Breakpoint on Religious Tolerance

BreakPoint is a program of The Wilberforce Forum, a division of Prison Fellowship with the mission to develop and communicate Christian worldview messages that offer a critique of contemporary culture and encourage and equip the church to think and live Christianly.

The 17 October posting on Religious Freedom by Breakpoint Chairman and Founder, Chuck Colson, is an example of the kind of religous leadership required of the 21st Century.

Here it is, in full:

The Elections and Religious Freedom

With the election season is full swing, I’m going to ask you to forget for a moment all the mud-slinging and scandal-mongering that is raging across your television set, coming from both sides. Instead, consider the really serious weighty issues before the American people this fall: the war on terrorism, Iraq, the sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, immigration, and so much more. Some politicians are talking about these critical issues—more need to. We need to know where our candidates stand on these questions.

But as Mark Earley told you yesterday on “BreakPoint,” there’s another issue that Christians absolutely need to bring into the political discussion this election year: religious freedom—not only around the world, but also here at home.

Certainly the global outlook is grim. Just this past June, a pastor and members of the Full Gospel Church in the province of Than Hoa, Vietnam, were dragged outside by police and brutally beaten. Their only crime: gathering to worship Jesus. In Pakistan, a 7-year-old Christian girl was lured away from her home, raped, beaten, and left for dead in a ditch. She was targeted because of her faith. In China, Peter Xu Yongze, pastor of one of the largest underground Protestant churches there, was hung up across an iron gate during one of his five jail sentences. They then yanked open the gate, so that his chest nearly split in two.

As chilling as these reports are, even more chilling is the fact that the vast majority of religious persecution cases never make the news. While North Korea is in the headlines for testing a nuclear weapon, few Americans know that hundreds of thousands of Christians are penned up and tortured in grotesquely brutal North Korean concentration camps.

And lest we should think that Christians are the only ones subject to torture and death for their faith, consider the following cases:

Kurban Zakirov, a Jehovah’s Witness in Turkmenistan, was injected with psychotropic drugs while he was imprisoned for his faith. Farzad Kasiri, a Baha’i in Iran, was flogged for his faith. And in Uzbekistan, thousands of Muslims are imprisoned, denied due process, and subjected to torture.

So, what does America and the upcoming elections have to do with all of this? Let me put it this way: To whom much is given, much is expected. From the very early days of our republic, Americans recognized the truth that freedom of religion is a God-given right, in fact, the most basic of human rights. And, as the leading world power, the United States is in a unique position to help curb religious persecution around the world. To remain silent about religious persecution would be to betray all that we stand for.

As Christians, we must speak out and bring the issue of religious persecution to the forefront of the political debate this fall. And we must press candidates to find out where they stand on this life-and-death issue.

And be sure to visit our website for more information and links to organizations that fight religious persecution.

Tomorrow on “BreakPoint,” we’ll talk about religious freedom right here at home. Sadly, there’s a lot to discuss on that front as well.

Learning about Scientology

For anyone wanting to learn what Scientology is, I have a suggestion.

The next few weeks, every Scientology church and mission will be having an event. It's a showing of an event featuring David Miscavige that was held in the UK last weekend.

From everything I've heard, this event was really something. And the reason I think it would be a good place to if you are new to Scientology is you will see what Scientologists do.

David Miscavige Guest of Honor at the Grand Opening of the Church of Scientology of London

Thousands in the UK braved the rain to attend the grand opening of the Church of Scientology of London.

The guest of honor, Chairman of the Board of Relgious Technology Center, Mr. David Miscavige, had announced that the International Association of Scientologists was providing the wherewithal for the purchase and renovations of the new church, but the renderings of the proposed building didn't do it justice as the crowds who toured through the building right after the ribbon cutting discovered.


David Miscavige made it clear, in his speech at the grand opening, that this begins a new era of expansion for Scientology in the United Kingdom. "This is the city L. Ron Hubbard himself selected as home to the first Scientology organization. This is also the city wherein he first defined the human spirit as an immortal being possessed of capabilities beyond anything predicted, and so arrived at the axiomatic truths on which the whole of Scientology is founded. Your early London organizations were also the original proving ground for the bulk of Mr. Hubbard’ s social betterment programs which are used to uplift neighborhoods just like this one."

Buddhism, its relevance to the 21st century

An interesting article from METTANET - LANKA

Buddhism, as one of the four major religions in the world today, is an empiricistic and antimetaphysical religion .It does not accept anything which cannot be experienced either through the senses or extrasensory perception. People in the world are hurriedly getting ready for the next millenium or the 21st century. Our prime intention here is to identify the relevance of the teachings of the Buddha for this modern so called scientifically and technologically developed world.

The Buddha was born in the 6th century B.C in India. He discovered the reality behind phenomena in our Universe. In the world there is nothing permanent as well as nothing isolatedly existing but everything co-exists. He realized this .Interdependence is the great truth of life. He was not a divine being, nor a man as we know him, but a man par excellence (accariyamanussa). There is no equivalent in a western language for this concept accariyamanussa. This means not thought of, a not comparable kind of being. There is no word in English unless use the term Buddha with this concept in mind. His teaching is mainly focused on man himself. People are born again and again, and die again and again. There is no ending to be cognized. This was the question which arose in him and which he found a positive answer . That is why he is a Buddha.

Below is a link to an article on the issue of whether women should be allowed to wear full face veils, I think it's really in appropriate for politicians to come out with statements on this issue.
I believe they should deal with leaders of the community, and let them work within the community. If his real purpose is that these communities not isolate themselves from the rest of the culture, as Blair contends, he should work with the communities, not try to enforce his views from outside.

