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NEW YORK — The head of the United Nations General Assembly signalled Friday a breakthrough is imminent in talks to resolve the political crisis in Honduras. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann spoke in New York as thousands of supporters of Honduras’s ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, held rallies in the Central American country. “I have a feeling that we are moving in that direction rather quickly,” the former Nicaraguan revolutionary, who is also a Catholic priest, told a news conference at the UN. Insiders suggested that a timetable had been laid out in which Zelaya, a rich landowner whose leftist policies led him...

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), then based in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, vigorously lobbied for Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, the Cuban-style Marxist regime that shot its way to power in 1979. Today, WOLA pretends it is concerned about the rule of law in Honduras after the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court supported removing the leftist president for defying its constitution. WOLA and Jim Wallis' publication Sojourners have teamed up to spin Honduras' defense of its democracy as another example of a U.S.-supported, imperialist military coup. The constitutional coup in Honduras was...

The international Religious Left has very little interest in human rights or religious liberty in the world, outside territories occupied by or supposedly victimized by Israel. Never critical of radical Islam or Arab regimes, groups like the World Council of Churches (WCC) have an obsessive interest in the plight of Palestinians, whose plight would otherwise bore the WCC, if Israel, and by extension, the U.S., could not be blamed. Last month, the WCC dispatched a "Living Letters" team to Israel and "Palestine," purportedly to show solidarity with Palestinian Christians. But the attitude of Hamas and other Islamists towards the dwindling...

Gradye Parsons, the stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), has added a new twist to the messianic aura that seemed to surround the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. “Mr. President,” he said, “before you save us, let us have a chance to profess our ills.” -snip- John Thomas, the president of the United Church of Christ, expressed his appreciation that Obama had been “schooled by a preacher named Jeremiah” to serve as a “public theologian who shapes the way people understand their relationship to God,” RNS reported.

The World Council of Churches has condemned a Dutch parliamentarian’s provocative new film which accuses the Quran of inciting violence. -snip- The director of the global ecumenical body’s Program on Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation criticized Geert Wilders’ short film “Fitna” as "a clear case of Islamophobia." The word ”fitna” is an Arabic term that is sometimes translated as “strife.” "Through graphic images, the filmmaker depicts violent extremism without any attempt to distinguish it from mainstream Islam,” Premawardhana said. “Extremism is a problem for most religions and needs to be countered through interreligious dialogue." Wilders, who is leader of the anti-immigration...

NOT ALL OF Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's encounters in New York during his recent trip were testy. The Shiite theocrat had what the New York Times called a "warm, even friendly exchange" with 150 church officials at the United Methodist Women's Church Center for the United Nations. One sponsor, the Mennonite Central Committee, called the gathering a "time of dialogue and prayerful reflection among the children of Abraham." A Mennonite official further explained that "mutual respect and graciousness in this conversation blunts the demonization which is part of the current rhetoric of both governments." The meeting is the third between...

21 November 2007, 14:10 Russian Church may revise relations with WCC if liberal trends prevail - spokesman Moscow, November 21, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church might revise its relations with the World Council of Churches if liberal Protestant circles take the upper hand in that organization, the Moscow Patriarchate has said. "Everything will depend on how the World Council of Churches develops. At the present time, we see resolute steps against adopting documents which run counter to the Orthodox faith within the Council. The principle of gaining a consensus has been introduced for making the most important decisions," Moscow...

GENEVA -- Evangelical groups have joined efforts spearheaded by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainstream Protestant churches to create a common code of conduct for religious conversions that would preserve the right of Christians to spread their religion while avoiding conflict among different faiths. The World Council of Churches, which joined the Vatican last year in launching talks on a code, said Wednesday that the process was formally joined by the World Evangelical Alliance at a meeting earlier this month in France. The code aims to ease tensions with Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups that fear losing adherents and resort...

GENEVA - Christian churches are moving closer to a common code of conduct on how they go about winning converts among themselves and from other religions, the World Council of Churches (WCC) said on Monday. Conversion, sometimes dubbed "sheep-stealing" as it targets another's flock, is a cause of friction and conflict between religions and among different branches of individual faiths. Militant groups are often accused of underhand tactics in winning over new adherents. The Geneva-based WCC, working with the Vatican on the issue, said a meeting in Toulouse later this week should bring the year-long process of agreeing a conversion...

It must have been a huge disappointment. An Iraqi bishop addressing an anti-Israel ecumenical jamboree in Amman, Jordan declined to demand an immediate U.S. evacuation from Iraq. "Is it going to bring about peace or play into the hands of terrorists?" asked Archbishop Avak Asadourian, the Primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church (See of Etchmiadzin), who was responding to a question about U.S. church groups that are demanding an expeditious time-table for U.S. troops to quit Iraq. Asadourian spoke at the "Churches Together for Peace and Justice in the Middle East," organized by the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC). Speaking...

