carl Moeller, President of Open Doors USA noted, “Christians in North Korea are suffering terribly for their faith. An estimated 40,000 to 60,000 are Christians are suffering for their faith in prison.”

Kim Jong-ll is afraid of a Christian uprising, citing Christianity as the main factor in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. He is fearful of Christianity gaining a stronghold in his country and bringing down his dictatorship. While world leaders try to find a way to stop the actions and cruelty of Kim Jong-ll, believers inside North Korea are joining together in prayer, that the Gospel would go forth and bring freedom for the captives. An underground pastor said, “We thank God there are so many people who are praying for our country. Your prayers strengthen us.”

Source: Christian Post

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WORLD REFUGEE SUNDAY 21st JUNE 2009

World Refugee Sunday is a day when churches are encouraged to focus on refugees and refugee related issues. It aims to raise awareness and prayer for the plight of more than 40 million refugees and internally displaced people around the world. It is hoped the day will engage the people of faith worldwide on the issue of displaced people. A number of resource tools have been designed to bring wider awareness to churches on refugee issues and increase their participation in supporting and praying for the displaced. These can be found at http://www.refugeehighway.net/

Source: World Evangelical Alliance

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Australian Prayer Network

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