NATO’s ‘new’ Libya murders Christians

From the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (Cairo, Egypt):

Libya – ANHRI Denounces the Attack On the Egyptian Church in Misratah

2 January 2013

Press release

ANHRI denounces the attack on an Egyptian church building in Misratah in Libya, causing the death of two and wounding three others from the Egyptian Christian church staff who reside in Libya.

In the framework of the security chaos that is taking place in Libya in particularly the security problems that face the military and police institutions and the failure of the purification and restructuring operations, the church of Mar Girgis in Dafniya a town near Misratah Libya on Saturday December 29, 2012 was attacked by armed men. The attack resulted in the death of one and injuries of three others, all of them were from the Egyptian staff in the church. Later one of the injured people died from his injuries and, followed by another, the number of deaths reached three.

The attack took place after the end of the prayer rituals and after they left the building of the church according to a Libyan official. He said that the explosion targeted the most crowded place by worshipers, but by the time of the explosion, the worshipers had left the building.

It is worthy to mention that the Christians in Libya are 3% of the residents and most of them are Egyptians.

It worthy to note that this attack was not the first of its kind, as the red-cross committee had decided to stop its aid work in Misratah due to attacks on its headquarters. Libya has witnessed several attacks waged by extremists on a Sufi-Sheikh shrine in addition to the attack on the US consulate in Libya which resulted in the death of Chris Stevens, the American ambassador in Libya.

ANHRI said that “the attack on a church, whether Egyptian or not, is a serious violation of the freedom of worship and belief and a destruction of the diversity structure of the society. It portends a serious deterioration on respecting the human rights and basic freedoms levels”. ANHRI added that “the authorities should bear the responsibility of these repeated violations on the religious sanctities and do its best efforts to provide an appropriate climate to the citizens and the residents to practice their different religious rites”.

Gaddafi millions: French judge hears shady details of Sarkozy’s campaign funding: here.

Related articles

• Libya church blast kills 2 Egyptians: embassy (dailystar.com.lb)
• Two killed at Libya Coptic church (bbc.co.uk)
• Libya church blast kills two Egyptians (dailynewsegypt.com)
• Church bombing in Libya (radionz.co.nz)
• NATO has succeeded in controlling criminal gangs in Libya with total impunity. (libyaagainstsuperpowermedia.com)
• Bomb at Egyptian-Run Church in Libya Kills 2 (abcnews.go.com)
• Bomb at Egyptian-run church in Libya kills 2 (utsandiego.com)

‘War incompatible with Christianity’

This video from the USA says about itself:

Chuck Fager is an American activist and author, he is a prominent member of the Society of Friends. He is well known for his involvement in the civil rights movement and peace movement.

He comments on the Campaign for the Right to a Nonviolent Education in the context of the International Salon for Peace Initiatives 2008.

From the blog of John Dear in the USA:

Christmas ‘Peace on Earth’ Means ‘No More War’

Posted: 12/24/2012 3:59 pm

When the nonviolent Jesus was born two thousand years ago into abject poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire, the story goes that angels appeared in the sky to impoverished shepherds singing, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth!”

Peace was coming to the world! They were so excited, they couldn’t contain themselves.

That’s what Christmas is about — the coming of “peace on earth.”

That child grew up to become, in Gandhi’s words, “the greatest nonviolent resister in the history of the world.” Jesus taught peace, lived peace and blessed peacemakers. “My peace is my gift to you,” he said. When we refused to learn “the things that make for peace,” he broke down and wept. He took action to end systemic injustice, and he did it in a nonviolent way and, for his civil disobedience, he was brutally executed by the Roman Empire and died forgiving his killers. When he rose from the dead, he came back not seeking vengeance or retaliation, but once again, offering his gift of peace. “Peace be with you,” he said over and over again. Now you practice nonviolence and go forth as a peacemaker into the world of war. That was his message.

Two thousand years later, the world continues to reject “the things that make for peace.” It remains stuck in the old cycle of war, militarism, empire, poverty and injustice.

This time, however, the empire’s weapons have the power to destroy the entire planet. The money spent funding our wars and weapons bankrupts us and leaves millions in hunger. On top of that, our greed and systemic violence destroys the environment. Catastrophic climate change is upon us, and looks to bring unprecedented new levels of violence and destruction in its wake.

Once again, we categorically reject that Christmas gift of “peace on earth” and pursue the tired-old paradigm of “war on earth.”

Last week, I returned from a peace mission to Afghanistan, where I saw for myself the epitome of poverty, warfare, imperial occupation and environmental destruction. In the last few decades, two million people have been killed there in war. Our current war on the children of Afghanistan is the longest in our own nation’s history, but you don’t hear much about it and folks don’t seem that concerned. War is normal, permanent, institutionalized, taken for granted. This year, the U.S. launched over 330 drone attacks in Afghanistan, and over 1700 Afghan children have been killed or harmed in the conflict — 85 times the number of the horrific Sandy Hook School massacre. We deliberately, systematically, intentionally wage war, kill children, and pursue “war on earth.”

But that’s not the way of Jesus, the meaning of Christmas, or the call of the Gospel. Indeed, support for war, weapons or killing in any form is a complete betrayal of the nonviolent Jesus. It mocks his life, Christmas and the God of peace.

That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that no one can claim to be an authentic Christian any more if they support warfare and weapons. You cannot seriously call yourself a follower of the nonviolent, peacemaking Jesus, whom we celebrate and honor at Christmas, if you own guns, support our wars, defend our nuclear weapons arsenal, tolerate executions and catastrophic climate change, and participate in violence in any form. Anyone who supports warfare, weapons or killing, even if they be a priest, minister or bishop, goes against the nonviolent Jesus. To be a Christian is to be a practitioner of creative nonviolence. To follow the peacemaking Jesus means becoming a peacemaker.

If the birth of the nonviolent Jesus heralds the coming of “peace on earth,” then those who honor or follow him must try to welcome that great Christmas gift of peace. We join to renounce violence, join the global peace movement, work for disarmament and spend our lives making peace with everyone.

Christmas invites us to reclaim our common imagination for peace, to herald a new future of peace, and so to resist the old paradigm of global war-making.

That vision of peace, announced by the nonviolent Jesus as God’s “reign of peace,” is breath-taking. It upholds a world without borders, one human family where everyone sees everyone else as a beloved sister or brother. When we pray for the coming of that reign, we welcome God’s gift of peace with all its challenging global, social, economic and political implications.

To state the obvious: “Peace on earth” means “No More War.” From now on, nonviolent Christians, resist war, call for the immediate end of our war in Afghanistan and our nuclear arsenal, and work for a world beyond our wildest imagination — a new world without war, weapons, drones, killings, nuclear weapons, poverty, starvation, corporate greed, violence or environmental destruction.

Christmas invites a beautiful opportunity to renew our own personal nonviolence and commit ourselves once again to ending war and killing, to building a stronger global peace movement, and to lifting up that glorious vision of a nonviolent world.

As we celebrate the birth of the nonviolent Jesus, I hope we will honor his way of nonviolence and commit ourselves again to becoming people of nonviolence. That’s what the spiritual life is about — turning from our addiction to violence and war, and becoming sober people of nonviolence and peace. As we do, we become, like Jesus, peacemakers, and we will be blessed.

John Dear is a Christian peace activist, author of ‘Lazarus, Come Forth!‘ and ‘A Persistent Peace.’

Related articles

• John Dear: Why I’m Going to Afghanistan (huffingtonpost.com)
• Pope abuses Christmas for homophobia (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Seasonal reminder: Cherish genuine peace of Christmas (omaha.com)
• Doing Time for Peace (counterpunch.org)
• When war took a pause for the peace of Christmas (outerbanksvoice.com)
• The Interruption. Christmas Midnight sermon 2012 (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
• Syrian Christians Pray For Peace On Christmas Eve (eurasiareview.com)

Christmas nativity scenes’ origin

This video from Britain says about itself:

Mr Bean recreates the nativity using toys in a shop at Christmas. From Merry Christmas Mr Bean.

