Religious freedom laws panned by all sides

From Australia-

The Morrison government's proposed religious freedom laws have managed to please few, with religious groups and human rights organisations alike calling for changes.

 

While religious figures say the laws don't go far enough, secular groups say they override the rights of other marginalised parts of society.

 

Submissions on the draft religious freedom bills closed last Wednesday, but the sheer volume received means the Attorney General's Department is yet to publish them.

 

The government hopes to get the legislation to a parliamentary vote by the end of the year.

But with a final form of legislation yet to be settled, only four sitting weeks remaining, and the expectation of Senate committee scrutiny, that looks unlikely.

 

The Catholic and Anglican churches hold similar concerns about the bill, including that its protections don't extend across the full gamut of religious organisations.

 

More here-

 

https://www.9news.com.au/national/religious-freedom-laws-panned-by-all-sides/fac836bf-2b3f-4835-bc9b-0afac4e8fe51

Hearing examines China’s policy on religion, new agreement with Vatican

From Crux-

Debate continues about whether the Vatican’s provisional agreement with China will improve relations between the Chinese state and members of religious groups, which have had a long history of conflict.

The agreement marks the first time in decades that all the Chinese bishops have been in communion with Rome, said the Vatican press office.

A Sept. 27 hearing on Capitol Hill, chaired by Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, drew attention to the challenges faced by the Chinese government in adapting its stance toward religion in modern times and tensions between China’s lawmakers and many ethnic and religious minorities over past decades.
Smith mentioned the Vatican’s new arrangement with China in his opening address.

“The reports are that this deal is provisional and full details are yet unknown,” said Smith.

More here-

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-asia-oceania/2018/10/02/hearing-examines-chinas-policy-on-religion-new-agreement-with-vatican/

Over 200 Anglican priests and five thousand worshipers of the Diocese on the Niger, Anglican Communion, yesterday defied the heavy presence of security agencies and marched in a long convoy to St Simon, Bishop Crowther Memorial Church, BCM, inside Bishop’ Crowther Primary School, owned by the Diocese, to worship and thank God for Nigeria’s 58th independence celebration with the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, camped in the church premises.

Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/10/war-of-the-churches-anglicans-defy-security-agencies-worship-in-onitsha-church/

Over 200 Anglican priests and five thousand worshipers of the Diocese on the Niger, Anglican Communion, yesterday defied the heavy presence of security agencies and marched in a long convoy to St Simon, Bishop Crowther Memorial Church, BCM, inside Bishop’ Crowther Primary School, owned by the Diocese, to worship and thank God for Nigeria’s 58th independence celebration with the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, camped in the church premises.

Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/10/war-of-the-churches-anglicans-defy-security-agencies-worship-in-onitsha-church/

China is becoming hooked on the opium of the people

From The Spectator-

One afternoon in August 1978, Geoffrey Howe and Leon Brittan were flying from Beijing to Shanghai. They were on the last leg of what was for both of them the first of many official visits to China. Soon they would be ministers in Margaret Thatcher’s first government, but at the time they were still in opposition. As first secretary in the British embassy, I was accompanying them, and I told them that I had heard on the grapevine that Holy Trinity’s Anglican cathedral in Shanghai was in the process of being reopened after 12 years in which every place of worship in China had been closed, and every faith persecuted. ‘Roger, that cannot be right,’ Geoffrey Howe declared; ‘this is a communist country.’ But we asked our Chinese hosts about it, and within an hour of landing we were ushered into the soaring Gothic cathedral. Over dinner, the deputy mayor of Shanghai assured us that the reopening was in line with government policy. The Reform Era was getting underway.

Since then, China has moved from zero tolerance of worship to more than 350 million believers in Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam.

More here-

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/china-is-becoming-hooked-on-the-opium-of-the-people/#

Greater 501(c)3 Freedom

From The Living Church-

Churches in the United States may now exercise more freedom of speech on political issues, thanks to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on May 4.

The order directs the IRS to use “maximum enforcement discretion” of the regulation, which prohibits churches and tax-exempt groups from participating in campaigns and endorsing candidates. Churches and other 501(c)3 organizations that stray into political speech risk losing tax-exempt status.

Trump signed the order on the National Day of Prayer at the White House. “This financial threat against the faith community is over,” Trump said. “No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors.”

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/greater-501c3-freedom?platform=hootsuite

Trump's Supreme Court Pick: Religious Freedom Defender Neil Gorsuch

From Christianity Today-

President Donald Trump named Neil Gorsuch, a conservative, Ivy League-educated federal judge known for his way with words and defenses of religious freedom, as his Supreme Court nominee during a live broadcast Tuesday night.

