Magic Statistics

The building of a HEKAN (Combined Churches of Christ) congregation in Kano State, northern Nigeria, was destroyed in religious rioting in May 2004.  Since then, intimidation by militant Muslims has prevented rebuilding, and the congregation has been forced to meet out in the open.

Last January the district head offered the pastor N800,000 (about £3000) for the land.  Even though the pastor refused the offer, construction of an Islamic school began on the site in November.  The church has now been told to take the money or risk being left with nothing.

Church authorities said today that they have been given little option and stated that the building of the Islamic school is now well underway. They added that if they were to turn down the money, then they may be left with nothing.

The HEKAN church has been one of a number of churches to face either land seizure or building demolition during violence in the Shari’ah states of central and northern Nigeria over the past few years.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s (CSW) Advocacy Director, Tina Lambert, says “It is unacceptable that Christians in Kano State are being treated as second-class citizens in respect of their right to ownership of land and property. This is a clear violation of the country’s federal constitution, which stipulates the right of any Nigerian to own land in any part of the country. We call upon the Federal government to uphold this constitutional provision and we urge the governing authorities of Kano to ensure a just settlement to this unfortunate incident.”

HEKAN is an evangelical Protestant denomination and one of the proprietors of the Theological College of Northern Nigeria.

Muslim-majority Kano State adopted Sharia law in 2000. 

It’s happening near Edmonton.

A cavernous building known as The Warehouse and owned by the nearby Sherwood Park Alliance Church, offers teens on boards and BMX bikes the opportunity to tear up and down its vast interior, as long as they don’t mind hearing about God’s plan for them.
. . .
Not all of the teens will listen, says Wade Gardiner, 26, pastor of youth ministries for the massive Sherwood Park Alliance Church. Some wander off. But Gardiner figures that in the six years since The Warehouse opened, perhaps two dozen youth (whose parents have to sign permission slips for teens to attend) have become “solid” Christians. Another 200 have “made a commitment to change their lives.”

It’s happening across Canada.

According to sociologist Reg Bibby in his book The Boomer Factor: What Canada’s Most Famous Generation is Leaving Behind, participation in mainline Protestant churches has steadily declined.
. . .
“If you talk to the mainliners, many of them will decry the times and say it’s the way religion is going and people are less inclined to be part of organized religion,” says Bibby, who has surveyed Canadian values, including religion, for more than 30 years.

It’s the secularization argument — the one that insists nobody cares about anything anymore except big-screen TVs and avoiding trans fats. The problem with that argument is not everyone is losing worshippers. One religious family, the evangelicals is growing.

Only 31% of mainline church members actually warm a pew on a monthly basis, while among members of theologically conservative denominations (Mennonite, Baptist, Alliance, Pentecostal, etc.), that percentage rises to 73%.  Also, per capita donations are generally much larger among conservative Protestants than in mainline Protestant denominations.

It’s happening in the United States and Great Britain.

As the liberals theologised themselves out of existence (destroying their reason for existing), the void was filled by hundreds of thousands of Bible-toting US Christians eager to swap the turgid relativism and multiculturalism of the past with a more vibrant approach to faith. A poll published this week showed that 73 per cent of Americans believe in God or a supreme being — far more than any of the five other Western countries polled.

In the UK a similar phenomenon is taking place. More than one third of Church of England worshippers is now evangelical, as are more than 80 per cent of the largest churches. But Britain’s evangelical revival is more understated than in the US. The same opinion poll found that just 35 per cent of British adults believed in God or a supreme being. Seven out of ten Britons wanted a separation of Church and State. There are many who believe that it is this separation that has enabled the powerful emergence of religion as a force in US public life.

h/t for both links: Christploitation Newz (An odd name for a Christian news site.  No information is posted as to its origin or sponsorship. I found it via a Google search for religious information.)

Previous related posts:

• “We prefer our priests to be Christian”
• Episcopal Bishop of L.A. gets trounced
• United Church of Canada embraces abject dhimmitude
• Anglican Church of Canada on the road to extinction

Last month, Roman Catholics in Grodno [Hrodna], Belarus, began a hunger strike after waiting in vain for ten years to receive official authorisation for construction of a new church building.  Now the hunger strike has been suspended because the city has said it does not objection to the new building and has given the church permission to request approval from the country’s president.