From Smithsonian.com in the USA:

December 14, 2012 12:28 pm

The First Nativity Scene Was Created in 1223

At some point in childhood, many kids don a blue shawl or fake beard and act out the nativity scene in front of doting parents and grandparents. Whether performed by children, set up as little figurines in a home or installed as a life-size tableau in front of a church, these scenes are a staple of the Christmas holidays. But when did this tradition begin?

Slate explores the history of the nativity scene:

Blame St. Francis of Assisi, who is credited with staging the first nativity scene in 1223. The only historical account we have of Francis’ nativity scene comes from The Life of St. Francis of Assisi by St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan monk who was born five years before Francis’ death.

According to Bonaventure’s biography, St. Francis got permission from Pope Honorious III to set up a manger with hay and two live animals—an ox and an ass—in a cave in the Italian village of Grecio. He then invited the villagers to come gaze upon the scene while he preached about “the babe of Bethlehem.” (Francis was supposedly so overcome by emotion that he couldn’t say “Jesus.”) Bonaventure also claims that the hay used by Francis miraculously acquired the power to cure local cattle diseases and pestilences.

The nativity scene’s popularity took off from there. Within a couple of centuries, nativity scenes had spread throughout Europe. We don’t know if people actually played Mary and Joseph during Francis’ time, or whether they just imagined those figures’ presence. We do know that later scenes began incorporating dioramas and life actors, and the cast of characters gradually expanded beyond Mary, Joseph and sweet baby Jesus, to sometimes include an entire village.

Nativity buffs will know, however, that the familiar cast of characters relied upon today—the three wise men and the shepherds—is not biblically accurate. Of the New Testament’s four gospels, only Matthew and Luke describe Jesus’ birth. Matthew mentions wise men, while Luke comments on shepherds. But nowhere in the Bible do shepherds and wise men appear together. What’s worse, no one mentions donkeys, oxen, cattle or other farmyard friends in conjunction with Jesus’ birth. But what would a nativity scene be without those staples? Luckily for all the kids cast as King #2 or random shepherd, some artistic interpretation is permitted.

Read more articles about the holidays with our Smithsonian Holiday Guide here

More from Smithsonian.com:

That Moon on Your Christmas Card
Christmas Shopping Around the World

Should My Child Believe in Christmas If I Don’t? Here.

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• Christmas Craft Time: Make a Nativity Scene with Tampons (jezebel.com)
• Bergheim – A Trail of 50 Nativity scenes (cribs) (best-of-upper-rhine.com)

Jesus married, Coptic papyrus says

This video is called Was Jesus Married? Ancient Papyrus Mentions ‘Wife’.

By Jaweed Kaleem:

‘The Gospel Of Jesus’ Wife,’ New Early Christian Text, Indicates Jesus May Have Been Married

Posted: 09/18/2012 1:55 pm Updated: 09/19/2012 10:27 am

A discovery by a Harvard researcher may shed light on a controversial aspect of the life of Jesus Christ.

Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King says she has found an ancient papyrus fragment from the fourth century that, when translated, appears to indicate that Jesus was married.

The text is being dubbed “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.” The part of it that’s drawing attention says, “Jesus said to them, ‘my wife’” in the Coptic language. The text, which is printed on papyrus the size of a business card, has not been scientifically tested to verify its dating, but King and other scholars have said they are confident it is a genuine artifact.

“Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim,” King said at a conference in Rome on Tuesday. “This new gospel doesn’t prove that Jesus was married, but it tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage. From the very beginning, Christians disagreed about whether it was better not to marry, but it was over a century after Jesus’s death before they began appealing to Jesus’ marital status to support their positions.”

