Religion Today Summaries - March 30, 2007

Mohler: Pray for Homosexual Activists

Students should pray that members of a homosexual activist group who staged a protest at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary find salvation in Christ, President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said during chapel service this week, Baptist Press reports. Mohler led students and faculty members in prayer the day after 22 members of Soulforce staged a sit-in in the lobby of the president's office. The Soulforce group is on a two-month bus tour across the nation protesting on the campuses of conservative religious schools. According to its website, the tour was scheduled to visit Union University in Jackson, Tenn., on March 26 but detoured to Louisville to protest a March 2 weblog in which Mohler discussed homosexuality and biology. "The only way we have come to Christ is that we have come to desire something far more than we desire our sin," Mohler said. "We need to pray for their salvation, not merely their salvation from homosexuality, but their salvation from sin and death, the salvation by God's grace that we have come to know -- a salvation from sin equally as ugly, equally as deadly."

Nigerian Ministry Plans Outreach to Hostile Mission Fields

Missions Insider reports that a Nigerian indigenous ministry assisted by Christian Aid is preparing to launch an outreach in northern Nigeria. Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, is a predominantly Muslim city where Christians are looked upon as outsiders. In 2004, Muslims attacked and killed 200 Christian residents. According to the ministry leader, “Ministering there is like offering yourself for a sacrifice.” He asks for the prayers and support of overseas believers to help his missionary team set up a headquarters and personal residence ($6,000), as well as transportation in the form of two motorcycles. The ministry will also be focused on sharing the gospel with the Fulani, the largest nomadic tribe in the world.

Watergate Felon Colson to Spend 30th Consecutive Easter in Prison

When news of former White House "hatchet man" Chuck Colson's conversion to Christianity leaked to the press in 1973, the Boston Globe reported, "If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everybody." According to a Prison Fellowship release, Colson would agree. The desire to bring hope to those most in need of it has led Colson, who served seven months in prison for a Watergate-related crime, to spend considerably more time behind bars. Since 1976, when he founded Prison Fellowship, Colson has reached out to America's prisoners and their families, and sought reform in the criminal justice system. For the past 29 years, he's never missed bringing a message of hope through faith in Christ to prisoners on Easter Sunday. Colson will return to prison on Easter Sunday, April 8, at the Pompano Transition Center (PTC) in Ft. Lauderdale, bringing the good news that spiritual freedom via a relationship with God through Christ is available even to those who are incarcerated.

Muslim Extremists Set Church on Fire in Nigeria

Compass Direct News reports that two days after the killing of a Christian teacher in this town in northern Nigeria, Muslim extremists set fire to a church building of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) in the Chanchanya section. The Rev. Rukun Gaius, 50, chairman of the Gombe district of the ECWA, told Compass  that a large number of Muslim extremists went to the church on Friday night (March 23) and set it on fire, gutting the sanctuary. “The Muslims came to the church premises at about 11 p.m. to set the church on fire,” Rev. Gaius said. “People around the area and some of our members who saw the church burning rushed there put it out, but by then much damage had already been done to the building.” The 500 members of the church must now “worship and conduct their church programs in the open,” Rev. Gaius said.