OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD
Franklin Graham asks shoebox givers to pray for recipients
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Samaritans Purse has collected millions of shoebox gifts for children around the world through this year's Operation Christmas Child Ministry.
Samaritans Purse president, the Reverend Franklin Graham, is now urging Christians who turned in those shoeboxes to pray for the poor children who will receive them.
The gifts will be flown to 100 nations, including Iraq, where Baghdad's Jesus Christ Light of the World Church will help distribute them to Iraqi children of all faiths.
The church's associate pastor told Minnesota's KTIS Radio that Operation Christmas Child builds bridges to Iraqi Muslims by showing their children the love of Jesus Christ.
Graham told KTIS that thousands of children each year trust Christ through Operation Christmas Child.
Sound:
<<CUT …345 (11/23/09)>> 00:15 "love of Christ"
The Reverend Malath Baythoon (mah-LAHTH' beh-THOON')
The Reverend Malath Baythoon says Operation Christmas Child has helped build bridges between his church and Iraqi Muslims. COURTESY: KTIS Radio ((mandatory on-air credit))
<<CUT …344 (11/23/09)>> 00:13 "from Jesus Christ"
The Reverend Malath Baythoon (mah-LAHTH' beh-THOON')
The Reverend Malath Baythoon says his church distributes Operation Christmas Child gifts to Iraqis of all tribes and religions. COURTESY: KTIS Radio ((mandatory on-air credit))
<<CUT …343 (11/23/09)>> 00:11 "us an opportunity"
The Reverend Franklin Graham
The Reverend Franklin Graham says the shoebox gifts will now be distributed to millions of children. COURTESY: KTIS Radio ((Mandatory on-air credit))
<<CUT …342 (11/23/09)>> 00:16 "and do something"
The Reverend Franklin Graham
The Reverend Franklin Graham says Operation Christmas Child donors should do one more thing. COURTESY: KTIS Radio ((Mandatory on-air credit))
BAPTIST PRESIDENT-CANCER
Southern Baptist president has prostate cancer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt says he has prostate cancer and expects to have surgery in January.
The 57-year-old Hunt, pastor of the Atlanta-area First Baptist Church of Woodstock, said Monday he believes the cancer was detected early.
In a statement released through the Baptist Press, he asked for people's prayers and said the diagnosis was a reminder of his mortality -- but also his faith.
Hunt was elected SBC president at the convention's June 2008 annual meeting in Indianapolis and re-elected at this year's meeting in Louisville, Ky.
With 16.2 million members, the Nashville-based SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.
HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Payments sought for Christian Science treatments in health care reform
BOSTON (AP) — Christian Science practitioners, who pray for church members' healing, want Congress to let insurance companies pay for their alternative treatments as part of the health care reform overhaul.
A provision to allow that was removed from the House bill, but could be revived in the Senate bill.
Opponents of that provision say it would be unconstitutional for the government to pay for prayers.
But Phil Davis, spokesman for the First Church of Christ, Scientist, says Congress should guarantee that Americans who rely on "spiritual care" for their illnesses are not denied insurance reimbursement.
Davis says Christian Science adherents believe their practitioners' prayers for healing can be an inexpensive substitute for medical care, or can supplement a doctor's treatment.
Sound:
<<CUT …348 (11/23/09)>> 00:15 "paying for it"
Phil Davis
Phil Davis says health care reform should allow insurance companies to reimburse Christian Science practitioners.
<<CUT …347 (11/23/09)>> 00:16 "Science nursing facilities"
Phil Davis
Phil Davis says Christian Science adherents aren't the only ones who look to prayer for healing.
<<CUT …346 (11/23/09)>> 00:11 "on spiritual care"
Phil Davis
Phil Davis says his church wants the health care overhaul to include a provision that would permit reimbursement for Christian Science practitioners.
RI BISHOP-KENNEDY
Colleague defends Kennedy in Communion flap
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A colleague is defending Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy against a bishop who says he asked Kennedy not to receive Communion because of his support for abortion rights.
Congressman Patrick Murphy, a pro-choice Democrat and Catholic like Kennedy, told an audience at Harvard University, "We don't legislate at the orders of the Vatican, we legislate what is in our conscience and what we think is good for our country."
Kennedy and Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin, who oversees the most heavily Catholic state in the country, have clashed for weeks over health care reform and publicly financed abortion.
In his book, "Taking the Hill," Murphy wrote that he felt deeply hurt when a parish priest refused to bless his marriage in 2006 because of his pro-choice views.
