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Fallout continues from the Malaysian government’s decision to reserve the word "Allah" for the exclusive use of Muslims, even though Arabic-speaking Christians have been calling God Allah for centuries.  An evangelical Christian church and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur have sued the government.

A Malaysian church has sued the government for banning the import of Christian books containing the word "Allah," alleging it is unconstitutional and against freedom of religion.

The Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo is also challenging the government for declaring that the word "Allah" - which means God in the Malay language - can only be used exclusively by Muslims, the church's lawyer, Lim Heng Seng, said Thursday.

The leader of the opposition in Malaysia’s parliament points out that Christians have been using the word "Allah" since before Islam came to exist.

"Malaysia is probably the only nation where the term Allah by Christians to refer to God is prohibited," parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said in a statement, adding that the term was never banned even in the Middle East.

"The term Allah was used to refer to God by Arabic-speaking Christians before Arabic-speaking Muslims existed," he said.

The government clampdown could force Kuala Lumpur-based "Herald - the Catholic Weekly" newspaper to lose its publishing permit if it failed to drop the word Allah in its publication, the publisher said.

The publisher, the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, said on Thursday it had filed a lawsuit challenging the state order.

Malaysian Christians regard the edict as further evidence that the government caters to the Muslim population at the expense of the rights of Christians and other religious minorities.

Previous related posts:

• Malaysian Catholic newspaper told to stop using the word “Allah”
• Egyptian and Malaysian governments disapprove of Bibles
• Malaysian media forbidden to report debate over Islamic state
• Secret Christian converts in Malaysia

UPDATE (30 Dec.): The government has backed down.

The Anglican Province of Central Africa may have sacked The Rt Rev Nolbert Kunonga as Bishop of Mugabe Harare, but the news doesn’t seem to have registered with all Zimbabwe Anglicans.

Two months ago, The Rt Rev Dr Sebastian Bakare, retired Bishop of Manicaland, was appointed acting Bishop of Harare for a year while a permanent replacement is found.  Earlier this week, services in at least two Harare parishes were disrupted by supporters of Bp Kunonga.  Police had to be called to both churches.

Anglican parishioners in Marlborough, Harare, had to abandon their Christmas church service on Tuesday when a row erupted between supporters of the former bishop of Harare diocese, Nolbert Kunonga. and its interim head, Bishop Sebastian Bakare.

Eyewitnesses said a priest suspected of being an agent of the government's Central Intelligence Organization beat up a parishioner who was praying for the well-being of Bishop Bakare, and the service was abandoned after police were called in.

Some congregation members said they have resolved to stop collecting offerings.

The Borrowdale, Harare, Anglican church was also said to have been in an uproar on Sunday when the head of the parish barred Bishop Bakare from leading mass, resulting in intervention by the police.

Last month, Bp Kunonga forged correspondence stating that Bp Bakare rejected the appointment because the pay and perks were inadequate and got the story published in the Mugabe mouthpiece The Harare Herald.

Bp Bakare blames church leadership, including Archbishop of Central Africa Bernard Malango, for allowing Kunonga to hang on as bishop for as long as he did.

Previous related posts:

• Bishop Kunonga: Church must support Mugabe policies
• Bishop Kunonga blocked food shipments to Zimbabwe
• Anglican bishops support Mugabe after Catholics call for his departure
• Bishop cancels Sunday services for his anniversary
• Renegade Anglican bishop in Zimbabwe

UPDATE (29 Dec.): Last night, police broke up a fight at another Anglican church in Harare.

podBible software installs the text of the New Testament (English Standard Version) on your iPod video, iPod Nano, or iPod Classic.  It comes in Mac and Windows versions.

Best of all, it’s free.

h/t: Thinking Christian

The ruins of a 1500-year-old Christian church were discovered in the Iraqi desert south-west of Baghdad in the 1970s.  Now a government expert in antiquities is trying to raise funds to preserve and restore the Al-Aqiser church.

"It is a place of worship, a church, and without doubt, the oldest church of the East," said Hussein Yasser, the head of the antiquities department of the province of Karbala.

"According to our research, it was build 120 years before the emergence of Islam in the region," Yasser said as he took an AFP correspondent on a tour of the site.

Islam emerged in the Arabian peninsula in 622, or, by Yasser's account, 15 years after Al-Aqiser was built in a region teeming with Christian tribes.

In time, Karbala overshadowed it and became a key Muslim Shiite pilgrimage destination, while across the region Christian communities began to recede.

Deserted by its worshippers, Al-Aqiser slowly sank into the sands and would have been totally forgotten had it not been for a team of Iraqi archeologists who stumbled on its ruins in the 1970s.

The church was built facing Jerusalem with foundations measuring 75 metres long by 15 metres wide.

An archway with inscriptions in Syriac has already been excavated.  Mr Yasser is convinced that an ancient city lies buried beneath the sands.

Previous related post: Iraq’s chief archaeologist quits, flees religious persecution

The collect for today, the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O Almighty God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths; Mortify and kill all vice in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For The Epistle: Revelation 14:1-5
The Gospel: St Matthew 2:13-18

Today is an appropriate day to remember the victims of abortion. 

More on The Holy Innocents here.

Artwork: Matteo di Giovanni, Massacre of the Innocents, 1488, Oil on canvas, Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples.