NICOSIA, Cyprus (ABP) – A satellite television network for and run by Christians in the Middle East said Feb. 24 that programming thought to have been blocked by Libya has been restored.

Officials at SAT-7, a network targeted to minority Christian communities in the Middle East and North Africa, said Feb. 23 they do not believe their programming was the target. Rather it is suspected the Libyan government wanted to scramble broadcasts from Al Jazeera, which shares a satellite with SAT-7, to block coverage of the country’s current political unrest.

The interference affected two SAT-7 packages — SAT-7 Arabic and SAT-7 kids, the newest of four SAT-7 network options started in 2007 as the first and only Arabic Christian channel exclusively for children.

About 300 million Arabic-speaking peoples live in the Middle East and North Africa, and about half have access to satellite TV. Though predominantly Muslim, many countries have indigenous Christian populations. Some have been around for centuries and trace their history to the time of Jesus’ apostles. Others are newer, the product of modern missionaries from the West.

Only a small number of Libyans are Christians, but there are many expatriate Christians, especially Coptic Christians from Egypt, still inside the country.

“SAT-7 is concerned that the ongoing signal jamming will deny its viewers, both young and old alike, access to a much needed source of encouragement and hope through these turbulent times,” officials said in a press release.

The press release asked international partners to “continue to pray during this time of distress and uncertainty for so many nations” and that SAT-7 would be able to continue “broadcasting messages of life, peace and hope … to millions of viewers during this critical time.“

Not all broadcasting frequencies used by SAT-7 were affected. Officials estimated that about 8 million viewers were denied access.

Launched in 1996 as the dream of a British Christian publisher named Terence Ascott, SAT-7 is governed by an international board of directors, the majority of whom must be local Christian leaders living in the Middle East or North Africa.

The network has about 140 Middle Eastern Christians working in ministry offices and studios in Cyprus, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt. The Lebanon office is next door to Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut. Fund-raising offices are located in Europe, the UK, Canada and the United States . 

International SAT-7 partners include BMS World Mission in the UK and American Baptist Churches USA in North America.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press. 

NORMAN, Okla. (ABP) — As the Middle East writhes in birth pains to deliver something yet undefined, a scholar who specializes in faith and global politics says Christians in America can support the progress toward freedom by encouraging their own government to speak boldly on behalf of the values that Arab populations are risking their lives to obtain.

Charles Kimball, author of "When Relgion Becomes Evil," has long studied and written about the intersection of faith and politics.

Christians in America should push their representatives to advocate strongly for human rights and freedoms of conscience and expression, says Charles Kimball, who has counseled American presidents on Middle Eastern affairs since he negotiated with the Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iranian hostage crisis that started in November 1979. He said this is no time to support autocratic leaders whose continued reign might better serve America’s pragmatic interests.

Christians in America are part of the global Church, “connected to Christians everywhere,” said Kimball, presidential professor and director of religious studies at Oklahoma University. “We are part of the body of Christ that transcends national boundaries.”

As part of a global fellowship, he said Christians should seek to know and understand their brothers and sisters around the world,  including the 15-17 million Arabic speaking Christians who need advocates in their drive for universally recognized human rights.

The U.S. government has a lot of influence when it tells the Egyptian government “Don’t even think of turning guns on these people,” Kimball said in a phone interview Feb. 22 from his office. “We ought to be telling our government to stand up for human rights, to stand up for universally recognized freedoms.”

“The more the U.S. lines up our behavior with our rhetoric the more we’ll see people from all over the world rushing to our side,” said Kimball, a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and former professor at Wake Forest and Furman universities.

Kimball, whose book When Religion Becomes Evil explores five signs that religion is going bad, says no one knows what form emerging Arab governance will take. Initial results might not be the precise form Americans prefer, but no one made the U.S. “boss of the world,” he said.

Kimball compared the situation to current economics, saying the world economy is in a place it’s never been and historical trends are no indication of the future in a fast changing world.

Watching people of similar language and nationality but of different faiths link arms to protect each other during dramatically different prayers “ought to make us doubly sensitive to the way we protect the rights of Muslims in the U.S.,” said Kimball.

Kimball, who has studied impact at the collision of religion and politics all of his career, which includes seven years as director of the Middle East office at the National Council of Churches, said the demonstrations and peoples’ revolt are “for the most part, not anchored in religious theology.”

Instead, it is young people who long for freedom from human rights abuses that most people cherish in western nations.

Against fears that antagonistic Islamic governments will arise from the rubble of failed Arab dictatorships, the large majority of demonstrators “were not there longing for some kind of Islamic state,” they were simply seeking “a real say in a governing structure,” Kimball said.

Many variables will determine what that final governing structure will be, including religion, but also the military, economics and models such as U.S. style democracy if the U.S. advocates for it – and models it.

“I’m very confident that over time democracy and freedom work and we have to be on the side of democracy and freedom,” said Kimball, who lived in Egypt 1977-78. “As we see in our own country, democracy can be very messy at times.”

“A new form of tyranny is not going to be accepted,” he said. “That’s really the dramatic news that’s coming out of all this. I think the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is getting the memo.”

“The genie is out of the bottle” feeding the hunger for democracy, Kimball said. Even in “the phony presidential election process” in Iran in 2009 the massive outpouring of voters proved the innate hunger for self-determination.

“There is a lot more hope for democracy, even in Iran, than people in the West give credit,” he said. “This is not a bottle you can cap back up very easily. We may see some things we don’t like in the short term, and there is a lot of frustration toward the U.S. because our behavior hasn’t been supportive and we’ve been sometimes standing with the wrong people.”

An American advantage and potential contribution to the Middle East as nations there struggle to define “what next” is that America has 300 years of “working out how to live with diversity, pluralism and civility in a way most of the world hasn’t had to do but which is now having to do,” Kimball said.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — India's Supreme Court amended a ruling upholding a life-in-prison sentence for two men convicted of murdering a Baptist missionary and his two young sons 12 years ago by removing language that critics said appeared to condone vigilante violence intended to "teach a lesson" against proselytizing among the nation's tribal poor.

On Jan. 21 the Supreme Court upheld life sentences for Dara Singh and Mahendra Hembram. They were convicted of burning Staines, 58, and his sons Philip, 9, and Timothy, 7, alive while they slept in a van outside a church in Koenjhar district of Orissa, eastern India, on Jan. 22, 1999.

Declining to reinstate the death penalty for one of the killers, the 76-page judgment stated that "there is no justification for people committing conversions on the premise that one religion is better than the other."

In a paragraph explaining why they declined to reinstate a death penalty awarded by a jury in 2003 but commuted to life sentences two years later, the justices opined:

"In the case in hand, though Graham Staines and his two minor sons were burnt to death while they were sleeping inside a station wagon at Manoharpur, the intention was to teach a lesson to Graham Staines about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals to Christianity."

The language prompted protest among Indian Christians, who claimed it "de-legitimized" their constitutional right to profess, practice and propagate their faith. One group wrote an open letter Jan. 25 objecting to "gratuitous observations" and language "that seems to acknowledge vigilante action of criminals like Dara Singh who take upon themselves ‘to teach lessons’ to persons serving lepers and the poor."

Bowing to the pressure, the court changed its reasoning to the fact that 12 years has passed since the act was committed and that it could find no reason to enhance the sentence "in view of the factual position discussed in earlier paragraphs" of the ruling.

Staines moved to India from Australia in 1965 and for 34 years ran a leprosy home in the Mayurbhanj district about 900 miles southeast of New Delhi. Fanatic Hindu groups accused Staines of using the home as a cover for proselytizing, but independent investigations following the murders did not turn up any evidence that was true.

Church groups blamed growing intolerance against Christians in Orissa, the same state where violence against Christians broke out again in 2008. Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, condemned those attacks and pledged to "respond meaningfully to the needs and concerns of those who have suffered and will make the appropriate representations to make the case for respect for religious freedom in India."

In 1999, then BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz attributed the Staines' slayings to "religious intolerance and fanaticism, not only in India, but worldwide."