CHARTER SCHOOL-RELIGIOUS TEXTS
Idaho commission reprimands charter school for religious texts
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho's Public Charter School Commission has reprimanded the publicly funded Nampa Classical Academy over its use of religious texts in the classroom.
The agency Monday sent the charter school a notice of defect -- the first step in a process that could result in closure -- after reviewing a reading list for high school students that included the Bible.
The charter school's administrators said earlier this year they would use the Bible as a primary source of teaching material, but not to teach religion. The plan prompted the commission to investigate and prohibit the academy from using the Bible as an instructional text.
The charter school, which has about 550 students, is fighting that decision in federal court.
PRISON-KOSHER DIET
Court: NH prison inmate loses diet challenge
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire State Prison inmate has lost his challenge to its policy on religious diets.
Albert Kuperman, an orthodox Jew, had argued the prison shouldn't have automatically taken him off a kosher diet after he was discovered eating non-kosher food. Kuperman's lawyers said that violated his First Amendment right to practice religion; a federal magistrate agreed in 2007.
A federal judge ruled Friday the prospect of harm to Kuperman is remote.
Kuperman has been imprisoned since 2004, serving a sentence on charges he sexually molested a minor.
Kuperman was served kosher meals, but officials took him off the diet three times after he was caught with non-kosher foods. Since then, the prison changed its policy.
ANTI-ISLAM T-SHIRTS
ACLU sues for students to wear anti-Islam shirts
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union claims that Florida's Alachua County School District violated students' rights by not letting them wear anti-Islamic T-shirts.
The civil rights organization says it doesn't agree with the "Islam is of the Devil" message printed on T-shirts distributed by the Dove World Outreach Center and worn by area school children. But the ACLU says it supports the students' constitutional right to freedom of speech.
The district, which did not return a phone call seeking comment from The Associated Press, has called the messages disruptive and a violation of the dress code.
HATE CRIMES-RELIGION
FBI releases hate crimes statistics
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI says 1,519 hate crimes against people based on their religion were reported last year, and more than 1,000 of those incidents were motivated by anti-Jewish bias. Only about 100 were reported to have been motivated by bias against Muslims.
The FBI's definition of hate crimes is broad. Roughly a third were vandalism or property damage. About 30 percent involves intimidation of some kind, and only about 30 percent were physical attacks.
In 2008, there were no murders and only one rape reported as a hate crime based on religious bias.
About 9 percent more hate crimes based on religion were reported in 2008 than in 2007, but the FBI says that may simply be the result of more agencies turning in reports.
MOSQUE FIRE
1 of 3 defendants sentenced in mosque firebombing
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — One of three men charged with firebombing a mosque in Columbia, Tenn., has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.
The Tennessean in Nashville reports that 23-year-old Michael Corey Golden was sentenced Monday. He and two other men earlier pleaded guilty to burning the Islamic Center of Columbia last year. The city is about 40 miles south of Nashville.
Court documents showed the men painted swastikas and racial slogans on the center, then threw two homemade Molotov cocktails into it.
Fellow defendants Eric Ian Baker and Jonathan Edward Stone will be sentenced later.
The mosque has reopened in another building.
CYPRUS CHURCH-TURKEY-LAWSUIT
Cyprus church sues Turkey over occupied north
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The Greek Orthodox church of Cyprus is suing Turkey for allegedly preventing worship at religious sites in the divided island's breakaway Turkish Cypriot north.
The lawsuit filed in the European Court of Human Rights concerns 520 churches, monasteries, chapels and cemeteries the church lost when Turkey invaded in 1974.
A lawyer for the church says Orthodox Christians cannot worship at those sites because they are either derelict or have been converted into mosques, army barracks, stables or nightclubs.
The Mediterranean island's Greek-Cypriot south is overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox. The Turkish-Cypriot north is Muslim, but some 500 elderly Greek Cypriots still live there.
SAUDI-HAJJ-SWINE FLU
Saudi Arabia announces Muslim pilgrimage's first swine flu deaths
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi officials have announced the first deaths from swine flu of this year's pilgrimage to Mecca, as four pilgrims succumbed to the disease soon after arriving in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Health Ministry said none of the victims had been vaccinated. Three of the victims were 75 years old, coming from Sudan, India and Morocco, and the fourth was a 17-year-old Nigerian.
The hajj, as the pilgrimage is known, is required of all able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lifetime. It attracts about 3 million people from 160 countries and begins this year on Nov. 26, as the winter flu season approaches in the Northern Hemisphere.
The H1N1 flu has killed 66 people in Saudi Arabia.