King, who focuses on Coptic literature, Gnosticism and women in the Bible, has published on the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Mary of Magdala. She presented her research Tuesday evening in Rome, where scholars are gathered for the International Congress of Coptic Studies.

The idea that Jesus was unmarried and chaste is largely accepted by Christian denominations and a reason for the practice of celibacy among Roman Catholic priests.

“Beyond internal Catholic Church politics, a married Jesus invites a reconsideration of orthodox teachings about gender and sex,” said journalist and author Michael D’Antonio, who writes about the Catholic Church, in a blog on The Huffington Post. “If Jesus had a wife, then there is nothing extra Christian about male privilege, nothing spiritually dangerous about the sexuality of women, and no reason for anyone to deny himself or herself a sexual identity.”

The quote about Jesus’ wife is part of a description of a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. In the conversation, Jesus talks about his mother twice and speaks once about his wife. One of them is identified as “Mary.” His disciples discuss whether Mary is worthy of being part of their community, to which Jesus replies, “she will able to be my disciple.”

The fragment has eight incomplete lines of writing on one side and is badly damaged on the other side, with only three faded words and a few letters of ink that are visible, even with the use of infrared photography and computer-aided enhancement.

The private owner of the papyrus first approached King in 2010. King said she didn’t believe the document was authentic, but the owner persisted. She then asked the owner to bring the papyrus to Harvard, where she became convinced it was a genuine early Christian text fragment. Along with Princeton University professor Anne Marie Luijendijk and Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, King claims to have confirmed the document is real. The document’s owner has not been named and King said he does not want to be identified.

It’s unclear when the text was initially discovered. The owner who showed it to King found it in 1997 in a collection of papyri that he acquired from the previous owner, who was German. The papyri included a handwritten German description that had the name of a now-deceased professor of Egyptology in Berlin who called the fragment a “sole example” of a document that claims Jesus was married.

The scholars believe the text is from Egyptian Christians before the year 400, as it is written in the language used at that time. Since writing appears on both sides of the fragment, scholars believe it came from a codex, a kind of book, and not a scroll. The scholars also believe the document is a translation of an earlier one that was likely written in Greek.

King notes in her research that the idea of Jesus’ celibacy hasn’t always existed, and that early Christians debated whether they should marry or practice celibacy. It was not until around the year 200 that Christian followers began to say Jesus was unmarried, according to a record King cites from Clement of Alexandria. In his writing, Clement — an early theologian — said that marriage was a fornication put in place by the devil, and that people should emulate Jesus by not marrying.

One or two decades later, Tertullian of Carthage in North Africa declared that Jesus was “entirely unmarried” and told Christians to remain single. But Tertullian did not come out against sex altogether and allowed couples to get married one time, denouncing divorce and remarriage as overindulgent. A century earlier, the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy said in the New Testament that people who forbid marriage are going by the “doctrines of demons,” but did not include anything about Jesus being married in order to make the point.

The point of view that ultimately became dominant was that celibacy is preferred as a high sexual virtue among Christians, but that marriage is needed for the sake of reproduction.

“The discovery of this new gospel,” King said, “offers an occasion to rethink what we thought we knew by asking what role claims about Jesus’ marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family. Christian tradition preserved only those voices that claimed Jesus never married. The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife now shows that some Christians thought otherwise.”

Related articles

• Truth Behind Gospel of Judas Revealed in Ancient Inks (livescience.com)
• Shapeshifting Jesus Had a Wife and Kids: Easter Will Never Be the Same (americanlivewire.com)
• Jesus Was A Shapeshifter According To New Ancient Texts (dailymail.co.uk)
• Scholars reveal how they scrambled to authenticate Gospel of Judas (science.nbcnews.com)
• Easter Science: 6 Facts About Jesus (livescience.com)
• The History of Christianity in 25 Objects: Rylands Library Papyrus P52 (challies.com)
• Images: The Gospel of Judas (livescience.com)

Death penalty for Christians in Bush’s ‘new’ Afghanistan?