"Baptist Christians need to be in the forefront of defending religious freedom, but more than this, we must teach our own people the need for tolerance and respect for one another's cultures and traditions," Lotz said. "We must discuss with leaders of various religions the need for dignity respect and peaceful coexistence."

A BWA spokesman did not respond to a request for comment in time to be included in this story.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — Baptist leaders called for global prayer for peacemaking efforts and for churches and communities affected by ethnic strife in northeast India.

According to the Baptist World Alliance, the Garo Baptist Convention mobilized relief efforts to temporary camps set up for an estimated 50,000 people displaced by fighting between two tribal groups that began Jan. 1.

"Many villages have been torched and people left homeless," reported Wanne Garrey of the Garo Baptist Convention. She said church leaders were "trying their best to calm down the situation."

At least 10 people have died and an estimated 2,000 houses burned in serious conflict between the Garo and Rabha communities in the border area of Meghalaya and Assam states in northeast India.

Meghalaya is one of three Indian states with a Christian majority. More than 70 percent of inhabitants are practicing Christians. That includes a sizeable Baptist community. The Garo Baptist Convention has more than 2,500 churches and nearly 250,000 baptized members. Baptist history in the area dates to the work of American Baptist missionaries that began in 1836.

Rettair Momin, general secretary of the Garo Baptist Convention, sent out an urgent prayer request for the situation Jan. 6.

Atungo Shitri, secretary of the Justice and Peace Department of the Council of Baptist Churches in North East India, immediately organized a delegation to visit the affected area.

"We are going to meet with the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police, and appeal to them to provide adequate security to affected villages," Shitri said in a Jan. 7 e-mail to Benjamin Chan of American Baptist Churches USA International Ministries. "If the situation allows, we will also visit the two communities and offer relief assistance and peaceful solution."

Debbie Mulneix, International Ministries' liaison to churches of India and Nepal, was reported safe as she traveled in Assam.

According to Indian media, about 12,500 people have returned to their villages after spending more than a week in relief camps. A curfew in the area was lifted Jan. 19. 

WACO (ABP) — After devoting years to counseling countless young victims of sex trafficking in Southeast Asia, Sok (whose full name, like others in this story, is not being used to protect his safety) had grown weary and frustrated.

On the one hand, he had helped numerous girls through their fears of rejection by their families and their communities. Many had been freed from the clutches of the trafficking industry and reunited with their families.

Jennifer Smyer, director of the Baylor GML program, says graduates of the program will “bring far more healing to their country, far more restoration to their land than we ever could as outsiders.”

On the other hand, Sok felt the helplessness of battling the increasing number of trafficking victims while the ages of the victims steadily dropped – with some as young as 6. He wanted to do something “bigger and better” to counter the problem. While the need for preventative programs was evident, he also recognized the limitations of his work as a counselor.

Sok found an answer in a new master’s program at Baylor University’s School of Social Work and George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas. The Global Mission Leadership initiative (GML) is specifically designed to equip international students like Sok who have the desire and leadership potential to affect change at the national level in their home countries. The program is funded in part by a grant from the Henry Luce foundation.

Now in its second year, the GML program offers a master’s of social work degree with the option of an additional theological studies degree. Each student makes a commitment to return to his or her home country to be a catalyst for national transformation on an important social issue.

Graduates of the program will “bring far more healing to their country, far more restoration to their land than we ever could as outsiders,” says GML Director Jennifer Smyer. “Sometimes having education from the West will put someone ‘on the map’ in their own country at a level of power or prestige that can open doors” for widespread social change, she adds.  

Traditional education & leadership training

The GML initiative includes courses designed to enable students to build bridges between what they learn in the classroom and ways to apply that knowledge to meet needs in their home countries. In one course, a cross-cultural seminar, students meet every week to discuss what they learned in their classes and how that information is relevant to the challenges they will face back home.  In a research-and-strategic-planning course, students examine a basic social problem in their country and decide what they what they would do about it if they were in a position of power.

The key, says Smyer, is to analyze the root causes of stubborn social problems like sex trafficking, AIDS, poverty and hunger: “We have to pause and say, ‘Why is this happening?’”

Smyer says the need internationally for social workers with advanced training and leadership skills is tremendous.