A favorite pick among Christian conservatives, Gorsuch fulfills Trump’s promise to select a judge that “evangelicals, Christians will love” and who also stands a solid chance of scoring Senate approval. (Gorsuch’s federal appointment by President George W. Bush in 2006 was uncontroversial.)

“Judge Gorsuch’s combination of intellectual horsepower and work ethic has enabled him to excel academically at the world’s best universities, become a first-rate lawyer and judge, and develop remarkable verbal abilities,” said Robert Pushaw, a constitutional law expert and professor at Pepperdine University School of Law.

More here-

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2017/january/trump-nominates-neil-gorsuch-supreme-court.html

Religious freedom: It’s a core American principle, and it doesn’t mean what right-wingers want it to mean

From Salon-

Forget the “War on Christmas.” Although far less known to the general public, Religious Freedom Day, which falls on Jan. 16 — coinciding this year with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance — has become one of America’s most-contested commemorative days. In most ways that’s a good thing, because of the need to shed light on what’s at stake: the very foundations of our most cherished freedoms.

Since 1992, Religious Freedom Day publicly celebrates the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777 and passed into law by his protégé, James Madison, in 1786. It disestablished the state power of the Anglican Church, and ensured religious freedom for all.

More here-

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/17/religious-freedom-its-a-core-american-principle-and-it-doesnt-mean-what-right-wingers-want-it-to-mean/

Professor Sues Religious University After Allegedly Being Fired For Getting Pregnant

From NPR-

Now a story about a professor in Oregon who says when she told her employer she was pregnant, she got a pink slip instead of congratulations. That's because she worked at a Christian school and because she's not married. NPR's Carrie Johnson reports.

CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Coty Richardson spent four years teaching exercise science at Northwest Christian University. She says she loved in the small classes at the school in Eugene, Ore., and she loved its values and caring environment.

COTY RICHARDSON: Christ-centered community that's based on, you know, loving one another, loving yourself, kindness, tolerance of other individuals.

JOHNSON: But Richardson says that tolerance was put to the test earlier this summer when she told her boss she was pregnant. Richardson says she thought they'd discuss arrangements for her to give a take-home exam at the end of the fall semester. That's right when her baby boy is due. Instead, she says, her supervisor had something else on his mind.

More here-

http://www.npr.org/2015/08/12/431959372/professor-sues-religious-university-after-allegedly-being-fired-for-getting-preg

On That Mormon Excommunication

From The American Conservative-

I know next to nothing about Mormon theology, so I don’t know whether or not this action by church leaders was justified. But in principle — which is not the same thing as “in fact” — I support the bishop’s decision. That’s because every church or religious community has the right to decide its own boundaries. Remember the Episcopal priest who decided several years ago that she was also a Muslim? Her bishop ultimately defrocked her:

It was an incredibly painful experience, said Redding.

“My priesthood has been so interwoven with my identity that to imagine not being able to exercise the privilege of being involved intimately in the lives of believing people — helping them sort through and understand their relationship and calling … It’s a huge loss,” she said.

Well, the Episcopal Church cannot have one of its priests trying to help people “sort through and understand their relationship and calling” by telling them that they can belong to another religion and yet affirm Christianity. I may be wrong, but I cannot imagine that the defrocked priest has much luck finding Muslim congregations who buy her shtick. She can call herself citizens of both the United States and Saudi Arabia, but the US and Saudi governments are the ones who ultimately make that call.

More here-

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/on-that-mormon-excommunication/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=on-that-mormon-excommunication

Christians Claim Workplace Discrimination in Landmark Case

From The New York Times-

One of Europe’s highest courts is considering a landmark decision on the employment rights of Christians, including two British women who were disciplined for wearing crucifix necklaces at work.

They were among four Christians who this week took their cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg claiming workplace discrimination that a former Archbishop of Canterbury says has turned them into victims of a new secular orthodoxy.

The four, all Britons who claim national laws failed to protect them, argue that their employers contravened European human rights legislation that bans religious discrimination and allows “freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

A lawyer for the British government argued at a hearing in Strasbourg on Tuesday that these rights were only protected in the private sphere and not in the workplace.

The cases include those of Nadia Eweida, a British Airways employee who was sent home in 2006 after refusing to remove or conceal a cross that she was wearing on a chain around her neck, and Shirley Chaplin, a nurse who was taken off ward duties after her hospital decided that her crucifix necklace posed a health and safety threat to patients.

More here-

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/christians-claim-workplace-discrimination-in-landmark-case/