This is a satiric animation on the Afghan war by Mark Fiore from the USA.

Yeah, another side these days of George W Bush‘s (and now, Barack Obama’s) brave new ‘democratic’ Afghanistan … where women are liberated legally sold, raped and flogged etc. … with its free crooked elections … where one of the mayor of Kabul‘s president’s brothers deals in hard drugs and the other brother is in a bank fraud scandal … where freedom corruption rules …

From AFP news agency:

2 Afghans accused of Christian conversion

November 28, 2010

Two Afghans accused of converting to Christianity, including a Red Cross employee, could face the death penalty, a prosecuting lawyer said on Sunday.

Musa Sayed, 45, and Ahmad Shah, 50, are being detained in the Afghan capital awaiting trial, the prosecutor in charge of western Kabul, Din Mohammad Quraishi, told AFP.

“They are accused of conversion to another religion, which is considered a crime under Islamic law. If proved, they face the death penalty or life imprisonment,” Quraishi said.

Quraishi said Sayed, who works for the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) had already confessed and there was “proof” against Shah.

The ICRC’s spokesman in Kabul, Bijan Frederic Farnoudi, confirmed Sayed’s arrest and said the detained man had worked for the organisation since 1995.

Farnoudi said ICRC representatives had visited Sayed in prison “in accordance with its mandate”.

“During such visits, the ICRC has met Mr Musa (Sayed) several times and intends to visit him in future,” Farnoudi said.

Sayed and Shah were arrested in late May and early June, days after local television broadcast footage of men reciting Christian prayers in Farsi and being baptised, apparently in a house in Kabul.

The government launched its own investigation and suspended two aid groups, Norwegian Church Aid and Church World Service of the US, after the television program reported the two men were proselytising, which is illegal in the devoutly Islamic country.

Several Afghan MPs have expressed their anger over the case, with one from western Herat even calling for the men to be dragged from their homes and publicly executed.

The Afghan constitution, adopted after the fall of the hardline Islamic Taliban in late 2001, forbids conversion to another religion from Islam and in theory can sentence those found guilty to death.

But Afghanistan has not executed anyone for the crime in recent history.

The last conversion case to be tried in Afghanistan is believed to be that of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan man arrested in 2006 for converting to Christianity.

He was eventually released and granted refugee status in Italy, after a wave of international human-rights protests.

The killing of six US soldiers by an Afghan police officer is one of the bloodiest in a series of incidents that call into question the US-NATO strategy of turning over combat operations to Afghan forces in 2014: here.

NOT WORTH IT: Every Hellfire missile fired in Afghanistan costs USD58,000: Rethink Afghanistan: here.

The Pentagon boasted today that US soldiers in Afghanistan are being equipped with a “smart” grenade launcher that uses microchipped ammunition to target and kill: here.

Helicopters to Afghanistan. Blackwater Subsidiary Flouted German Arms Export Laws: here.

Christian fundamentalism in the USA

This video from the USA is called Chris Hedges – Who Are the American Fascists?

From British daily The Morning Star:

The new fascism

(Sunday 27 January 2008)

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the war on America by Chris Hedges
(Vintage Books, £8.99)

STEVE ANDREW warns that the lightning growth of US fundamentalist Christianity should not be ignored.

For the past few decades, one of the major vehicles for extreme right ideas within US politics has been the Christian fundamentalist movement.

All too often mocked and patronised by those who really ought to know better, its lightning growth is shocking to say the least and as Chris Hedges’s book notes, the brown-shirted born agains now stand to start conquering the highest echelons of state power.

Already, some 45 per cent of US citizens believe that the world really was created in six days and “intelligent design” [see also here] – the new buzzword for old-fashioned creationism – is taught in schools and universities up and down the country.

The greatest selling author in the land which gave us Mark Twain and Jack London is today some berk peddling lurid accounts of rapture and Armageddon.

Legislation around same-sex marriage has been dismantled, gay lifestyles demonised and abstinence promoted as the only safe and godly path.