Jennifer Smyer, director of the Baylor GML program.

While social-work education is common in the United States, that is not the case in many countries around the world. During a recent fact-finding trip to Southeast Asia, she was told by an agency worker in one nation that the country has fewer than three social workers with a master’s level education in social work. When two GML graduates return to work in that nation, they could have a tremendous impact.

Church partners

That vision has also captured the imagination and support of several Baptist churches.

Tom Ogburn, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, saw the potential in one student before she even knew about the GML program.

Esther grew up in a Southeast Asian country that is predominantly Buddhist and divided geographically into several ethnic tribes.  

Esther’s ethnic tribe is primarily Christian. “I accepted Christ in Sunday school camp and grew up with Christian friends,” she says. “We were very comfortable in our own place.”

When she was 12, her father decided to minister to another tribe that was, according to Esther, “99 percent Buddhist.”  She had to learn a new language, go to a new school, and get to know people with a different religion. “Out of 5,000 students, only two or three of us were Christians,” she says.  

As she got older, Esther helped her father minister to children who lived on the street, offering free education to 5-year-olds while also introducing them to the Christian Scriptures.

Working with the children put a “burning desire” in Esther to meet her people’s spiritual and social needs and to find ways to help them out of poverty.  

After graduating from a Bible college in India, she recognized the need for further education.  Although her first choice was to study in America, she had settled on a school in the Philippines.   

Then she met Ogburn at a school she was visiting in Singapore.

Ogburn, who had earlier spent five years as a missionary to Southeast Asia, had formed relationships with refugees who were from Esther’s ethnic tribe. Fleeing the conflict and chaos in their country, the refugees had settled in Oklahoma City.

“Oklahoma City is one of the ‘off-ramps’ on the ‘refugee highway,’” says Ogburn.  “As they come to the United States, it’s one of the places that has shown hospitality [to them] in the past.”

A group from Esther’s ethnic tribe already worshiped with First Baptist, but Ogburn wanted to go further, to work with the several thousand refugees in Southeast Asia before they came to America.  

“We had no idea of the numbers [of refugees] until we visited,” he says. “When we talked with the leaders, we began to understand the scale of what was going on, the vast need.”

When he met Esther, Ogburn immediately recognized another way for the church to make a difference. First Baptist decided to support Esther’s training through the GML program as a part of its commitment to global missions.

“If we can train young men and women who can go back and empower the church,” he says, “it can change the whole story of a nation.”

To help finance Esther’s education, Ogburn put the word out to other churches.  Jeff Raines, associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas, offered help.

Through Esther, Ogburn says, these two American churches can “touch a part of the world we could never reach on our own.”

Ogburn hopes to see this partnership as the first of many in which churches get involved in supporting advanced training for national leaders.

“This is, for me, the face of missions,” he says. “It lets us engage with national believers who can go back and change their nation. Truly, it extends the mission of the church.”

–Kristine Davis is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at Baylor University.

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABP) — A delegation of 12 American Baptist leaders recently returned from a 13-day study tour in the Middle East. Goals of the trip included helping American Baptists become more familiar with the life of the church in the Middle East, learning how Christians and Muslims in the Middle East are building bridges in the face of the rise of radical Islam and better understanding the forces at play that make the Holy Land a powder keg.

Roy Medley

Roy Medley, general secretary of American Baptist Churches USA described the Nov. 28-Dec. 13 trip as "an excellent learning experience."

Highlights of the trip included a day-long visit with Prince Ghazi, a member of the royal family of Jordan, at a recently opened center on the Jordan River marking the spot where Jesus is believed to have been baptized.

Medley delivered a major address Dec. 2 to a predominantly Sunni Muslim crowd about Baptists' role in defending religious liberty in the United States.

The tour began with intensive study at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut facilitated by author Colin Chapman, an expert on Christian-Muslim relations in the Middle East. Prior to making the trip the Americans read books including Chapman's Cross and Crescent and Blood Brothers by Elias Chador.

In addition to dialogue with Muslims, the group had opportunities to interact with Arab Christians in the Middle East. "It is clear that our Arab sisters and brothers need our continued prayers as they faithfully strive to serve Christ under extreme and challenging conditions that tear apart their daily lives," the group stated in a press release.

