Religion Today Summaries, March 1, 2004

Rabbi Riled Because Bush Didn't Slam Door on Same-Sex Unions
Bill Fancher and Fred Jackson, Agape Press

While many conservatives are praising President Bush for finally throwing his support behind a Federal Marriage Amendment, at least one rabbi in the Big Apple is upset with the president's apparent compromise on the issue of same-sex unions. Jewish Orthodox Rabbi Yehuda Levin is with a New York City-based organization called Jews for Morality.  Upon hearing President Bush announce support for a marriage amendment the rabbi offered his own interpretation of what the president said. "Ladies and gentlemen of the United States," Levin said, paraphrasing the president's comments, "I’m here to announce that I've just lowered the dosage of poison which is affecting you and your children throughout this country and throughout the world.” Continuing his translation of the Chief Executive, Levin said: "I will officially oppose homosexual marriage -- but…at the same time, I will vigorously and fully support civil unions." That, Levin says, is de facto homosexual "marriage," which is an affront to God, His Bible, and His values.  "How can I cheer for a president who does this and who allows what's going on in San Francisco for [the last two weeks]?" he asks. Rabbi Levin says whatever one calls it, same-sex unions and homosexual marriages both are the opposite of God's morality and creative plan.

Hambali Charged
Voice of the Martyrs News

Asia's top terror suspect, Hambali, and eight other alleged Muslim militants were charged yesterday with attempted murder in an unspecified terrorist plot to bomb targets in Cambodia. A Cambodian court leveled the charges against Hambali and three others in absentia midway through the trial of five men who were arrested last year for allegedly training terrorists and planning attacks in the country. Hambali was the operations chief of JI which is an Al Qaeda affiliated group that hoped to create an Islamic super State across Southeast Asia. JI terrorized Christians in Indonesia. As a result of their efforts 10,000 Christians have been murdered there in the last 5 years. Hambali is in US custody and is said to be cooperating with interrogation efforts. His revelations are said to have prevented attacks.

UNC Prof Accuses Employer of 'Anti-Christian' Bias
Jim Brown, Agape Press

A conservative columnist and professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington is exposing a plan to limit the number of Christian groups on his campus. A member of UNC-Wilmington's student organization committee recently told Dr. Mike Adams the university would eventually have to impose a quota on Christian organizations because there are too many of them to manage.  Although the quota has yet to be enacted, Adams hopes by publicly exposing the plan, he will prevent the school from carrying out the unconstitutional action. "It's just very difficult for me to understand how it could be anything but anti-Christian bias," Adams says.  “The people who are in higher administration -- if they are, in fact, really bothered by this, and if they really do want to carry this out -- then there is no explanation other than anti-Christian bias," the criminal justice professor says, adding that "there is certainly plenty of other evidence of that" at UNC-Wilmington and on other college campuses. In a column titled "The Underground University," Dr. Adams sarcastically predicted the university would implement the quota system and attempt to cover it up. "We also found some information that in the process of recently de-recognizing the College Republicans, the university had lied to the media [and] to the public," the columnist says. 

Brazilian Missionary Murdered after Organ Trade Revelations
Stefan Bos, ASSIST News Service

A Brazilian Protestant missionary who publicly expressed concern about Mozambique’s alleged trade in human organs, especially from children, has been found dead, ASSIST News Service (ANS) monitored Sunday, February 29. The body of 53-year old Duraci Edinger, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mozambique’s northern town of Nampula, was discovered this week in her home near a blood stained hammer after neighbors alerted local police, investigators said. Edinger was among a group of missionaries who raised alarm bells in 2001 about an alleged organ smuggling ring operating in the impoverished African nation. She later told church leaders she had received death threats from suspected organ smugglers following these revelations. Edinger had been working in Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, since 1998 as part of a denomination which experts say experienced spectacular growth across Africa. Over 1.1 million new members were added to Africa’s Lutheran Churches in the 2001-2003 period, an increase of roughly nine percent, according to church estimates.