Archives For Saudi Arabia

Briefing: Offering to pray could get you fired, who values religious freedom?

ib2newseditor —  May 23, 2017

The Briefing

Who values religious freedom, besides U.S.?
Significant differences exist in the importance Americans and Europeans place on certain freedoms, including the right to choose your own religion, according to research from YouGov. Only in the U.S. do more than half (53%) choose the right to pursue a religion of their choice as one of the most important freedoms. The next highest nation is Finland with 37%. Support in all other European nations is below 30%.

Christian leaders praise Trump’s Saudi speech
President Trump’s address in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is garnering significant attention given that it was his first address on an international trip but especially because of its theological overtones while expressing his vision for U.S.-Muslim relations. In his speech, Trump said religious leaders must make clear to their faith’s adherents that “barbarism will deliver you no glory — piety to evil will bring you no dignity. If you choose the path of terror, your life will be empty, your life will be brief, and your soul will be condemned.” Such an explicit theological judgment struck Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, as highly significant.

‘I will pray for you,’ draws personnel warning
Offering to pray for a coworker could get you fired. A Baptist mother of two has filed religious discrimination and retaliation charges against a school system that threatened to fire her for privately telling a coworker she’d pray for him. Attorneys for Toni Richardson, an educational technician with the Augusta (Maine) School Department, are awaiting a response from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regarding the complaint filed May 16.

Planned parenthood clinics falling like dominoes
Planned Parenthood clinics around the country have posted permanent “Closed” signs because of low finances and lack of patients. Clinics in New Mexico, Iowa and Colorado have been experiencing the most shutdowns, because of financial issues. In July, the last Planned Parenthood clinics in North Dakota, Wyoming, and North Dakota are slated to close.

Married lesbians sue Tennessee over spousal definitions
Four married lesbian couples in Tennessee are fighting a new state law they say denies their parental rights. The couples, each expecting a baby this year, filed a lawsuit last week against a law mandating that undefined words in state statutes be interpreted to have “natural and ordinary” meanings. LGBT activists are calling the law “sneaky,” arguing it “clearly targets LGBTQ Tennesseans” by requiring words like “husband,” “wife,” “mother,” and “father” in state law apply only to opposite-sex couples.

Sources: Facts & Trends, The Christian Post, Baptist Press, Conservative Tribune, World Magazine

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The Briefing: Bible class faces legal challenge, Baylor picks female president

ib2newseditor —  April 25, 2017

The Briefing

W.V. Bible class faces legal challenge
For decades Mercer County’s public schools have offered a weekly Bible class during the school day — 30 minutes at the elementary level and 45 minutes in middle school. The program is not mandatory, but almost every child in the district attends. And there is widespread support for the classes: Parents and community members help raise nearly $500,000 a year to pay for the Bible in the Schools program. Now, two county residents with school-age children argue in a lawsuit that the program violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment and the West Virginia constitution.

Baptist Baylor picks first female president
Linda Livingstone succeeds Baylor University’s first non-Baptist president, Kenneth Starr, who was fired last year over the Texas institution’s bungled response to ongoing reports of rape on campus. Livingstone, a former faculty member of Baylor and Pepperdine University, leaves her position as business school dean at George Washington University to become the Waco school’s first female president in its 172-year history.

Porn deemed public health crisis in 5 states
At least five states have officially declared pornography a public health crisis or harmful to the public, and at least one other is considering a similar measure, according to bill updates filed on state legislature websites.

Saudi Arabia elected to UN women’s rights commission
Saudi Arabia was elected to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The addition of the Gulf nation was first flagged by UN Watch, a nongovernmental body that monitors the United Nations. The Commission on the Status of Women’s executive director slammed the election. “Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief,” Hillel Neuer said.

‘John 3:16’ NFL suicide mystery
It wasn’t a suicide note that former NFL star Aaron Hernandez left in his prison cell when he reportedly hanged himself. Instead, the Massachusetts corrections officers who discovered his body Wednesday morning saw “John 3:16” written across Hernandez’s forehead in red ink. A Bible in the cell lay open to the same verse.

Sources: Washington Post, Christianity Today, Baptist Press, The Hill, STL Today

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