One message driven home more than once was that when derogatory or inflammatory statements are made about Islam in the West, the churches in the East suffer as radicals use those statements to inflame others.

Medley said delegates also came away keenly aware of negative effects of Christian Zionism — a view that Israel has absolute right to the land because the Bible says so — and the complexities of U.S. policies in the region.

In a blog written on the road Dec. 5, Medley said the path to peace and reconciliation in the Mideast is not an easy one.

"The attitudes towards Israel vary from 'we can never accept its existence' to 'we can live with Israel as a state if there is justice for the Palestinians,'" he wrote. "The appeal for justice for Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, demands our attention."

"Just as Christians do not accept uncritically every action of our government as in accord with our faith, nor can we accept every action of Israel as worthy of support," Medley said. "As U.S. Christians we are rightly challenged to develop a more balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the justice issues present in those communities."

The group said it found a "genuine desire" among many Islamic leaders for improved relations between Muslims and Christians. Arab Baptist Theological Seminary received high marks for its efforts to promote dialogue and reconciliation between the two faith communities.

While dialogue among religious leaders and scholars is important, participants agreed the real need is to get similar conversations going on in villages and communities to bring people together locally to better understand one another and work together for the good of all.

"I came on the trip with an open mind, wanting to learn as much as I could," said participant June Peters, "but there is much more to learn and much more work to be done in this part of the world."

LONDON (ABP) — Residents of Gaza see no hope for a brighter future — and that's one of the most distressing aspects of the situation in the Middle East, according to an international Christian aid-and-development group’s advocacy officer for the region.

Hanan Elmasu of the United Kingdom-based organization Christian Aid worked on a new briefing detailing the impact of Israel's measures to ease the blockade of Gaza after six months.

Elmasu, a regular visitor to Gaza, told the British Baptist newspaper The Baptist Times, “Life for Gaza civilians is very traumatic. There is very little economic activity, high unemployment and much of the population are dependent on handouts.”

She continued: “I’ve been going to Gaza for several years and have seen how life has changed. What’s distressing is the destruction of the people there. There used to be a glimmer of hope but now there is an inability of people to plan for the future. Parents can’t provide for their children, children aren’t going to school because of a lack of construction materials and you put all that together and it's a hopeless position.”

Christian Aid was part of an international coalition of 22 development, human-rights and peace-building organizations that compiled a report looking at the effects of Israel's measures to ease the blockade of Gaza. The Israeli government announced in June that it would soften the blockade to improve conditions in the tiny, densely populated strip of land that hugs the Mediterranean between Israel and Egypt.

The report, Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the Gaza Blockade, says that little has changed for Gaza's 1.5 million residents, because “not only has Israel neglected to address major elements of the blockade in its easing measures, such as lifting the ban on exports from Gaza, but it has failed so far to live up to key commitments it did make.”

For instance, Israel promised to expand and accelerate imports of construction materials for U.N. and other international projects such as schools, health centers, houses and sewage plants. Many of those facilities were damaged or destroyed during the military attacks Israel launched on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. 

But in reality progress has been “slow and limited” since Israel’s pledge, says the report.

An average of only 715 truckloads of construction materials have entered the Gaza Strip per month since the easing announcement. The United Nations has estimated that Gaza needs 670,000 truckloads of construction materials for housing alone.

Exports from Gaza remain banned, which continues to “cripple” the local economy, while the movement of people has also seen little change, adds the report.

The coalition is calling for renewed international action to ensure “an immediate, unconditional and complete lifting of the blockade.”

Israeli officials have criticized the report, saying the groups — many of them international Christian organizations — that compiled it are politically disposed in favor of the Palestinians and against Israel.

"The claims of the organizations, as they appear in the report, are biased and distorted and therefore mislead the public," Maj. Guy Inbar, spokesman for Israel's Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories, told CNN shortly after the report was released Nov. 30.