Women had better watch out too. Led by a bunch of crazed patriarchs, its not surprising that they see a woman’s destiny as one of submission to the holy trinity of family, church and state.

And single mothers? Heaven forbid! Or should that be forbids? Hedges argues that, just like the fascist movements of the 1930s, fundamentalism has powerful allies in government circles and big business who are only too happy to bankroll its ongoing battle for the US.

Related articles

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Christian Iraqi bishop says end occupation now

This video is TIMZ (Iraqi American rapper) – Iraq.

From the Catholic News Service:

U.S. troops should withdraw and let Iraqi factions fight it out, the bishop for most Iraqi Catholics in the United States said June 19.

“Let the Iraqis kill each other, but let the occupying power get out, because they are not killing each other because they are Sunni or Shiite, but because they are with the Americans or against the Americans,” said Chaldean Catholic Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim.

The head of the Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle made the comments in an impassioned sermon at a special Mass at Mother of God (Chaldean) Cathedral in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, where the eparchy has its headquarters.

Bush and Blair make Iraqi Christians suffer, Archbishop of Canterbury writes

From The Times in Britain:

Christians suffer for Iraq, says archbishop

Ruth Gledhill and Michael Evans

# Rowan Williams warns of war’s deadly backlash
# Thousands of believers in Middle East ‘at risk’

Christians in the Middle East are being put at unprecedented risk by the Government’s “shortsighted” and “ignorant” policy in Iraq, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, says today.

In an extraordinary attack, Dr Williams accuses Tony Blair and the US of endangering the lives and futures of many thousands of Christians in the Middle East, who are regarded by their countrymen as supporters of the “crusading West.”

He has been backed by bishops across the Church of England, who say that Christians in the Middle East are now paying the price for the “chaos” in Iraq after the British Government failed to heed their warnings about the consequences of military action.

Dr Williams, writing in today’s Times, says that one prediction that was systematically ignored was that Western military action would put the whole of the Middle East’s Christian population at risk.

See also here.

And here.

Sunni and Shiite Iraqis: here.

USA: poetess Katharine Lee Bates was feminist, lesbian, Christian socialist, and anti-imperialist

Katharine Lee Bates was born on August 12, 1859.

Her poem “America the Beautiful”, set to music, is today sometimes sung by Right wingers in the USA, wallowing in chauvinist ‘patriotism’ (as in ‘Patriot Act’).

Little do they know about its author and her intentions when writing: everything which the Bushes, Cheneys, Rumsfelds, and Pat Robertsons of today hate.

By Tim Yeager:

It is a little-known fact that America¹s best loved song was written by a woman who was a feminist, a lesbian, a Christian socialist, and an ardent anti-imperialist [see on her anti-imperialist poems here].

Katherine Lee Bates was a pioneer, and a progressive advocate of social justice.

And she was a patriot in the best sense of the word.

She loved the land and the people of her birth, but she was critical of its weaknesses, and fought to make it a better, more just place.

America the Beautiful is a song that demands its listeners to open their eyes and ears to the injustices and corruption of capitalism.

It is a song of both love and criticism.

And it makes a distinction between the country we live in, and the wealthy and corrupt elite that rules it.

USA: sunday school teacher fired for being a woman.

The history of the reception of America the Beautiful somewhat reminds me of Hitler’s nazi party.

For the nazi party song, the Horst Wessel song, there apparently was no nazi clever enough to write the tune, which they then nicked from a Social Democrat song.

Authors on the nazis like Ernst Bloch had an expression for this stealing behaviour, also in other cases: Entwendungen aus der Kommune; taking from the Communist [enemies].

The pledge of allegiance, despised by many young radicals, was once the creation of an early christian socialist. It refered to the republic as an almost unique concept, a revolutionary form of government. But the ascendency of the capitalist class quelled this revolutionary history, turning the pledge into an element of American nationalism: here.

Movies in the USA in the McCarthy period: here.