Parish priest Fr Aleksandr Shemet . . . stressed, however, that this does not mean that Our Lady of Ostrobrama Church has received permission to build. "It will be some time before anything actually happens," Fr Aleksandr explained to Forum 18 from Grodno on 11 December. "The document we have received is approval for us to gather the relevant documents and then ask for final permission from the President – it just means that the Governor and the city authorities endorse our application."

Members of New Life Church, Minsk, launched a widely publicised hunger strike in October when the government was about to demolish its building.  Shortly thereafter, a Belarusian court granted a new hearing.  It was then that Fr Shemet’s parishioners decided on their hunger strike.

State persecution of Christians has engendered practical co-operation among the different denominations.

On 6 December, Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko of Minsk's charismatic New Life Church visited the Grodno Catholics with various Protestant pastors and participants in his congregation's own October hunger-strike (see F18News 3 November 2006). Photographs on New Life's website show a supply of bottled water brought by the visitors, as well as a sign - "New Life Church, Minsk – we are praying for you" - which the Catholics put on display in their chapel.

Photos are posted here.

The government has now announced that visas of Catholic priests and nuns from Poland will not be renewed at the end of the year.  This has raised anxieties for all Belarusian Catholics because about half of the country’s 350 priests are foreign citizens.

Previous related posts:

• Catholics resist Belarusian persecution
• Belarusian court grants Christian church a new hearing
• Belarus: Europe’s most oppressively anti-religious nation

Newly installed Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin has opted to comply with the state Supreme Court ruling to implement health and retirement benefits for same-sex partners of state employees.  Last month the state Legislature voted against compliance and ordered a state-wide referendum on the issue to be held on 3 April.  The legislature then asked the court to approve delaying implementation pending the outcome of the referendum.

A few days ago, the court reaffirmed its ruling with the original implementation date of 1 January, and Gov Palin decided the state had run out of options for the time being.

"We believe that we have no more judicial options to pursue. So we may disagree with kind of the foundation there, the rationale behind the ruling, but our responsibility is to proceed forward with the law and abide by the constitution," Palin said.

But ultimately, she said, she supports denying those benefits through a constitutional amendment, if that's what the public wants.

Palin said she agreed with the Legislature that it's time to seek public opinion on this. On Wednesday, as news reporters looked on, Palin signed a bill that calls for an advisory vote on whether the Alaska Constitution should be amended to ban such benefits.

The referendum will be non-binding on legislators.  Any proposed constitutional amendment must first be passed by two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state Legislature, and that presently appears doubtful.  If such a proposal does go to the people for a formal vote, the earliest it could appear on the ballot is November 2008.

This week's Alaska Supreme Court decision arose from a challenge by the ACLU and co-plaintiffs to proposed regulations governing same-sex benefits.  Plaintiffs specifically objected to a provision that same-sex partners be required to swear that they have been in “exclusive, committed and intimate relationships” for at least one year.  Because this requirement is not imposed on married heterosexual couples, they claimed discrimination.

The state Supreme Court rejected plaintiffs’ claim, saying that the ruling in favour of same-sex benefits did not confer on plaintiffs the right to fine-tune regulations to their liking.

[A]bsent a basis for finding bad faith, discriminatory intent, or clear facial invalidity, we hold that the regulations adopted by the state must be accorded the usual presumption of constitutionality and must be reviewed under the test that applies when a regulation is challenged on non-constitutional grounds: as long as the regulations attempt to offer the benefits mandated by our opinion in a rational and non-arbitrary manner, they must be approved.

The full ruling can be downloaded here (pdf).

h/t for Alaska government links: MarriageDebate.com

Previous related post: Alaska legislature defies state Supreme Court over same-sex benefits

Christmas trees.

People need not fear Christmas trees or other holiday symbols, Premier Dalton McGuinty says.
. . .
McGuinty said he hopes something like common sense prevails in the case of the Christmas tree that was banished from the lobby of a Jarvis St. courthouse by a judge concerned it would offend non-Christians.

h/t: National News Watch