"The number of truckloads entering the Gaza Strip every day via the Kerem Shalom Crossing has increased by 92 percent," Inbar said. "Despite the fact that Israel has increased the capacity so that 250 trucks could enter Gaza every day, the Palestinians themselves have not reached this capacity. From the beginning of August 2010, the average number of truckloads entering Gaza each day stands at 176."

But the report notes that, although Israel has allowed more goods into Gaza since June, it's not enough to repair the damage done by the 2008 and 2009 raids.

–Paul Hobson is news editor of The Baptist Times , the weekly newspaper of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. ABP Managing Editor Robert Marus contributed to this story.

Read more:

Report on efforts to ease Gaza blockade

Related ABP stories:

Interfaith leaders urge Obama to act quickly on Middle East peace (1/22/2009)

Baptist groups send aid to Gaza victims (1/8/2009)

Gaza Baptist Church caught in crossfire (1/6/2009)

NEW YORK (RNS)—A United Nations committee has adopted a resolution combating the "vilification of religions," but religious freedom advocates who oppose the measure say support for it continues to diminish.

The resolution by Islamic countries is scheduled to be considered by the U.N. General Assembly in December.

The vote — 76 yes, 64 no, and 42 abstentions — received fewer affirmative votes than last year, said Freedom House, a human rights group that has worked against the resolution.

"We are disappointed that this pernicious resolution has passed yet again, despite strong evidence that legal measures to restrict speech are both ineffective and a direct violation of freedom of expression," said Paula Schriefer, director of advocacy at Freedom House.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent bipartisan panel, said the measure's diminished support shows some countries think the resolution can do more harm than good.

"Religious intolerance is best fought through efforts to encourage respect for every individual's human rights, not through national or international anti-blasphemy laws," said USCIRF Chair Leonard Leo.

Days before its passage, the Organization of the Islamic Conference relabeled the resolution as condemning "vilification of religions" instead of "defamation of religions," but U.S. officials and advocates continued to oppose it.

"We are disappointed to see that despite our efforts and discussions on this resolution, the text once again seems to take us farther apart, rather than helping to bridge the historical divides," said John F. Sammis, an official of the U.S. Mission to the U.N., told the committee considering the resolution. "Most importantly, the resolution still seeks to curtail and penalize speech."

WASHINGTON (ABP) — In the latest edition of its annual report on global food insecurity, a Christian anti-hunger group praised efforts by President Obama’s administration to battle world hunger but warned that cutting food aid due to budget concerns would be short-sighted.

“Hunger both abroad and at home is no longer a problem of technological capability or the knowledge of what we need to do or even an understanding of how we should integrate nutrition into agricultural development … but it is fundamentally a problem of collective action and leadership,” Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, said at a Nov. 22 press conference marking the release of Bread for the World’s 2011 Hunger Report.

An agricultural irrigation canal in Haiti, built with funds from USAID. (USAID photo)

“The report highlights some huge opportunities," Shah said. "It also highlights, if we’re being honest, some huge deficiencies.”

The report praised Feed the Future, a USAID program launched earlier this year to coordinate the government’s efforts to fight malnutrition and food insecurity.

“Feed the Future, a bold new U.S. initiative, may be the best opportunity to come along in decades for the United States to contribute to lasting progress against global hunger and malnutrition,” the report says. “It should have the strong support of the U.S. public.”

The program helps coordinate the government’s efforts in food aid and agricultural development. It comes partially in response to a spike in food prices that contributed, along with a global economic downturn, to a dramatic increase in world hunger in recent years. Bread for the World said chronic hunger affected an estimated billion people in 2009, compared to 847 million in 2005-2007. While that number decreased to 925 million in 2010, the report says that recent instability in food prices means the figure could increase again.

Bread for the World President David Beckmann said Feed the Future and coordinated efforts by other governments around the globe offer an unprecedented opportunity to make a significant dent in chronic hunger.

A Zambian mother and child, from Bread for the World’s 2011 Hunger Report. (Bread for the World photo)

“Our job is usually to push government officials to do a better job for hungry and poor people, but this report is a 200-page hurray,” he said. “I’m really proud and gratified that our government is leading an international initiative that is responding in the right way to the big increase in hunger and poverty that we’ve seen over the past few years.”