Yahoo Religious News Brief.... By The Associated Press Thu Jun 21, 12:25 PM ET (World Council of Churches said it would launch a global initiative to have churches worldwide rally for an end to Israel's occupation of Arab lands) AMMAN, Jordan - A Geneva-based church body said Monday it would launch a global initiative to have churches worldwide rally for an end to Israel's occupation of Arab lands seized in the 1967 Mideast war. The World Council of Churches said in a statement that it designated Jordan as a venue for its initiative, which would enlist support from religious groups...

A Hindu professor of religion has become the first non-Christian to head St. Olaf College's Religion Department in the college's 133-year history. "It's a great honor," Anantanand Rambachan said of the three-year appointment. "St. Olaf has one of the finest undergraduate religion departments in the country." Rambachan, 55, has taught religion, philosophy and Asian studies at the college in Northfield, Minn., since 1985. He also has been a leading figure in Minnesota's Hindu cultural circles. He grew up on the West Indies island of Trinidad in a devout Hindu family -- both of his grandfathers were Hindu priests. As a...

Finally, a Western church official is condemning the increasingly brutal regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. It has been a long-time coming. The reticence is due, perhaps in part, to the fact that left-leaning Western church groups helped to install Mugabe in power nearly 30 years ago. Noting his own group’s support for Zimbabwe’s path to “liberation” in the 1970’s, the head of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is now condemning Mugabe’s “unprecedented brutality and oppression.” On March 15, LWF General Secretary Ishmael Noko asked the Africa Union to lean against Mugabe. “The attacks upon opposition leaders, human rights...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said Iran bore no hatred towards the United States as he held talks with American Christians in a rare official contact with visitors from Tehran's arch enemy. State television showed Ahmadinejad meeting with a dozen American representatives from various Christian orders who are in Iran for a week-long visit to promote peace and dialogue between the foes. "The Iranian nation does not have any feeling of hatred and opposition towards the American people and we believe that all people are respectful and given the common grounds people have, they could achieve peace and justice," Ahmadinejad...

In July, the WCC released a statement. The WCC refuses to name Hezbollah, defends the terrorists and reproaches the victims for their self-defense. The letter attacks democratic countries, shields militia groups from blame, and challenges "the concept of war on terror." This letter tells the reader that there is no difference between the victim and the attacker. Not only does the letter fail to condemn Hezbollah terrorists for their crimes, but it condemns G8 members who are seeking a solution to those crimes. Hezbollah's rocket campaign against Israeli civilians seems to be entirely Israel's fault. The Jewish state is the...

Soviet Ghosts Haunt the World Council of Churches By Mark D. Tooley FrontPageMagazine.com | August 25, 2006 As one of his formative spiritual experiences, a top official in the World Council of Churches (WCC) fondly recalls attending a Soviet-front group’s conference in the old Czechoslovakia. In a recent official WCC news report, the Swiss-based ecumenical council interviews Rev. Walter Altmann, a Brazilian Lutheran theologian, former head of the Latin American Council of Churches, and the new moderator the WCC's totalitarian-sounding "central committee." Currently, he also heads the 700,000 member Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil. "As a young...

EU Christians Czech Castro By Mark D. Tooley FrontPageMagazine.com | August 24, 2006 Although Western mainline church officials have refused to criticize Fidel Castro for decades, some East European Christians are now speaking out. The head of the Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic is directly challenging the head of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches over his criticisms of America's anti-Castro policy. "From our own experiences churches in Central and Eastern Europe are aware of what it means to live under a repressive totalitarian regime of the type, which, according to our opinion, exists in Cuba," gently...

According to a new book from the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, Bush brought down the towers.DID THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION covertly blow-up the World Trade Center, ignite the Pentagon, and shoot down United Flight 93 to pave the way for a new American empire? The answer is "yes," according to a new book printed by the official publishing house of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and written by a theologian at a United Methodist seminary. Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11, published by Westminster John Knox Press, is fairly succinct in its conspiracy theory. In fact, only the first half of the...

THE World Council of Churches today appealed for an urgent ceasefire in Lebanon and sharply criticised the international community for failing to halt the violence between Israel and Hezbollah. In a strongly worded public appeal, WCC general secretary Reverend Samuel Kobia accused major western powers of turning their backs on previous calls for an end to the violence or for restraint. "A war of ominous dimension and of far-reaching consequences is causing unimaginable and untold suffering to the people in Lebanon," Kobia said. "Yet these developments seemed to have no effect on the leaders of countries like Israel, the United...

The anti-Israel divestment campaign among U.S. churches has been largely defeated. But in the midst of the terrorists' war on Israel, the Religious Left's hostility to Israel continues. Religious Left church officials have responded to the conflict between Israel and Hezballah with their usual lamentations over "the violence." But it is "the violence" by Israel that exclusively concerns them. Typical among them has been the reaction of United Church of Christ president John Thomas. "We watch with horror and outrage as Israel punishes an entire population for the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in Gaza, and as belligerence escalates with...