Taboo broken with veil debate | WORLD | NEWS | tvnz.co.nz

This week's release of "One Night with the King" the story of Queen Esther, grossed 4.3 million in its opening weekend.


The film One Night with the King is an epic of adventure and intrigue set in ancient Persia. The movie is based on the biblical story of Esther and is part of a growing genre of films with religious themes.

The story from the Book of Esther in the Bible was set in ancient Persia, modern-day Iran, but the tale is universal, says producer Matthew Crouch. It is the story of Jewish girl named Hadassah who marries the King of Persia, becoming known as Queen Esther. She bravely thwarts a plot to kill the Jewish people.

Einstein

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. (Albert Einstein)

Religious Tolerance

I believe that one role religions must play in the 21st Century is to foster religious tolerance.

Our world community is too small to permit bigotry or hate to go unchecked.

Perhaps we could survive despite this kind of behavior during the Crusades, and during other religious wars of past centuries. But today with weapons of mass destruction this can no longer be permitted by sane men and women.

The Church of Scientology International has sponsored a human rights education campaign, one of the purposes of which is to defuse the kind of violence we see in the world today.

I believe that Religion should help the individual understand his/her relationship with his/her own spirituality, with the infinite.

I also believe that the more religious one is the better one's integrity should be.

I believe religion should help one become a better person, more aware, more in tune with others and life.

Morals

Do you think morals are a thing of the past? Do they have any bearing on how we live today?

The First AME Church

The First AME Church is a church with a social conscience.

Their work in Los Angeles has everything to do with the fact that we haven't had a riot since Rodney King in 1992.

They are working in the community to raise the quality of life of their parishioners, and provide for all of their needs.

And they have a packed Sunday service that rocks!

Religious Trends in the West

According to the Ontario Consultants on Religious Freedom:

Christianity has been largely abandoned in Britain and the rest of Europe. Although most adults still identify themselves as Christian, few actually attend any type of religious service. The religion/philosophy followed by the Jedi Knights of Star Wars fame is now the fourth largest religion in the UK!

Christianity has partly faded in Canada, where only 20% of adults say that they attend church regularly, and only about 10% actually do.

In about the year 1990, Christianity started to lose market share in the U.S. The percentage of American adults who identify themselves as Christians is dropping by about 1 percentage point per year. The percentage who say that they attend church on most weeks is 40%. But, again, half are lying. Adults who identify themselves as having no religious affiliation are largely taking up the slack. Some small religions are growing rapidly. One example is Wicca, an Earth-based Neopagan religion. It is doubling about every 30 months. If this trend holds, then sometime during the early 2030's, Christianity will become a minority religion in the U.S.

North America is rapidly becoming more religiously diverse. The Northeast is largely mainline and liberal Christian, and secular. The South is largely conservative Christian. The West coast has many followers of eclectic and mystical religions. There may not be a strong enough foundation of religious tolerance in the U.S. and Canada to support this growing future diversity without significant conflict

A 21st Century religion has to, unfortunately, be concerned with drugs as an issue, because of such widespread drug abuse, not just of street drugs but prescription drugs as well.

These beautiful children are promoting living drug-free through the Church of Scientology of Auckland's Drug-Free Ambassadors' program.

The story appeared on Scientology Today - the Church's news site.

Surprising (to me) statistics

Oct. 16, 2006 issue of Newsweek - In the 1990s it was "Touched by an Angel." Then it was John Edward's "Crossing Over." Now it's the increasingly popular "Medium" and "The Ghost Whisperer." Americans have always seemed fascinated by the idea of communicating with spirits in another world. According to a recent study by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, 20 percent of Americans believe that the living can communicate with the dead. In an online survey of 10,000 Beliefnet members, 77 percent said they'd felt the presence of a spirit, angel or dead soul.

The Church of Scientology of Taiwan, Working to Protect the Next Generation from the Scourge of Drug

There is an article on the Scientology News Site of the work of the Scientologists of Taiwan to help kids steer clear of drugs.

It's great to see the work they're doing.

Religion has an Essential Role in the 21st Century

L. Ron Hubbard's article, "Religious Influence in Society" has more bearing now than it did 30 years ago when he wrote:

"Today we are witnessing that decline and since we are involved in it, it is of utmost importance to us. At stake are whether the ideals we cherish will survive or some new abhorrent set of values win the day.

"These are not idle statements. We are today at a watershed of history and our actions today will decide whether the world goes up from here or continues to slide into some new dark age.

"It is important to understand bad conditions don’t just happen. The cultural decay we see around us isn’t haphazard. It was caused. Unless one understands this he won’t be able to defend himself or reach out into the society with effectiveness.

"A society is capable of surviving for thousands of years unless it is attacked from within or without by hostile forces. Where such an attack occurs, primary targets are its religious and national gods and heroes, its potential of leadership and the self-respect and integrity of its members."

He went on to say:

"Probably the most critical point of attack on a culture is its religious experience. Where one can destroy or undermine religious institutions then the entire fabric of the society can be quickly subverted or brought to ruin."

He points out a trend that was very visible at the time he wrote this - 1976:

"For the last hundred years or so religion has been beset with a relentless attack. You have been told it’s the 'opiate of the masses' that it’s unscientific, that it is primitive; in short, that it is a delusion."

All it takes is a Google search on the subject-- 21st Century religion -- and it is clear that this has continued and worsened.

And I don't think anyone would deny the level of ethics, decency, even safety of our society has declined terribly, even over the past 30 years.

Mr. Hubbard goes on to explain why and how this has occured, and I really recommend reading the entire article (which, by the way, introduces the Volunteer Ministers program as a solution to reverse this dwindling spiral).