Beckmann said Feed the Future “is smart … to get the world to invest more in the productivity of poor farmers, because these high food prices are really tough on poor people as consumers, but they’re also an opportunity for poor farmers if they can get the support that they need to respond to high food prices with increased production — and that way they can contribute to the solution to the problem and at the same time increase their own incomes.”

But, amid record budget deficits and a political climate in which many in Congress are clamoring for dramatic cuts to federal spending, Beckmann warned that cuts to anti-hunger programs would be foolish.

“The amount of money that we need in order to continue U.S. leadership in reducing world hunger is microscopic in relation to the U.S. federal budget — but that amount of money is really important to millions o poor people around the world,” he said. “And it is also important to our national security.”

The hunger report was co-sponsored by several Baptist groups that support Bread for the World, including the American Baptist Churches USA, Baptist World Aid and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. It includes a study guide for church groups to use in exploring issues around hunger and poverty.

Read more:

Bread for the World 2011 Hunger Report

Previous ABP story:

Global downturn necessitates redoubling of U.S. anti-poverty efforts, report says (11/25/2008)

SANTA ANA, Calif. (ABP) — A local government in Myanmar ordered a Baptist church to cease worship services after the pastor refused to wear an election campaign T-shirt supporting the country's ruling military junta, Compass Direct News reported Nov. 18.

The California-based news service that monitors violations of religious liberty against Christians said election officials in the western Chin state, which borders India, summoned 47-year-old Pastor Mang Tling of Dawdin village on Nov. 9, two days after Myanmar's elections, and ordered him to stop holding services and discontinue the church nursery program.

Citing a report by the Chin Human Rights Organization, the news agency said the pastor had refused to wear an election campaign T-shirt supporting the government's Union Solidarity and Development Party. The United Nations has condemned Myanmar's Nov. 7 election as neither free nor fair.

The Chin Human Rights Organization works against human rights abuses, including religious discrimination, for the Chin people, a minority group estimated to be 90 percent Christian.

The group reports a long history of discrimination against the Chin that includes destruction of crosses and other Christian monuments, state-sponsored efforts to expand Buddhism, arrest and detention and torture. Leaders reserve particularly harsh treatment for pastors. Officials have refused construction for all new church building projects since 2003.

News of the alleged harassment comes amid cautious optimism that the Nov. 13 release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest might signal improved human rights for minorities in the country also known as Burma. The Baptist World Alliance applauded the move, citing Baptists' long history of missionary work in Myanmar.

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Michael Posner called her release "a positive step" but pointed out there are more than 2,100 political prisoners in Burma, including many monks and other religious leaders.

The State Department ranks Myanmar as one of the world's worst offenders in failure to protect religious freedom. Though it has no official state religion, Burma's government actively promotes Theravada Buddhism over other religions and restricts religious activities by Christian, Islamic and non-sanctioned Buddhist minorities, the State Department said in a major report on religious freedom released Nov. 17.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous ABP stories:

U.S. opposes U.N. ban on defamation of religion (11/18)

Baptists hail release of Burmese democratic leader (11/18)

WASHINGTON (ABP) — The United States continues to oppose a proposed ban on defamation of religion currently before the United Nations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Nov. 17.

"Now, some people propose that to protect religious freedom, we must ban speech that is critical or offensive about religion," Clinton said while announcing release of an annual report monitoring the state of religious freedom around the world. "We do not agree."

The secretary's comment came as the U.N. General Assembly prepared to consider a "Defamation of Religions Resolution" adopted by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Backed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an association of 56 Islamic states promoting Muslim solidarity, the proposed resolution targets systematic defamation of Islam and discrimination against Muslims, including ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Groups that advocate on behalf of persecuted Christian minorities around the globe contend the resolution is in essence an "international blasphemy law" that could be used to criminalize the practice of any religion besides Islam in countries that are predominantly Muslim.

A study by Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights, found that domestic blasphemy laws are responsible for broad violations of human rights, particularly when applied in weak democracies and authoritarian systems.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal body created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, takes the position that defamation laws do not solve problems of religious persecution and discrimination but in fact do more harm than good.

