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from FaithWorld:
Muslim-Christian unity at Tahrir Square
(A Muslim holding the Koran (top L) and a Coptic Christian holding a cross are carried through opposition supporters in Tahrir Square in Cairo February 6, 2011/Dylan Martinez)
Muslim-Christian unity was one of the themes on Tahrir Square, focus of the Cairo protests against President Hosni Mubarak, on Sunday. Members of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority said mass in the square and many of the placards combined the Muslim crescent and the Christian cross. "Hand in hand" was a common chant.
From "Protesters in Cairo square settle in for long stay"
For more on Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt, see:
Copts say Egypt regime change trumps Islamist fears (Feb 1)
Egypt's Islamists well placed for any post-Mubarak phase (Feb 1)
Egypt sentences Muslim to death for Coptic shooting (Jan 16)
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At prayer breakfast, Obama calls Jesus “my Lord and Savior”
President Barack Obama made a clear declaration of his Christian faith on Thursday and seemed to express some frustration that his beliefs continue to be called into question.
"Let me tell you, these past two years, they have deepened my faith," Obama told a ballroom full of applauding believers at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
from FaithWorld:
Copts say Egypt regime change trumps Islamist fears
(Egyptians rally at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo February 1, 2011/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)
For Rafik, a member of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority, the myth that President Hosni Mubarak is the community's best defense against Islamist militants was shattered by an Alexandria church bombing on New Year's Day. He and other Copts continued to demonstrate alongside at least 1 million Egyptians on Tuesday, saying their desire to end Mubarak's three-decade rule was for now more pressing than any fears that a change of power might empower Islamist groups.
from FaithWorld:
Muslims honor Jewish Holocaust victims at Auschwitz
(Israeli Grand Rabbi Meir Lau speaks at the Victims Monument at Auschwitz Birkenau, Poland, February 1, 2011/Michal Lepecki)
Prominent Muslims joined Jews and Christians at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz on Tuesday in a gesture of interfaith solidarity designed to refute deniers of the Holocaust such as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. About 200 dignitaries from across the Islamic world, from Israel, European countries and international organizations such as UNESCO took part in the visit, which included a tour of the site and prayers in Arabic, Yiddish, English and French.
from FaithWorld:
Italy blocks EU religious persecution text ignoring Christians
(Christians protest against what they say is the failure of authorities to protect them, in Cairo January 3, 2011/Mohamed Abd El Ghany)
The European Union failed to agree on a statement against the persecution of religious minorities on Monday after Italy objected to the omission of any reference to the protection of Christians. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said a draft proposed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers expressing concern about increasing numbers of attacks on places of worship and pilgrims showed an "excess of secularism".
from FaithWorld:
Snooker row sparks deadly Christian-Muslim clashes in Nigeria
Clashes between Christian and Muslim youths in central Nigeria triggered by a game of snooker have killed four people and led to the burning of houses, churches and mosques, police said on Friday.
Residents said the dispute in Tafawa Balewa, in Bauchi state, started when a man from the Muslim Hausa ethnic group refused to pay for a snooker game on Wednesday evening.
from FaithWorld:
Nepal Christians threaten ‘corpse’ protest in burial row
Christians in Nepal have threatened to parade corpses in the capital to press the government into finding them alternative burial grounds after burials near the country's holiest Hindu shrine were banned.
Christians account for less than two percent of Hindu-majority Nepal's 28 million people. Authorities barred them this month from burying their dead in the forested graveyard at Sleshmantak saying the land belonged to the Pashupatinath Hindu temple, a U.N. heritage site in Kathmandu.
from FaithWorld:
Guestview: Editorial independence and an ecumenical news agency
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Peter Kenny is the former editor-in-chief of ENInews.
By Peter Kenny
Maintaining editorial integrity at ENInews, a Geneva-based world-wide news agency run by Ecumenical News International that covers global Christianity and other religions, is hard work. Although church groupings and their partner organizations founded ENInews, editorial independence is often linked to that which is the root of all evil -- money.
from FaithWorld:
A non-prophet organization? A reader objects to “Prophet Mohammad”
A reader recently objected to our use of the phrase "the Prophet Mohammad" in news stories, saying that he as a Christian did not consider Mohammad a prophet and many other non-Muslims presumably didn't either, therefore we should not write about him as if everyone agreed he was one. The reader wrote:
I’ve just noticed recently that Reuters is following in the footsteps of AP and AFP in designating the Islamic prophet Mohammad as “The Prophet Mohammad”. I as a Christian don’t consider him my prophet, and neither do, I’m sure, Jews, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Why then have all the mainstream news outlets decided to treat us all as if we are Muslims? Rightly, he should be described as “the Islamic prophet Muhammad” rather than “The Prophet Muhammad”.
from FaithWorld:
Musharraf says Pakistan’s blasphemy law cannot be changed
Former President Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan's blasphemy laws could not be changed, but that the man who killed Punjab Province Governor Salman Taseer over his opposition to them must be punished.
Musharraf, who is planning to return to Pakistan to fight elections due by 2013, said blasphemy was an extremely sensitive issue for the people of Pakistan. "Therefore doing away with the blasphemy law is not at all possible and must not be done," he told Reuters in an interview at his London home on Sunday.