Pakistan first introduced a bill at the U.N. on the "Defamation of Islam" in 1999. Opponents cite Pakistan of an example of what can go wrong with blasphemy laws. A court there recently sentenced a 45-year-old Christian mother of five to death by hanging for allegedly defaming the Prophet Muhammad in an argument with fellow farm workers who were Muslims.

The U.N. has adopted a non-binding resolution on defamation of religion every year since 2005, but the last two years it passed by a plurality of votes rather than a majority. Opponents note that the resolution focuses on only one religion and suggest a broader perspective would win wider support. The U.S. has argued that prohibiting speech is not the way to promote tolerance.

"The United States joins in all nations coming together to condemn hateful speech, but we do not support the banning of that speech," Secretary of State Clinton said in her Nov. 17 remarks. "Indeed, freedom of speech and freedom of religion emanate from the same fundamental belief that communities and individuals are enriched and strengthened by a diversity of ideas, and attempts to stifle them or drive them underground, even when it is in the name and with the intention of protecting society, have the opposite effect."

"Societies in which freedom of religion and speech flourish are more resilient, more stable, more peaceful, and more productive," she said. "We have seen this throughout history. And as this report reflects, we see it in the world today."

The State Department report monitors 198 countries on matters concerning religious freedom. It gives special attention to "Countries of Particular Concern" that have "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom" during the reporting period.

Burma, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, People's Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan all currently carry the CPC designation. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommends the addition of Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

Michael Posner, assistant secretary with the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said designating Countries of Particular Concern is a separate exercise from the report, and that those decisions would be made during the next couple of months.

The State Department's religious-freedom report does not include a listing for the U.S. Secretary Clinton said that is because the Department of Justice monitors threats to religious freedom inside the country and issues reports throughout the year.

"With this report, we do not intend to act as a judge of other countries or hold ourselves out as a perfect example, but the United States cares about religious freedom," Clinton said. "We have worked hard to enforce religious freedom. We want to see religious freedom available universally. And we want to advocate for the brave men and women who around the world persist in practicing their beliefs in the face of hostility and violence."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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2010 Report on International Religious Freedom

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — A Baptist pastor in Baghdad told a European Baptist leader that Christians there are living in fear following an Oct. 31 attack on a Catholic church in Iraq's capital that left more than 50 dead.

Security forces stormed the Our Lady of Salvation Chaldean Catholic Church, where more than 100 worshippers who gathered for evening mass were being held hostage by gunmen who reportedly demanded the release of jailed al-Qaeda militants.

While there have been many attacks on Iraqi Christians since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the Oct. 31 incident was by far the bloodiest and will likely expedite the exodus of Christians of various denominations in Iraq that have dwindled from an estimated 1 million in size to 600,000 or less.

Tony Peck, general secretary of the European Baptist Federation, said the pastor of the Baptist Church in Baghdad informed him that the "Christian community is now very fearful for its safety."

"Some of the Baptist believers are talking about moving away from Baghdad to North Iraq, others to Jordan and Syria," Peck quoted the Iraqi pastor as saying.

Peck called that a "very understandable response" that "would leave the Christian church in Iraq even weaker than before."

Some sources suggested part of the attackers' motivation was reports that a pastor in the United States planned to burn copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in September. While the pastor called off those plans, Peck said the incident points to the need for Christians in the West to "be wise and considerate in the way they engage critically with Islam."

Baptists in Baghdad are also considering changing the day of worship from Sunday to Friday, the traditional day of worship for Muslims, a practice already adopted by Christians in several Muslim-majority countries.

Raimundo Barreto, director of freedom and justice for the Baptist World Alliance, expressed regret for "the unjustifiable murder" of Catholic Christians and affirmed "profound solidarity" with Christians in Iraq.

"As followers of Jesus Christ we advocate for true and lasting peace in that region," Barreto said. "We call on Christians all over the world to diligently work to prevent any escalation of violence, by not repaying evil with evil, but by overcoming evil with good. (Romans 12:17, 21)."

Peck said he asked the Baptist pastor in Baghdad to assure believers in the city that they were in the prayers of Baptists around the world.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.